The Curbside Investigator

There’s been a lot of discussion in PI forums about the keychain spy cams.  This episode is my attempt to explain what they are, the different versions and how they work.  Much of my source material was taken from here.  Big thanks to the author for the work in figuring these things out and allowing me to use the material.

Here’s the link to my Youtube page where some sample videos can be viewed.  Keep in mind these are highly compressed by Youtube.

My ebay seller where I’ve had good luck purchasing the keychain spy cam for $15.  Keep in mind you’ll have to supply your own micro SD card.

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Usage notes:

HOW TO TAKE A VIDEO
1. Start with the camera off (or press the reset button to turn it off).
2. Press the power (on/off) button.  This turns the LED and the camera on.
3. Press and hold the mode (video/image) button.  The LED flashes 3 times then the LED goes off.  The camera is recording video and audio.
4. Press the mode button to stop video recording.  The video recording stops, the video is written to a AVI Flash memory file, and the LED turns on.
5. Press and hold the power button.  The camera and the LED turn off.

HOW TO TAKE A PHOTO
1. Start with the camera off.
2. Press the power button.  This turns the LED and the camera on.
3. Press the mode button.  The LED briefly goes off, then on.  The camera took a photo and wrote it to a JPG Flash memory file.  Repeat step three to take more photos.
4. Press and hold the power button.  The camera and the LED turn off.

Setting DATE and TIME

HOW TO SET THE DATE TIME – Use one of these methods and maybe try them both.

The Internal Flash Camera
The camera keeps the date and time as long as the battery is not dead.  It stamps the date time in the upper left corner of all video, and the date time property of all AVI and JPG files.

If you don’t set the date time, 1980 Jan 1 will be used.

For example, to set the date time to May 13 2009 at 3:10pm:
Connect the USB.  Create a time.txt file in the flash root with one line inside in this format:

2009.05.13 15:10:00

Disconnect the USB.  The camera will read the file, change the camera date time, and delete the file.

The Micro SD Camera (#3)
David contacted a seller to get these instructions.
Bob has give me a more detailed instructions.
For what you call the #3 camera – settime.txt and time.txt files don’t work at all.  It has to be a file named tag.txt reading EXACTLY this way:

[date]
2009/10/22
03:45:00

There has to be a space after the first line AND AFTER THE SECOND LINE.  And the time stamp starts when the key chain camera is powered on with this file on the root – not when the file is created – so create it with a time a minute ahead and then disconnect it from the USB (the proper way) and power up the keychain cam at that time.

Sample Video
Morning Video
Daytime Video

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