Free Surveillance Mac App Uses Webcams to Catch Thieves

GotoCamera, a video monitoring service deployed in over 180 countries across Asia, is now available in the form of a free desktop app for Mac users.

A system so easy your grandma could set it up (their words, not ours), GotoCamera doesn’t require expensive hardware and technical skills to use.

According to the developers, it works with the standard USB and integrated webcams that you already own (or should own).

And if you don’t have one, they have some recommendations for you.

The software is said to support features like motion detection, and as soon as it senses movement it sends a video clip of the intruder directly to your mobile phone. The footage is also stored securely in the cloud.

Additional features include scheduled recording, saving snapshots and videos automatically into the cloud at a defined time, and others.

Kenneth Baker, a teacher in Virginia, reportedly caught a burglar in his home using these scheduled tasks.

On GotoCamera's Facebook wall, he wrote: "Right before my eyes I saw pictures of someone in my house! The time stamp was only a few minutes earlier. I immediately left, called the police, and drove home. The police and I arrived at the same time as the thief was just walking out the back door. After a foot chase, the thief was caught. He already removed $3,500 of property this time! Thankfully, your system allowed us to catch him and recover the property."

Commenting on the release of GotoCamera for Mac, Co-Founder and CEO Varun Arora said: "We all know Mac owners who have upgraded and have old MacBooks, iMacs, and Minis that are now under-used. GotoCamera gives these old Macs a new lease of life, by transforming them into free home and small-office monitoring systems, using the webcams already built into the computers, or even any ordinary $20 USB webcam."

GotoCamera is available for free from the developer’s web site. It runs on Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion. GotoCamera is also available for iPhone and iPad.