Suggestions for decent home indoor surveillance cameras?

[torpid]

For the "bump in the night" possible intruder scenario, I'm looking for a nice medium between holing up in the bedroom and dialing 911 to let the police investigate, and searching the house solo for the source of the noise.

(I don't wanna dial 911 for every little noise, but I also would like to be able to go back to sleep being 100% sure that nothing's amiss- and right now that involves me clearing the downstairs myself.)

I was thinking that having the option to view my downstairs rooms via wireless camera could prove very handy in seeing right away if there is someone downstairs without me leaving the "safe room".

I'm in a rented house, so a permanently installed system isn't ideal compared to wireless.

I currently have 2 "baby monitor" type cameras with infrared night vision (each was about 100 bucks) that almost work for this, but they just lack the range to transmit to the monitors upstairs. (I looked at the x-10 type, but they don't seem that they would work well according to reviews).

There seems to be a lot of camera systems, and I just have no idea which are decent and which are junk.

Does anyone have any experience/input to help me out with this?

 

[DigMe]

Sam's Club has several options of security camera packages but I can't remember if any are wireless. I know they had one package that came with 4 cameras and a monitor and I think it was $200 or less. Having done some in-wall wiring myself on an already built house for my home theater I gotta say you may want to reconsider as it wasn't that hard. I know 2 story is a whole different deal but you may find options where you can drill through closet walls and whatnot rather than having to fish it all the way through a wall.

brad cook

 

[torpid]

Ok- thanks Brad.

Yeah, I may need to just drop the wireless approach altogether to make it work out.

(Added benefit of losing the slim possibility of a wireless receiver "snooping" the signal - unlikely, but I've seen "how to" sites- a bit unnerving knowing you're broadcasting views from inside your house to whoever wants to "eavesdrop" outside).

 

[Andrew Rothman]

The x-10 wireless video transmitter is okay, actually, provided you don't:

1) have an 802.11 wireless network
2) run your microwave
or
3) have a 2.4GHz cordless telephone

Unfortunately, their cameras are simply awful.

I bought a cheap IR camera on EBay, hooked it up to the X10 transmitter, and used it as a baby monitor.