I was thinking about hooking up a webcam in the truck so the kids can kinda see what I'm doing while I'm gone, and can talk and stuff too.

Can someone suggest what type of equipment to use? I dont want to spend a ton of money but also dont want to send/recieve a 5 second delayed blurbed out video.

Is this whole process as simple as getting a laptop, plugging a webcam into it and setting it on the dash?

As far as a laptop, will a cheap ($500-$600) one work fine just for this and random surfing of the net? What about a stand?

Any info is appreciated guys.
Thanks.
Jim

 

I can tell you what not to use. Don't use Verizon's internet access. They will cancel you in a heartbeat for going over your bandwidth limit. I've heard of people using Sprint for this. Personally, I would never go with Sprint, because their customer service sucks.

 

I have Sprint haven't had any problems with them. When I bought my first aircard, well, it was incompatible with my laptop. I'd picked it up in a local store, but the local store didn't carry the Sierra card that I needed. I called Sprint and they overnighted me the card I needed and I return mailed my other one. It didn't cost me anything extra.

As far as transmitting the video, the only issue would be the outgoing bandwidth. On a slow connection you'll only have about 5k/sec upload speed. Of course, if you're near a city with a high speed connection, that shouldn't be much of an issue.

 

There are many ways but here is one suggestion. You will need a web page so you have a permanent address that you can store the picture and other people can bring up your web page that will display and update the image.

Next you will need a simple video capture program that will run on your PC and will take a picture once every second and store it on your web page storage area.

When your wife is at home she would access your simple web page that will display the current picture and will update itself once a second.

There is no way you can have real time video at TV type speed. Doing an update once a second will not offend your internet provider like Verizon or others.

Doing this is very very simple for a junior computer person but very difficult for someone without any experience.

 

as for verizon thay have never said anything about my use of bandwith..
i myself wouldn't use a webcam the video is just not that good this is what i use (panasonic handy-cam w/usb out)

now as to numbers
hp laptop $550
laptop stand $200
handy-cam $200 you could use a $30 web cam
power inverter to run it all $30
aircard $100
$1080

 

This is your best solution. I am currently looking into better solutions and will post them. I would recomend, as I have my own website, I will be able to have a live cam situation and my kids will be able to pan and tilt the camera from home to see what I am doing, as well as my wife to make sure there are no Lot Lizards in the truck. It really is a simple soulution, I would aslo suggest just a simple web cam and use Yahoo Messenger, if you have the web cam at both ends, you will not have to have your own website.

As I check out these toys I will post a full detailed report for your review. I am also working on some very interesting technology for truckers that may help us with bandwith issues that seem to plague us. There is a very simple solution, but will have to test it. It may require some investment for truckers who want to be apart of it, but no further cost after the hardware has been furnished! I have a software budy who is a programing genious and he will write the software to make it work. Think of it this way, how many trucks are on the road at any one time? Think deep and hard and you may know the solution. If there is anybody interested in this, please P.M Me

The link below is for a system I am ivestigating!

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...660&CatId=1322

 

That's an overly complex way of doing it. There are plenty of free websites that allow you to post webcams. Just search free webcam hosting to find them.