Article from "The Record" (Bergen, N.J.), December 13, 2007

Watch the shop while you're away
By MARTHA McKAY,STAFF WRITER

AT&T's Remote Monitor system includes a camera and adapters to help you keep an eye on things through the Web and your cellphone. If you're on a budget, but want a surveillance system for your business, consider AT&T's Remote Monitor.

This system not only lets you see what's going on via the Internet, but lets you add sensors to monitor things like temperature change or water leaks. You can set it up to turn lights on and off, too.

Of course, the ability to set up a camera and beam live video over the Internet is not new.

But AT&T's Remote Monitor comes with a new twist.

You can watch and control your surveillance cameras and other devices using a cellphone. That means when you travel to Phoenix, you can see what's going on back in Leonia at the family business (or make sure your company's freezer is still working, or see whether the front door is open) ñ with nothing more than a cellphone screen.

You can tell the system to send you alerts in the form of text messages or e-mail if the status of one of your sensors changes.

The telecom giant rolled out a version of the system aimed at small-business owners last month, and I decided to give it a spin.

I have to admit, I was prepared for a long night of rigging cables and tweaking router settings. To say I had the whole thing installed in 15 minutes would not be an exaggeration. And this included removing the packaging, plugging in, accessing the Web, and answering persistent questions from my 5-year-old.

The system I received was the $249 Premium Kit (manufactured by New York-based Xanboo), which comes with a tilt-and-pan camera. The starter kit ($199) has a stationary camera.

Each camera has two cables running to your wall electrical socket; one is for power and the other is an advanced technology called PLC (power line communication).

This was the first time I'd used PLC, and I wasn't convinced it would work given the eccentric wiring in our 1926 apartment ñ but it did, like a charm. The beauty of PLC is that it turns your home or business's electrical wiring into a communications network. To move the camera, I simply plugged both power and PLC adapter into another outlet. A second PLC adapter plug picked up the signal in my home office where it traveled up a cable to my router

Next it was on to the AT&T Remote Monitor Web site.

I had already received a password and username from the PR folks so I can't say how long it might take to sign up after you receive the system in the mail. I logged in and within several clicks (guided by the one-page set-up guide), the system "discovered" my camera. Another click and there was a live video stream on my computer.

Next up was getting the video feed of our front hall onto the cellphone (an LG CU515) that AT&T supplied. The most onerous part was typing in the username and password using the tiny phone keypad. A few minutes later, the live video appeared on the phone screen, and I was easily panning the camera back and forth using the phone's control buttons.

There is a two-second delay, which is understandable given the pathway (camera to electrical wires to Internet to cellular network). My small assistant and I spent the next few minutes spying on a stuffed rabbit. And great hilarity ensued as we spotted my husband walking in the front door.

Since my kit had only one camera, I didn't test how easily you can switch cameras using the cellphone. For those interested in reviewing the scene, AT&T sells a DVR that hooks into the system and lets you record continuously in loop that lasts for 30 days.

A few caveats.

You do need broadband, which sets the Remote Monitor apart from a higher-end surveillance system from one of the leading companies such as ADT or Digital Witness. If your broadband connection goes down, so too does your ability to monitor.

You need an AT&T phone with a voice and data plan - the company recommends Remote Monitor users sign up for an unlimited data plan for $40 per month. The Remote Monitor service itself adds another $10 per month (monitoring multiple sites from one account costs more). This puts the monthly price tag for the basic service in the neighborhood of $50 plus the monthly cost of voice service.

As for the Remote Monitor system, if you can tell the difference between a modem and a router, you'll have no problem with this kit.

And even if you're not technically inclined, I still think you could manage it since the one-page set-up guide is well designed.

I can easily imagine this setup being useful for small business, especially as an alternative to pricier surveillance systems, which don't necessarily give you the ability to monitor things like the temperature of a walk-in freezer from your cellphone.