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geoffchan23

158 karma · joined November 4, 2019

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geoffchan23··on Show HN: Turn any device with a browser into a security camera
We are two developers from Toronto who couldn't find a decent and cheap solution to monitor our kids/pets through the browser. We originally started this project because we thought it would be a great opportunity to learn and build something that could be useful to us. As we dove deeper we realized that perhaps others would find it useful as well, so we turned it into a product.

We decided to take a web first approach rather than a mobile app first approach for a few reasons:

1) We are web developers so it's what we know 2) Web browsers are ubiquitous, meaning users could still access our app on mobile devices via browser or PWA (more on that later) 3) People spend the majority of their time on computers, whether for work, study, or leisure. So it makes sense to us to be able to easily monitor from your computer. 4) We think the web is cool (See reason 1)

Our goals were to: 1) Make it possible for anyone to sign up and create a security camera 2) Not require any hardware purchase 3) Not require any application install 4) Put our old devices to good use rather than end up in land fills!

We wanted to make UView available as a mobile app as well so we converted it into a mobile app by turning it into a PWA (Progressive Web App). You can install it on Android using the install button, however iOS users will have to select the “Add to home screen” button in the browser.

We would appreciate any comments and feedback!

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