Every single one of us has seen it: "Tiny Powerful Wireless Camera that can be placed anywhere! The ultimate in home surveillance!" Those irritating popup banners that plague our desktops while we are innocently reading the news, or checking the weather.
The ad is often comprised of blinding flashing red and yellow colors, screaming out at you to buy one. But your attention is drawn to the animated circle featuring a nubile young woman reading a book, listening to music.. while the camera point of view scans her up and down. Great!
Something to watch my sister in the shower with!
...Or I guess I could use it for home surveillance. That's what it suggests in little letters under the tiny wireless girl show. I think for a moment the possibilities the XCam2 'tiny wireless camera' could have in my life, and then close the popup.. for the 50th time this week.
Is this a scam? It sure looks like a scam! My mom told me about these people on the internet, with their scams! So I looked around online, in search of X10 Camera reviews, to discover if it truly was a scam. (Punch the monkey, get $20!*)
Well, it is and it isn't.
It is a real product, you can purchase it at the exciting low price of $69, but it appears to be lacking in actual quality. The camera boasts of having up to 100 feet of remote power, provided you don't have anything blocking the receiver from the camera, be it a wall, a cat, or a bookshelf. And the video quality is less than exciting, grainy video makes it reasonably difficult to identify burglars, or make out any sexy details in your neighbour's swimming pool. And as for tiny, well, it's about as big as your fist once you've set it up, so you be the judge. Hiding it in the corner of a ceiling will be more quite a bit more obvious than the ads would make it out to be.
"View the children playing (from work!) View the store or office (from home!) View the kid's playroom (from work!)
View the dogs in the backyard (from work!) see if the boss's car is in the lot (from home!) View the kitchen, is dinner ready? (from work!)"
C'mon, noone's gonna do that. I've bought this tiny wireless camera, it's time for a little tiny wireless voyeur fun.
So there you have it, the lowdown on the increasingly popular X10 XCam2 Tiny Wireless Camera. It's real, it works, there's hardly anything special about it. Bonsi Buddy's spying on the monkey who's being punched and shocked with tazers for money from over 100 feet away.
Oh, and to those who would like to never see the banner ads again, click it. Sounds stupid, but you'll be taken to their site with relatively little hassle, where you'll find a link that will put a cookie on your computer that will prevent any x10 ads from popping up for 30 days. 'Thank you for your interest!'