By Andrew Liszewski
If you’ve ever wondered what’s happening around the house while you’re away, but don’t know the first thing about setting up a remote webcam, the Vue system will be right up your alley. It consists of small, battery-powered wireless cameras that you can pretty much stick anywhere you want to monitor thanks to a built-in magnet and a mountable base. The cameras use a proprietary wireless network technology to increase their battery life (they’re good for capturing about a million frames on what appeared to be a single CR2-sized battery) and send their streams to a central hub which you connect directly to the router in your home. And they have a range of about 300 feet, but that can easily be extended with optional repeaters.
And that’s it. There’s no software to install since everything is handled through the company’s VueZone website where you can access and manage the feeds from every camera in your home once you’ve setup a private account. The feeds can also be recorded, scheduled and even shared with family or friends which makes setting up a teleconference as easy as logging into the site. The Vue system is about to go into a beta period in a month, but what I saw at their stand was already very polished. Since it features a flash UI, the site feels and functions like a standalone app with plenty of drag-and-drop action, but it also means you can’t access it from a flash-less smartphone. However, I apparently wasn’t the first person to visit their booth and suggest they look into creating a dedicated iPhone app.
There’s no word right now on when the Vue System will actually be available for purchase, but an official announcement should come sometime in April.
