Twittering Arduino-powered laser tripwire captures trespassers -- digitally (video)
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 5th 2010 3:28AM
posted January 5th 2010 3:28AM
Spare a thought for the modern thief. They have to face off against phones that can broadcast their location, laptops that lock themselves down, a LoJack service for iPods, and now a laser tripwire that can twitter pictures of unwanted visitors. It's a decidedly DIY Arduino-based project, but unlike many similarly powered offerings that we hit, this one is described as being very easy -- as far as Arduino-based projects go, anyway. Check out the instructions at the read link, or just enjoy the little demo video after the break if you're feeling lazy.
Nice!
I can imagine though, someone could hook up the Arduino and some loud horns to wake up an entire neighborhood if someone were to trip a laser beam. Boy would that scare the bejeebus out of any burglar.
It would've been useful if it summoned police, (of course after making sure that it is in fact a burglar) which what it should do in the first place, considering the webcam, this qualifies for a crapgadget.
Hardly a new idea, other than using twitter rather than text messages, which seems like a huge step backwards.
Not a new thing to use an arduino to talk to twitter, and other than that it's just a trip wire. Boring.
how about hooking this thing up to an automated taser system?
I think the AtHome camera App for iPhone is better than this to be honest. Motion activated webcam that sends feed to your iPhone. All you have to do is run the free web server from your computer (1 min download) .
must have?!
Hm. Next step, I'd say, is to rig it to a camera and have it twitpic the culprit.