Motorola Homesight

With its Homesight kit, Motorola is bringing home surveillance to the masses.

Among other goodies, the package consists of an access point (called the System Controller), camera and door sensor, all of which are wireless.Installation is a snip as the System Controller automatically detects nearby Homesight equipment.

The access point hooks up to your PC via a USB connection and will only communicate wirelessly with other Homesight kit.

The software is reasonably easy to use and lets you set up activation times and alerts. If you’re in a crowded wireless environment, you may have trouble locating a free channel for the access point to use.

Should some miscreant trigger the door alarm or sensor on the camera, you’ll be notified either by text message or email – the latter allowing for a video clip to be attached. Image quality isn’t great, but the fisheye lens can capture wide areas.

In choosing not to get bogged down with integrating the kit with your current network, Motorola has made Homesight both easy to set up and use. Unfortunately, it also means it won’t interact with your wireless router.

As a result, your PC needs to be on all the time and you’ll have to resort to remote access services to monitor and adjust settings over the Internet.

Homesight is a good choice if you’re after basic home surveillance that’s easy to install and the range of add-ons, such as temperature and water sensors, also work in its favour.

But if you’re willing to get a little more technical, we’d recommend opting for a network camera.