FREE HOME CCTV

THE EASY WAY

Use Your PC’S Webcam

(don’t buy an expensive camera)

is a brilliant free program that lets you turn your PC’S webcam (or any camera connected to your home Wi-fi network) into a surveillance camera. We’ll show you how to set it up and use it to monitor your home remotely via a web browser, or from your phone or tablet. It has a great feature that notifies you whenever movement is detected within the area you’re monitoring. You can also let two other people access your live CCTV feed. STEP You first need to sign up for an Ivideon account. Go to 1 www.snipca.com/25978, then enter your email address and a password 1 . Select ‘For home’ 2 , untick the box at the bottom 3 (to opt out of promotional emails), then click Create An Account 4 . Next, click the ‘Connect Camera on DVR’ button, select the camera on your Wi-fi network you want to use as your CCTV, then click Continue. Finally, click the ‘Download for Windows’ button to download the Ivideon Server setup file, then click Done on the web page. STEP Ivideon lets you download any recorded video. On the 3 following screen, you’ll see where this video file is stored by default 1 . You can change this location by clicking the three dots 2 , then selecting the save location you want to use. By default, Ivideon limits the recording storage space to 5GB 3 , but you can change this using the up and down arrows. The program tells you how much free storage space you have on your PC 4 . Click Next 5 . On the final setup screen, untick ‘Start Ivideon Server at system startup’, then click Finish. The Ivideon web page will now open and you’ll see your webcam name as a tile.

STEP Open the downloaded setup file, click Yes, OK, Next, 2 Install. Once that’s done, click Finish. When the ‘Ivideon Server setup wizard’ opens, click Next, select ‘New configuration’, then click Next again. Now enter your email address 1 , click the Location dropdown menu, select the type of location you want to monitor 2 , then click Next twice. Ivideon will now search for all the video cameras connected to your home Wi-fi network. Tick to select the one you want to use, then click Next.

STEP Click this webcam tile to expand the view, then position 4 the webcam so it looks over the area you want to monitor. Click the fullscreen button 1 . If you notice that the video quality is poor, click the quality button and select Hi 2 . At the bottom you’ll see a timeline slider 3 that lets you watch recorded footage at different points in time. Use the zoom in and out buttons 4 to expand/shrink the timeline view. To download your recorded footage, click the Save button 5 , then click the tick.

STEP 6We’ll now show you how to monitor your live feed from another PC browser. Check this Step works at home before trying it remotely. Go to www.ivideon. com, click ‘Sign in’ at the top right and log into your account. In the Cameras tab 1 , you’ll see your camera’s name. Click this to see a live feed. Click the Events tab 2 to see all the times motion was detected. Click any of these clips 3 to play it. The Help tab 4 has links to useful Ivideon guides and FAQS.

STEP 7STEP To give other people access to your 5 CCTV feed click the three lines (menu) at the top right, then click ‘Grant access to other users’ and enter the email addresses of two trusted people. By default, the program doesn’t send you (or your trusted friends) notifications when it detects motion. To enable this, click Notifications in the menu. Here, switch on both sliders at the top 1 , click Notifications Are On 2 , click Save at the bottom right, then close the window. Now ensure your camera is recording the correct area. To monitor your home feed from your phone or tablet, install the free Video Surveillance Ivideon app (Android www.snipca. com/25981; IOS www. snipca.com/25983). Open the app, tap ‘Sign in’ and log into your Ivideon account. Now select your camera’s name to view its live feed on your device 1 . Use the zoom buttons 2 to zoom into your timeline, then tap any point 3 to watch footage. Whenever your camera detects motion, you’ll see a notification on your device (these are also accessible in the Events tab 4 ). Tap the Snapshot tab 5 to take a screenshot. To switch off your webcam, open the Ivideon Server on your PC, click the Stop button, then Exit. ●