An Inexpensive Multi-purpose Toy

Last December, my son purchased a web cam for himself and for us at home for the wonderful price of nothing. He was able to get the Labtec web cam at this price because it was being used as bait for unwilling shoppers. The web cam was 30$ with a 30$ rebate. Even at the price of 30$, this camera is probably worth it. We have all enjoyed using it and look forward to finding more uses for it in the future.

The camera is solidly built. We have had a few mishaps with it falling off the desk or top of the computer to the floor. The camera has managed to survive all of these falls and has no visible or invisible (as far as I can tell) damage. The only real moving part, the focusing ring, has held up well also. It still works as well as it did the day we got them. Overall the camera is very durable mostly, I believe, because of its simplicity in design. It has everything it needs and nothing else.

The camera has served many purposes since we first got them. At home, one of my younger sons often uses the camera to take pictures and send short videos to his brothers and friends. He has even been able to videoconference with his brother at school (more on this later). The pictures and movies he has produced are of excellent quality considering the price of the camera. The size and quality of the picture can be adjusted and at the best quality, the picture is still clear even at 17”. The video frame rate can be set for quality and color among other things. The video is less clear than the pictures, and the frame rate could stand to be a little higher, but once again, for the price, the quality is excellent.

My son at school tells me that he uses his camera all the time for videoconferencing. He claims excellent clarity while talking to friends over the network or those with high-speed home connections. He says the frame rate is occasionally lacking, but there is never lag and makes videoconferencing a wonderful to communicate with his friends.

My son has also found some other interesting uses for his camera. His roommate has a habit of leaving the door not only unlocked, but also open. As my son has some valuable in his room (laptop, guitar, skateboard, roller blades) he has always been nervous about something walking away from his room when he couldn’t be around. At first he would leave a connection open with the person whose room he would go to and point his web cam so that his whole room was visible. In this way, he could keep an eye on his room without anyone knowing about it. This was of course not the greatest of security measures as he could not sit there constantly and watch the video, nor would he have physical proof in the case of an actual theft. He had no way of recording what happened in the room. To this end, my son was able to find a wonderful program which, when combined with the web cam, was an excellent security measure. He found an “alarm system” program that would keep an eye on the room and perform a number of functions if it saw something amiss. This program would not only take pictures of any movement in the room while activated, it allowed the user to set the number, quality, frequency, and destination of these pictures. The program even had a feature that would email his telephone when movement was sensed in his room so he could come back to check on the status of his belongings. Thankfully this program never caught anyone stealing from his room and became more of a toy for him to play with. The important thing it did though was allow him to use his web cam and feel more secure about his room and its contents.

My son used the camera to send us pictures and videos from his room overlooking the Charles River in Boston. I found both the pictures and videos to be of excellent quality. He took these images at all times of the day including sunrise and sunset and I was surprised that the camera was able to handle the change in colors well. There was never blurring, missing, or glaring colors in the pictures. The videos also handled the colors well. If he did not move the camera too fast when panning, the colors did not blur and looked great throughout.

This camera has the convenience of USB. This makes it easy to use with almost any computer and especially easy to use on laptops like my son's which has multiple USB ports and only one serial port. USB also means that it can be plugged in at any time and the computer does not need to be restarted before it can be used.

The one problem with this camera is the blurring of video when moving quickly. The refresh rate is not as high on the camera as on high end cameras so it takes a few fractions of a second for the camera to adjust after a quick movement – especially when there is a drastic change in the brightness.

Over all, this camera has been great fun and even a useful tool at times. If it can be purchased for less than 30$, it is a great buy and lots of fun to have around the house. It won’t replace your camera or camcorder but it can be used for quick snapshots and easily edited digital videos.