DIY long distance baby alarm

Hi All,

I need to lash-up something so that we can monitor the kids while we are in the shed doing home-cinema things.

We have a standard baby alarm, but the range isn't up to the job. We also have a set of walky-talky type things, which work, but I can't find a way to have two units on 'vox' while a third is on receive (two ankle-biters, hence two senders).

Sticking one of the radios in front of the baby monitor in the house kinda sorta works, but it's a horrible cludge and I don't trust it.

I've been racking my brains, and I can't think of a simple way to do it. Anyone have any ideas?

If it helps, we have a spare cat 5e cable between house and shed which I could use, provided I can think of what to put at each end!

The shed is about 30 metres from the house, and is metal clad, which doesn't help.

Ta,

Glenn.

Reply to
Glenn Booth
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Out of interest:

Although you seem to be 'responsible by raising this question; at what point does "doing home-cinema things" in a shed thirty metres away form a child segue into "leaving a child unattended"?

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few other points to guide you a.. Never leave a baby or very young child alone at home, whether asleep or awake, even for a few minutes. It doesn't take long for unsupervised young children or babies to injure themselves. b.. Most children under thirteen should not be left for more than a short period.

I'd hate to think of you answering to a Magistrate or, God forbid, a Coroner.

Reply to
Brian Sharrock

Sounds mad but it does work! Use your cable as an antenna extender:- cut out two (or three) 6" disc of foil, attach a wire to them. Laminate the discs. Connect the disc wires to your 5e wire and lay your transmitter(s) and receiver on their respective discs. The discs and cable simply act as an antenna feeder wire with a capacitor on each end. Simple, cheap, effective! Peter

Reply to
retep

Hi,

A fair point, but the difference in time getting to the children between being downstairs and being in the shed is only about 15 seconds, and we have gone to some lengths to ensure that the house is 'child safe' (as far as that is possible). It takes longer than that to get there if they wake when I'm on the loo. I really wouldn't do this if I thought there was a danger.

Most? That seems silly. Who's going to decide which children don't fit the 'most' category? Our kids never get left alone unless we can hear or see them, which is why I need to be completely confident in whatever system I use for this. As a result, my lovely home cinema has currently never been used by more than one parent at a time!

Now you've got me paranoid though (that's a good thing where little people are concerned). I might go the whole hog and get a couple of cctv cameras.

Thanks for keeping me down to earth!

Regards,

Glenn.

Reply to
Glenn Booth

If you actually want to hear screaming, two of these should work over

30m of Cat5, one twisted pair for each device. And you can talk back.

Maplin code BZ61R

(In fact, from experience, you can just use one pair of these and make a second sub-station with just a small speaker in it, wire the speakers in series rather than parallel).

A more DIY approach would be the small electret-microphone-and-amplifier PCB sold for CCTV use, which should drive over 30m of twisted pair okay and feed into a line-level input on an amplifier in the shed.

Maplin JK44X

If you don't require to hear screaming, then a voice-operated-transmitter (VOX) switch in the bedroom, applying a voltage down the Cat5, this signals a video character generator overlay board, which flashes up on the screen "Baby crying in chalet 2". Perhaps that's overkill and a flashing bulb would do.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

I did wonder about whether extending the house smoke alarms to the shed would be a good idea. In the event of a fire, you want to get to the children before they can hide anywhere and you have to waste time looking for them under beds and in wardrobes (especially if the RCD has tripped taking out the house lights...)

Local paper this week had a story about a small child (two years old?) getting past a safety gate, opening mummy's handbag, finding mummy's lighter, and setting mummy's bed on fire whilst mummy was asleep in bed. As so often is the case, the batteries in the smoke detector had been removed.

In this case, no serious harm was done except to the furnishings, but this could so easily have been a tragedy.

In the current climate of paranoia, putting CCTV cameras in children's bedrooms is possibly liable to misinterpretation.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

What a ridiculous notion! When I was 11, I used to have to walk from school to my sister's primary school, collect her, and walk home. We would then be there, unattended, until my parents came home several hours later.

This wasn't in some quiet little village; it was in west London. And it wasn't in the 40s, it was in the mid 80s. I didn't see anything wrong with it then, and I still don't now.

Reply to
Grunff

Well, if you could run a network you could just use a pair of internet enabled webcams and a PC in your 'home-cinema'.

Really speaking, you're 30m away and who knows what might happen in the house. Maybe you should reconsider your priorities.

Paul

Reply to
Paul Andrews

That's noffing ! When I started school - for various reasons; it wasn't at the beginning of a term- my mother took me to the school where we went into the Head Mistress's room. On admitting me the Headmistress asked my mother how would I get home? The Headmistress then summoned a pupil - who incidentally was terrified at being called into the Headmistress's office, not knowing what 'crime' he'd committed- and ordered him to escort me back to my house at the end of the day! I was five (and a day) and 'Val' was six (and a quarter)!

Reply to
Brian Sharrock

simple. 2 microphones and one audio amplifier at the house end, connect amp output to cat5, and a speaker in the shed. Adding a variable R on the speaker would allow some handy volume control at shed end. Adding a vogad to the amp would improve its performance, this changes gain depending on noise level.

Your baby mon contains amp and speaker, if you add an output socket to it you can just plus the cat5 into it, then all you need is the speaker. news:sci.electronics.basics would probably explain how.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

The message from Grunff contains these words:

There's girls round here with kids of their own at that age!

Reply to
Guy King

You have just described the old-fashioned wire"more" baby alarm that used fixed cables. I suggest the OP checks jumble/boot sales and secondhand shops if they haven't done a "not allowed to sell electrical stuff" and dumped them. I think I even have one here (_if_ I can find it :)

Chris

Reply to
chris_doran

Hi,

There is probably someone who would misinterpret it, but there are plenty of 'bunny' and 'teddy' shaped cctv systems designed specifically for the purpose, so I don't see it being a big deal.

Regards,

Glenn.

Reply to
Glenn Booth

I would have been between 5 and 7 when I (and another child) were sent by the teacher to go to the shop and buy a big box of ice lollies (one for every child in the (very small) school). We were given the money as well and "woe betide us" if we lost the change.

The irony is that I didn't like ice lollies and refused to eat mine!

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Hi,

I've already done that - the shed is connected to the alarm systems.

It doesn't matter how close you are, kids are highly ingenious in their suicide attempts! They can injure themselves even within arms reach. We have CO and smoke/heat alarms all over the place and we just live with any false alarms as being better than no alarms.

When they were small, both our kids could just pile up 'stuff' to a height where they could climb over safety gates. Hard to know if they made things better or worse.

Regards,

Glenn.

Reply to
Glenn Booth

The website also says:

Many young children play outdoors with other children without a parent or carer being present. As they are unsupervised, they are 'alone', but most people would agree that this is an important part of growing up.

So Messrs Booth and co are errmm leaving them "unsupervised" as "part of (their) growing up".

Reply to
Fred

Hi,

For the record, I haven't actually left them unsupervised at all, ever. The upshot seems to be "most" 13 year olds shouldn't be left alone "for more than a short time", but "young children" can play outside alone (mine don't), and we have no definition of "very young", or "young".

Seems to me that common sense is called for, and the nspcc site is a bit of a cop out. I'm a member too, for whatever it's worth. Ah well. I just won't do anything unless I'm convinced it's as safe as possible.

Regards,

Glenn.

Reply to
Glenn Booth

Oh dear perhaps I should have put a smiley after my post. I was aware of this anomaly where it is OK to leave a child outdoors possibly with strangers, whereas it is not OK to leave children in the safety of your own home.

In practice you know your own children and whether you are happy to leave them for a while. It's not as if they don't know where you are.

Reply to
Fred

Hi,

S'allright, I got the jist of it :-)

Regards,

Glenn.

Reply to
Glenn Booth

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