The James Bond in me has always enjoyed the idea of being a spy, gathering information and basically finding out what people are saying about me behind my back! Okay, I’m joking…sort off. Anyway, I know certain hidden cameras are more for retail use, trying to catch light-fingered employees with their hands in the till, but I couldn’t resist looking in the murky underworld of hidden spy cameras, so here goes.
To start with, the idea behind these cameras is to catch people in the act, doing things they’re not supposed to be doing. Many of these cameras are incognito as everyday household items such as wall clocks, door bells, lambs, fire alarms, digital alarm clocks. You get the idea, something that you wouldn’t even think about twice if it was right in front of your face.
The cool thing about many of these security devices is they have an inbuilt DVR, and the information they gather is recorded direct to their drive. I can see the benefit of having no wiring to deal with, and the device is portable so you can put it anywhere you like. The downside to this is, if a thief broke into your home, he may make off with your digital alarm clock (come spy camera) as well as all your other good stuff. Not so cool. Not only will you have no alarm to wake you in the morning, all the images of the guy who stole it is gone too. You won’t look so clever when your partner finds out what happened to the damn evidence.
Of course, it might be a cheating partner you’re spying on in the first place. In that case it’s unlikely that your cheating spouse or their ‘friend’ will snatch your bedside alarm clock and run off with it. Anyway, lets not talk about nasty things like that…
I know I’m being very practicable about this, but I’d lean more towards a door bell alarm, as believe it or not, most burglars will try your front door first before seeking other ways into your home. Seems pretty dumb right? Almost as dumb as having an unlocked or poorly secured front door I guess. Or get one of those smoke alarms with inbuilt spy camera, it’s unlikely our intruder friend will want to make off with that particular device. Anyway, that’s just the conservative in me taking over, because what you guys want is the exciting, the undercover, the fun security gadgets! I’ll just take my grandparent hat off and lets get onto the good sh*t!
Pen spy cameras are cool, pure James Bond. The pens do write by the way, just make you don’t leave it unattended as someone will pick it up, answer a couple of crossword puzzles and walk off with it in their top pocket. I bet this happens a lot with spy pens, so be careful.
The other cool personal spy camera are the key-chain devices. They can look like are car key control but really they are recording devices complete with camera, camcorder, audio recorder with lots of memory that can be accessed by connecting the device to your PC. Really cool, and unless you’re at one of those parties where people mix there car keys in a bowl, chances are nobody will walk off with this spy gadget.
Another cool gadget are spy sun glasses. From a distance, or with a fisherman’s hat on, these sun shades look like any normal shades. If I were an undercover private investigator I’d definitely get these. Up close I think people would get suspicious, as many of these are bulky with lots of buttons around the side with little attachments and so on. But still, they’re fun and inexpensive so why the hell not!
If you have any spy cam stories or you have a product I haven’t mentioned here let me know and we’ll add it to the list.
