One of Apple's latest iPhone television ads (Dog Lover) features an App called iCam. At the end of the Ad they show how they can keep an eye on their dog at home (provided he or she sits and waits for you in front of the camera 
) from their iPhone. I've long been a fan of WiFi cameras for home monitoring. I have four Panasonic network webcams (some wired and some wireless) that work great. Although these cameras can be monitored and even panned from a standard web browser, I was intrigued by the possibility of having a native App to use. So when I saw the Dog Lover spot, I headed over to the App Store to check out the App. At first glance it didn't seem to provide much more than I already had in my web browser and it would even take away the ability to pan/rotate the cameras (my specific models support this), but I decided to give it a shot. I'm so glad that I did. I love this App!
It's all about the Motion Detection
Although more four cameras are wonderful, each one acts as its own independent web server. I can set it up to email me photos on a regular basis or FTP them up to a server. I can time the cameras when to broadcast an image and when not to. They offer a variety of great options. However, what I was missing was being instantly notified if someone or something walked past my cameras. Especially the ones inside the house when no one is supposed to be home. iCam makes this really easy by adding Push Notifications to this surveillance. If my cameras detect motion, the iCam server software (a free download for Mac or PC) will send me a Push Notification right to my device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch) and let me see the camera right away. Great if you happen to catch it. What's even better is that you can set the software to record a series of images anytime motion is detected and YES, you can view these images right on your device! Whoa! That's Cool! Another problem that this App solves is that my network cameras have passwords and although you can save your passwords in Safari, for whatever reason it doesn't save the passwords to these cameras. So I have to enter the password each time I want to look at the cameras in the browser. iCam saves the password at the server on your computer. So you never have to enter a password in the App besides the one you enter once to connect to your server.
This solution works over WiFi, 3G and Edge.
You can get it here from the App Store: 
Get the Server Software for Mac or PC here.
Works with Any Webcam!
Although I had specific cameras for this purpose, the idea behind this App is that it's really for the webcam on your computer. Working with network webcams is more of a bonus since most people won't have them. So if you've got a Mac for example, you can set this up to use the iSight camera that's built-in to your Mac. You do get both video and sound. This is both a strength and a weakness (my biggest complaint) of this product. It's great that you can use your computer's webcam. Awesome! However, this is also the weakness in the companion server software that has to run on your computer. The server software is only designed to support ONE camera per computer. Again, for most this won't be an issue because you'll only have the ONE camera on your computer. However, let's get back to my situation for a moment. I have four cameras that aren't connected to a computer at all. They're connected right into my router. So in order for me to monitor all for cameras at the same time I have to install this App on four different computers and leave them on all the time. I already have TWO computers in my house that stay on all the time, but not four. Luckily my buddy Jack Beckman had a suggestion. He wondered if it would work if you signed into the same computer as a different user. Since each user of Mac OS X has his/her own preferences, it was worth a try! Jack you're a genius, because that did work. It's lame that you have to do it this way, but at least I don't have to run four different computers to monitor four different network cameras.
MOTION DETECTED: Hey! Who's that guy walking by the pool?
Your Privacy
Anytime you start talking about sending live video and there is a server involved the issue of privacy comes up. Where exactly is that video feed going besides your iPhone. According to the iCam website this is peer-to-peer technology and no information is being sent back to them.
The Bottom Line
Although the iPhone App works great, the server software can use some work. I'd like to see multiple cameras supported on ONE computer without having to run it in separate user accounts. The other annoying issue is that you can't paste into the server software. I have a rather lengthy URL for my cameras and I had to manually rekey it because you can't paste into the URL field. With that said, this is one of the best $5 purchases I've made in a long time. The push notifications and recording motion puts this App over the top! I also have to give them kudos for providing a great support site for getting the right URL for your camera based on the model that you have. Made the setup VERY EASY!
iCam
iCam let's you monitor up to 4 webcams right on your iPhone. You can get push notifications of any movement and see a series of images detailing what or who moved through the scene.
- SKJM, LLC
- Get on App Store
- $4.99
All info was collected on 26th April, 2010 when the app was reviewed.
About Terry White
Terry is the co-author of The Best Selling "The iPhone Book" 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, Inc., Michigan's largest Macintosh Users Group, host of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and a technology writer - Terry White Tech Blog.
Thanks for the great review, Terry!
We are actually working on the next update to the iCamSource application, and one of the major features we will be adding will be the ability to connect to multiple cameras from one iCamSource.
In the meantime, you don’t need to have separate logins to run multiple instances. Instead, simply make a copy of the iCamSource.app to connect to each additional camera.
Great! I wondered if that would work but I was afraid to try
Looking forward to the multiple camera support in iCamSource! AWESOME.
Cant find my url address
how do u make a copy of icam to run a multiple cameras. u mean the isight plus maybe a usb web cam?? pls explain. thks im only using the computer web cam.
Mariano,
I have 4 separate network webcams each with their own URLs. So in a nutshell I duplicate the App 3 times so that I have four copies and then run each app and point it to each URL for each camera.
All you have to do to run multiple cams from one computer is open the program for each camera, Same log in info just have up to four programs running at the same time but lets you see all 4 cams at once same user log in info. I love it for the price and access from i touch.
be careful how you use this because i have been just trying random common names and sometimes i connect to peoples camera’s and well seems like flaw in the authentication process. pretty much its so unsecured dont believe for one second someone else can’t see your camera
I have a logitech c905 webcam.. Can’t get my Ipad to see it thru icams app. Will this webcam work?
just messing around
can i use my webcam through the router without having my mac turned on