Now this may be not so much a Leopard trick (in fact I’m sure its possible with Tiger) but pretty cool nonetheless.
Required:
Mac with built-in iSight or external webcam
Mira application; download from here http://twistedmelon.com/mira/
EvoCam application; download from here http://www.evological.com/evocam.html
(Both are small, streamlined apps. Mira is an unlimited trial, EvoCam has a 15 day trial)
Let’s start with EvoCam, open up the .dmg and install the app. Click through the trial screen and you’ll be up and running with your own beautiful smile coming right at you! Now, EvoCam is an incredibly powerful app but we’ll only be using a few of it’s features in this.
Firstly, a couple of tweaks to keep file sizes in check. Click the ‘Recording’ tab in EvoCam, then down the buttons to ‘Destination: Folder’, now select where you’d like the recordings of the intruders to be saved. Now, click the ‘Video’ button next to Settings: I have mine set to 10 frames per second and Medium quality. Click OK then click the Audio button next to Video: make sure the audio input is correct and then click ‘Compression Settings’, from the drop-down menu at the top select ‘Qualcomm PureVoice’, then click OK twice to get back to the main EvoCam screen.
Phew, that was dull, now for the fun bits!
First thing, click on the ‘Items’ tab and then ‘New Item’, select ‘Sensor’ from the drop down list. Now a little square will appear on the webcam display, drag the corners of the square to enlarge the motion sensitive area. (I have mine set up so it only recognises motion on the door!)
Now, click the ‘Settings’ button, check the boxes that say ‘Perform actions selected in the ‘Refresh’ tab’ and ‘Record movie for [box] seconds/minutes/hours’ (Mine’s set to record for 10 seconds). Further down you’ll see a ‘Speak Phrase’ check-box, here you can enter anything you’d like the intruder to hear in any of the voices available!!! (change the voices through the System Prefs – I like Agnes in Leopard for this!). Now click OK, and you’re new sensor will probably start going off! Don’t worry we’ll deal with this later.
Now to the ‘Refresh’ tab; select the radio button that says Refresh ‘When motion is detected’. Now, you can choose to save an image of the person as well with the radio buttons below, but a film is good enough for me!
That’s EvoCam set up and ready! (by now I’m sure you’ll have a few vids of yourself in the folder you chose earlier, just Trash ‘em)
OK, one very cool motion detecting security camera set up. One extremely cool remote activation trick coming up!
(For the next part you will need to purchase EvoCam (well worth it!), unless you’re much more talented with Scripts than me, which is quite likely!)
Firstly, a very little, extremely basic AppleScript. Open up ‘ScriptEditor’ from Applications; now type or paste this in:
open application “EvoCam”
Very simple. Now save this Script somewhere as ‘Remote EvoCam Script’ (I put it in the folder with the recorded vids from Evocam).
(You need to pair your remote with your Mac for Mira, follow instructions here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302545 )
Now for Mira, open the .dmg file and follow the install file, Mira will install at the bottom of your System Prefs menu. Go into your Sytem Prefs now and from the drop-down menu at the top left select ‘Enable Mira’. Staying in the Mira pane, click the Play/Pause button displayed (you can use any button you like, I use Play/Pause), roll over ‘Open Item’ then select ‘AppleScript’, from the Finder window select the Script you saved earlier as ‘Remote EvoCam Script’ and then click ‘Open’. The text next to the Play/Pause button in the Mira preference pane will now have changed to ‘Open: Remote EvoCam Script’.
Close down system preferences (and EvoCam if it’s still running). Now, press the Play/Pause button on your Apple Remote and EvoCam will launch (in the background if you have anything else up) ready and watching for intruders!
Voila, a remote activated, motion sensitive security camera (that talks!)!!!!!!!
P.S. EvoCam is capable of much, much more e.g. emailing shots of the intruder to an account and streaming video through its own built in web-server, but my hands (and probably your eyes!) are tired and I don’t really need that stuff at the moment.
Hope you like,
Bunts
December 12th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
this is great!!! i love it. I live with 3 roomates and i’d love to see what they REALLY do when they come to my room while i’m at school.
not only that, but when me and my girl are getting freaky all I have to do is click play on my remote and it records everything. i love it! I’ve only been a mac user since october and i’m very glad I switched.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
freaky indeed! haha
December 13th, 2007 at 3:06 am
iAlertU is a similar app. You can lock your Mac with the apple remote and if someone moves or tries to unlock it, an alarm will go off and a picture is taken and emailed to you. Best of all, it’s free. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/21282/ialertu
December 14th, 2007 at 5:59 am
i use SecuritySpy. xD
December 18th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Ya, iAlertU does the same thing. Everything in it is already set up. You dont have to download multiple applications or anything. It has cool sound effects too. I love it.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
And iAlertU works on tiger AND leopard.
December 22nd, 2007 at 7:16 am
Hi all, thanks for all your comments. Just to clarify a couple of things, this trick works on Tiger and Leopard fine. iAlertU is a great app as well but it is not a motion sensitive camera app, it responds to the accelerometer inside macbooks and macbook pro’s, it will take a photo of the would-be thief/tamperer and email it to you which is pretty neat, and so will EvoCam. It’s not a video recorder though!
MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
It’s great, thanks for that. How do you get it to work with the green camera l.e.d turned off so the intruder doesn’t know they are being filmed ?
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July 28th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
So EvoCam records video and sends a picture to your e-mail while iAlertU only takes a picture and sets off an alarm? I wish the video could be uploaded to Time Capsule.
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November 24th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
What do I put into applescript?
It won’t let me put quotations around EvoCam as “EvoCam”
November 28th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I am trying out the 15-day trial version right now, and I cannot figure out how to turn the sensor off, so that it does not record every time it senses motion. Can anyone help me with this?
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January 19th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
can i add other wireless cam to my computer (MacBook Pro)?
January 28th, 2009 at 2:49 am
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June 15th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
nice article!! i’ve used a number of different software products and I keep coming back to Evocam. I don’t know why I keep trying other stuff cause Evo does the job nicely. Guess I just like tweaking stuff around a bit. I’m fascinated with this whole Apple Mac Surveillance WebCam Wireless Video Monitoring Systems thing from the get-go.
Thanks for posting this…
November 17th, 2009 at 5:05 am
I brought a brand new mac. It already has a built in camera. but Can I use an external wireless camera with motion detector for this program?
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February 24th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
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July 24th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Can I time stamp the surveillance movie somehow?