This video was captured using Logitech's WiLIfe line of security cameras and submitted to the company as part of a weekly contest that rewards customers with the best videos. Awesome—perhaps they can use any money they won to buy a gun or throw into the pot on a down payment on a place in the city. At any rate, the second and third place videos are also pretty amusing.

[WiLife]

The idea is simple—police park this hulking monstrosity in pockets of high crime activity and just leave it there as a deterrent. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and if it's parked in front of your house the whole world knows your nasty business. Despite the fact that police don't spend much time reviewing surveillance footage, the truck has been remarkably successful. Law-abiding citizens have described the changes in their communities as like "night and day."

Law enforcement has been leaving empty cruisers around and setting up radar gun platforms for years now, and the Armadillo seems like the natural extension of the concept. Perhaps the fleet of Armadillos will expand and take on different, recognizable forms that tie into the offense—like parking an armored ice cream truck in front of the homes of known sexual offenders. [WSJ]

The Price: $300 for two cameras and four magnetic wall mounts

The Verdict: It works and it's easy. The three pieces are self-configuring, and all you need to set it up is to plug the main gateway into an Ethernet jack and the wireless cameras will all hook up seamlessly. Here's the video quality:

It's not bad, especially for a wireless video recording from such a small camera. It's on par with a mediocre webcam, and is definitely good enough for a "security" cam. It's nothing you want to use for actual webcamming, but it's great for seeing whether or not your kids are doing their homework.

There are a few other interesting features, like video sharing and video recording. Recording is obvious, but sharing works by inviting your friends to view either live streams or recorded clips. You and your friends interact with the system via the Vue website, which is accessible inside or outside your network. The batteries are supposed to last a year (they're not rechargeable), but you can buy replacement CR123 batteries. You turn on recording from the interface and there is scheduling.

So is this worth $300? Probably, depending on how much you need something like this. There are cheaper solutions like hooking up a webcam yourself to a computer and somehow routing that online so you can access it anywhere. This involves port forwarding and all kinds of more technical workarounds. So for ease of use, performance and convenience (it's wireless and reaches 300 feet), it's hard to beat the Vue. We only wish that, for $300, this would come with four wireless cameras instead of just two. Available later this summer. [VueZone]

These are smart IP video cameras, and when you link up a WiLife Pro turnkey configuration of cameras with WiLife's Command Center software via your existing Ethernet network, you can play security guard, watching and recording every angle. Looks like everything's included except the dorky security guard uniform and all the donuts you can eat.

Who would use such a system?

This could be a good tool for small business owners to keep an eye on the store when they're out on the golf course or vacationing in their villa in the South of France. Or it might be come in handy for drug lords who want to keep their armed camps intact, at least for a while. For us, we could definitely use these to keep an eye on those monsters under the bed.

Too bad these things don't communicate with the mother ship via Wi-Fi, or you could have yourself an instant security network with no wiring necessary. Anyway, the company says the systems are reasonably priced. – Charlie White

WiLife Site [WiLife, Inc.]

Innovative 32x Optical Zoom Lens Camera [GizMag]