Toy Robots Can Guard Your Home

Orome1 writes "Worried about burglars ransacking your house? Buy yourself some toy robots! It is what Robert Oschler, a Florida-based programmer, did. He bought a Rovio — a Wi-Fi enabled mobile webcam robot that can be picked up from toy sections of many stores — and modified it to suit his needs. The robot already has a camera, a microphone and speakers, but the improvements he made to the software allowed him to enhance the audio and video quality of this existing equipment, and to create specific routines for the robots. This way, every time he feels the need to check what's going on in the house, he simply goes online with his laptop and directs the robot through the house."

Re:More useful...

[blair1q]

If only an article would stop accepting posts when the correct answer was posted...

A New Use For Them

[camperslo]

What we need are some cannibalistic robots that'll go around the house feeding on old PCs and other consumer electronics. It should cut the cost, help them grow (and reproduce?) and save us the hassles of other recycling methods.

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[GameboyRMH]

At any rate, these robots sound awesome!

I've looked at them, they're not that great sadly. The webcam quality is horrible, battery life is poor and the camera's vertical aim can't be adjusted.

I might pick one up for fun if the price drops low enough.

Re:Microphone

[Pro923]

Webcams do great with infrared light... You can't tell that the lights are on, but you show up perfectly on the webcam. This is the secret to all camera night vision technologies. We discovered it decades ago when we realized that my friends' video camera could see the blinking light when he clicks on the TV remote control.