As neat as Apple’s FaceTime service is, for many people, it tends to be just a novelty. With two FaceTime capable devices though, it can become a lot more useful. In this video, you’ll see how you can expand the possibilities of FaceTime beyond video conferencing.
Michael Steeber is a student who is obsessed with everything Apple. He enjoys making videos and runs the MSComputerVideos YouTube channel in his free time. You can follow him on Twitter as well.
63 responses to “Use FaceTime To Monitor Your Home [Video How-To]”
totally retarded
thank you.
lol
I call my wife from my iPhone at school to my iMac at home and I only have one apple id. If I go to the contacts on my iPhone, select my own contact info, scroll down and touch facetime, select my home email and it rings on the iMac. Chat all the time.
this is most likely because your iPhone is tied to a phone number, while the Mac is tied to an email. This makes them two separate devices.
But cool accent though…
Why does everybody say I have an accent? Never heard this until I started making these videos.
Exactly. This is how mine is set up with the same ID. I use it quite a bit… keep my iPhone outside in order to keep an eye on the kids when they play in the pool.
This is ridiculous. You obviously are going to need someone on the other end of each device answering the FaceTime call because if say for example you’re on vacation, you’re going to lose internet connection once you’re out of range on a WiFi network and you call is going to get disconnected. Maybe you should do some more research and not post stuff like a retard.
Retracted, but cool accent though.
Michael, I run this setup with a script called auto answer. This way when I call the other devices (you get to choose with which caller ID it works)nthey auto answer and thus I can check on things when I’m away
This article is titled wrong for sure. It should be titled “Call your self and leave Face-Time running.
you missed the point.
neat!
neat!
What is your point though? I don’t think you support your reasoning for ‘surveillance’ in the video because obviously FT is not an automated response system. Perhaps an edit of the article/video with Samir Estefan’s suggestion would clarify things for people.
saying “you just don’t get it” can be translated to “uhhh yeah I’m wrong but I don’t want to admit it”
So I make the call, and let the call continue 24/7? You told someone else that they missed the point. I’m saying your article doesn’t have a point to get.
I can call my iPhone from Facetime on my Macbook pro with no problems. They are on the same account.
No, I’m saying it’s for short periods of time, maybe an hour or two at the most. It’s for when you just want to monitor something, It’s no replacement for a surveillance system or anything of the like.
No, I didn’t say this was to go on trips with and leave running. It;s just a quick thing if you’re going to be gone for a little while or just want to monitor something.
This isn’t a full fledged surveillance system, and shouldn’t be treated as such. It was just one example of the many ways that this system could come in handy. It’s by no means a long rang thing. I think people are missing the other points I was making. For example, someone else said they use it to keep an eye on their kids in the pool. That’s a good use, and that’s the type of examples I was trying to give here.
i use this all the time to monitor my sleeping baby while i go downstair to grab some snacks or doing chore.
I have noticed by the use of the facetime system that if someone calls my mac (using my email address) my iphone 4 doesn’t ring, and likewise if someone calls my iphone 4(using my phone number) my mac and iPad don’t ring. Is there anyway to set up my accounts to where if someone calls using facetime for my iPhone 4 phone number, that the devices using my email will ring also??? I hope you understand what I’m getting at here.
This is the most pointless story I have ever read. Sorry.
You can let FaceTime answer calls from certain IDs quite easily: http://hints.macworld.com/arti…
It works really good!
“keep an eye on kids in a Pool”??? THAT is pathetic! Kid would be dead and drowned by the time Super Parent noticed. Loser(s) !!!
Honestly, you should just take this post down because you’re making yourself look like a complete idiot. You should just watch your video again and think about what you said. “Keep an I on the kids while their swimming when you’re in the house.” They’d probably drown by the time you get there. Research my friend, research.
Well obliviously someone can’t FaceTime their god damn iPod or iPad while their away because you need WiFi! And if their using a 3G iPad 2 or iPhone 4, they’d need to be jailbroken to use it outside the house. Dumbass.
For some time now, I’ve been using Skype to do the same thing. I find it a better solution, because it works over 3G and you can set up ‘auto-answer’ to respond only to one Skype ID.
Just use icam, it works great and will alert you when there is motion. The best part is the motion sensor will trigger the hard drive to record the motion event. I have been able to use a hard drive off site in case the computer is stolen.
Ignore the haterz Michael, I really enjoy your videos and you have enhanced my use of my Mac.