A cheap solution and an expensive one

May 29, 2007 10:26 GMT  ·  By

How paranoid are you? On a scale from 1 to 10 would you rate yourself 11? Do you live under the impression that there are cameras everywhere and that they are watching you?

If you do, then you'll love the Camera Detector from Scientifics, which is able to detect the presence of any hidden wireless camera, put there by secret organizations which want to abduct you and probably conduct extreme experiments on you.

All you have to do is point the camera towards walls and ceilings where you suspect it to be and if it's there - highly unlikely - an alarm will sound.

The detection is based on the frequency range between 50Mhz and 3Ghz. The detector will "see" the wireless cameras operating within these frequencies and that's about it. It would have been really cool if you could disable them.

Scientifics' Camera Detector has a serious competitor in the form of the Spy Finder, which uses a different technology. The product's description says it uses optical augmentation to detect wireless and wired cameras, even when they're turned off. The principle is simple.

You look through the Spy Finder and sweep around a room. The device has a ring of ultra-bright LEDs arranged around a viewing port. When a user scans a room looking through the viewing port, a Hidden Camera appearing in the field of view will brightly reflect the light from the LEDs.

The Spy Finder has a serious disadvantage compared to the Camera Detector, the first requiring a slow motion, which implies patience. On the other hand, if your paranoia level is 11, I don't think time is your main concern. The Spy Finder is pricier than the Camera Detector, the first being available for $30, while the other being priced at $100.

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