Sometimes they catch Sam watching Animal Planet. Other times, he is staring at his reflection in the stainless steel refrigerator.
And every once in a while, they catch Sam, a 1-year-old Rottweiler who weighs over 100 pounds, sleeping flat on his back, paws in the air, “in all his glory,” said Andy Sexton, the pup’s proud owner.
Sexton and his girlfriend, Laura Dunn, watch all this on “Sam Cam,” their nickname for a wireless video camera mounted in the Rottweiler’s favorite room that transmits the video in real time over the Internet.
“It’s an Internet site that we have on our favorites list,” Sexton said. “So we just log into that, put in our user name and password, and the image pops up automatically. It’s almost the size of your whole screen.”
The couple uses a D-Link DCS-900w (www.dlink.com) video camera as their Sam Cam. It transmits the video (or still pictures, depending on the settings) via their home network’s router, also a wireless D-Link device.
Because they travel so much–Dunn and Sexton usually are out of town several times a month–and because they live in Chicago but work in Lincolnshire, the couple needed a way to check in on Sam remotely.
They had considered taking him to doggy day care every day, but this relatively simple piece of technology won out.
And, with the wireless network Web camera, they can log in from any computer with an Internet connection.
“Plus, we have dog walkers who come in every day,” said Dunn. “When this camera came into the equation [it was a Christmas gift], we gave Sam free reign of the house. Obviously, we wanted to see what he was up to when we gave him that freedom.”
They set up the camera to send them automatic e-mails when it detects motion, and the video can be recorded to a hard drive if they wish.
So, what has Sam been up to in the weeks that they’ve been monitoring his behavior?
“We’ve learned that he doesn’t move much,” Sexton said. “We thought he’d be on the bed in the bedroom, but we learned he actually uses his dog bed downstairs during the day.”
The D-Link Web interface can handle up to four cameras, viewed individually or collectively in a split-screen format. The couple plans to install additional cameras so they can expand their Sam Cam coverage.
“The camera is in the main room right now, where Sam usually is,” Sexton said. “But we want to put them into other rooms.”
Do more Web cameras mean more dogs for Dunn and Sexton?
“Not another Rottweiler,” Dunn said. “If we get another dog, it’ll probably be a pug.”
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alex@technologytailor.com
