File this under one of those things that, in retrospect, should have been obvious to a whole lot more people yet somehow wasn’t.  When I was reading this article in, of all places, the Ethiopian News, it just hit me as the kind of thing that seems obvious but only in retrospect.  See, over there they’ve got a lot more need of security cameras on their houses than we do over here.  And so, when they price them out, they discover that the cost of the basic system is pretty salty.

So what do they do in response? They make their own out of relatively inexpensive webcams.

Essentially, it operates like any normal webcam would– it takes video of whatever it’s pointed at, and in some cases, automatically uploads it to a central site.  So why not take that webcam and point out the window or at your front door?  next thing you know, you’ve got a security camera that you can check remotely for a fraction of the cost of a security system.  In fact, there is a fair chance you already have a web cam lying around that you just don’t even use.

It’s a smart idea, especially if you’re worried about home security.