If you are in the market for a good covert, portable digital video security camera system, you should consider a keychain spy camera. They are small, light weight, and virtually undetectable. Not only do they record video, but they also record audio as well.
Probably the most single important factor behind covert monitoring and recording is the camera being hidden in an object that is so common that it would never be suspected. Such is the case with Security Camera King’s Product# HC-CARKY. (It’s safe to say that some of the covert advantage with this product may be lost if you don’t drive a vehicle.)
Security Camera King’s keychain spy camera looks just like the remote control keychain that comes with most cars and trucks these days. In addition, it contains its own Digital Video Recorder or DVR that records video and audio together. As small as it is, this device packs a whopping 8 GB of storage space that can provide as much as 3 hours of video and audio recording.
The keychain device connects to any computer using a USB port and playback can be viewed on the computer using just about any media player. The USB port also charges the built in battery which can provide approximately 2 hours of continuous use on a single charge.
The keychain fob is amazingly small (at least to contain a digital video camera and its own DVR). It measures 2 inches x 1.25 inches x .625 inches. The battery used is a 3.7 V 280 mAh battery. The camera produces standard video format (AVI–Windows standard video format) with a video resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. It records and plays back at a frame rate of 29 fps.
Many people have asked us how the keychain spy camera works; that is, how can you get a camera in such a small device. For the remainder of this article we’ll try to explain how the camera works so you’ll at last have some working knowledge about the device.
Today’s digital video cameras are technologically amazing pieces of work. A lot of their components have borrowed the technology from the personal computer industry. The following explains how a typical digital camera works. The keychain spy camera works very similar to the following.
Light is reflected off objects and the lens’ duty is to catch or gather that reflected light (which actually constitutes what we call the “image”) and focus it on a small sensor chip that is sensitive to light. The chip is either a Charged Coupled Device or CCD or it may be a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor or CMOS. Each handles converting light energy into electrical energy a little different but both produce the same results; electronic impulses that can be used to create an image.
The CCD or CMOS in a keychain spy camera is only 1/4 inch to 1/3 inch square. This is one of the reasons that the camera can fit inside something as small as a keychain.
The electrical impulses are routed through some Integrated Circuit (IC) chips that each has their own function as far as interpreting the impulses and producing electronic data. Some cameras (large or small) may have light, hue, and other corrective IC chips. Interestingly enough, the information created by the camera to create an image or image file is analog. So the camera must also have an analog to digital converter IC chip.
Once the data is converted into digital or binary form the data is sent to the DVR where it is recorded. In the case of the keychain spy camera, the storage medium is some sort of non-volatile flash storage (the memory isn’t lost when you unplug the device from the USB port of your computer).
When the keychain spy camera is plugged into the computer, the computer can download the digital vide file held in memory and copy it to its own hard disk drive. Then the user can use just about any media player (such as Windows, Quicktime, etc.) to view the file. In the case of the keychain spy camera, the video file is in AVI format which was the original video file format for Windows.
If you have any additional questions about the keychain spy camera please don’t hesitate to contact one of our security experts either via “Live Chat” or by telephone at 866-573-8878.