Webcam with thermometer built in?

[Allan]

I want to keep an eye on Mum's old house through the winter (it's empty and 250 miles away; we've still got the house: she died in the spring). Got a web cam in which is doing what it should ok. Through the winter, I'd really like to keep an eye on the temperature (other bits about frostat and thermostat, and friendly neighbour popping in, being taken care of).

Several people suggest to put an ordinary thermometer near the webcam, but others suggest that the resolution isn't good enough.

Does such a device (webcam with thermometer) exist (it can't be so hard?), so that the temperature reading might be visible in the webcam image? Google hasn't turned up anything. There's an Oregon Scientific device (for about 200 quid) that will plug into your router, and has up to 8 temperature sensors so you can read temperatures remotely, but that's a bit OTT.

Does the group have any suggestions?

TIA

Allan

[Davey]

If the resolution isn't good enough, buy a large thermometer from your local garden centre. If you can't see something more than a foot across, then you need better equipment!

[Harry Bloomfield]

Davey has brought this to us :

If you cannot solve it with an actual thermometer viewable via the cam, how about a weather station?

Mine needs a computer running to upload the data to my website, but I'm sure there must be some able to act as a server in their own right.

Here's mine -

It shows historical data as well as current data.

[R.G. Bargy]

Good idea, it would also monitor roof leaks (humidity/rainfall) and broken windows or open doors (wind speed).

[Tim Watts]

On Thursday 19 September 2013 09:58 Allan wrote in uk.d-i-y:

DO NOT touch that piece of crap.

At least until you read the reviews here:

(BTW - I got my account activation email about 4 days after registering!)

The website behind it:

Was down for days as well. As there is no way to read the device directly, you are at the mercy of Oregon Scientific running there servers well - and in the short space of time I have looked, they program and run servers like a drunken monkey.

Solution 1: But a digital LCD thermometer and put in sight of the camera - should be easier to read. Use lithium batteries so the thermometer works when it is *really* cold.

Solution 2:

Cannot vouch for that but it's similar to the Oregon stuff externally - and unlike OS, it has a built in webserver, can email you data, offers an XML file for easy parsing and various other features.

I do not think it has an absolute limit on the number of sensors to one LAN base, but here says they tested 60 sensors running together:

HTH

Tim

[Dave Liquorice]

I'd have thought a large LCD display thermometer placed reasonably close to the camera would be OK. Assuming the camera has a reasonable resolution, at least 640x480 but higher the better...

You don't say what the webcam is showing? Exterior, interior...

They do but is it showing the temperature inside the case, nicely heated by the electronics, or a real external temperature?

[Mentalguy2k8]

Stupid question, but have you actually tried putting a thermometer in the view of the webcam and seeing if you can read it remotely? You could test it at home if you've got a spare cam and a thermometer with a suitable display, perhaps a large digital readout would be best. And make sure it's well lit, of course. Webcams don't like low light.

[MrWeld]

I used to have a digital LCD thermometer in front of a 640x480 resolution webcam, it was quite legible when it occupied about a quarter of the image. The digits were about 40mm high. It took a bit of time to work out the position in which the LCD display was clearest.

[Peter Crosland]

Leaving a house unoccupied like this is the worst thing you can do with it. At the risk of stating the obvious have considered letting though an agent local to the property? This would cover the ongoing costs and provide a source of income.