eeextra.com

transform your netbook into a security surveillance device

August 2, 2008 – 3:56 am

Netbooks have proven to be very versatile and practical computers. We will see today how to turn your eee pc (or any other netbook with an integrated webcam) into a surveillance and security device.

Motion is an open source program with motion detection features for your camera.
Here are a few possibilities:

• Take pictures when an object or a person is moving in front of the webcam.
• Define an interval, and take pictures automatically (every minute for example). It can also be used in a creative way to make videos of traffic jam, moving clouds…
• Record videos
• Create videos from jpg pictures, and archive easily your recordings.
• Send recorded pictures and videos by email, send you notifications…

Installing Motion

The operating system we used in this article is eeebuntu netbook remix, on an eee pc 4G 701. The installation was very easy and Motion works on any GNU/Linux OS.
Steps to install:

• Open the terminal (Accessories/Terminal)

• Type in the following command:

sudo apt-get install motion

Provide the root password and everything will be installed easily.

Motion detection from a netbook

Motion can be started from the command-line, with the command sudo motion, and has a server running instead of a graphical interface.
It has to start with root privilege, as a security measure I presume: someone without root access to your machine could spy on you otherwise.

Type in your firefox address bar localhost:8080/ and the web interface will appear.
You can open another tab and access the folder with the pictures from firefox, with file:///tmp/motion/
I found the motion detection to work well. A sample picture of our guard dog passing by the eee pc follows…

Motion appends the date and time to the picture, which is a useful feature if you want to know the exact second an individual was detected.
The program starts itself with your computer, so if anyone tried to use your netbook in your absence, you’ll know You can stop the detection or the program from the web interface.

I made a quick screencast to show how it works.


You can set various options, like time delay for scheduled stillshots, destination folder, jpg quality, and so on.
For more advanced uses, you can execute scripts when an event is triggered (such as a detected motion, or a saved picture…). You’ll find an example of a script you can use to send a notification email when a picture is saved at Linux.com.

Motion works really well with the eee pc’s webcam and unlocks a great set of security features for your GNU/Linux system.