During Hurricane Sandy, more than 70,000 people viewed the storm through my Dropcam!
December 21, 2012 
How did I get that figure. Well the folks at Dropcam are the ones who host the Dropcam service. The day of the storm they emailed to say if I felt like bragging more than 55,000 had already watched the storm through the Dropcam I have behind the windshield of my Farallon workboat. The Dropcam went offline hours later when the marina office flooded and the electric and phone lines went under water. At the time Dropcan had recorded 70,272 views for the day! My Dropcam lets me check in on my boat from any place I have WiFi! The newest version is the HD WiFi Video Cam. (I added one to the Gizneyland Studio so folks can see the east coast half of what goes on when we record The Giz Wiz!) You can use the Dropcam app to view your camera on Smart Phones (Android or Apple) or computer. You can check in on pets, the baby, the baby sitter, etc. anywhere there’s WiFi. (During hurricane Irene, my Echo Dropcam let me monitor my boat from home throughout the entire storm! The phone and electric stayed on throughout that storm.) This new model is smaller that the original Echo model. The camera itself is about the size of a hockey puck and it sits in a hinged aluminum base. You can rotate the cam and adjust the hinged base to any angle you like. You can even pop the camera out and make it almost invisible in a dark corner since it’s black. The new HD WiFi Dropcam uses a single cable for set-up and then for power. (Unlike the Echo there’s no Ethernet option, just WiFi.) Setting up the Dropcam is really easy. There’s no software to install! Just plug the Dropcam HD into your computer via USB, create an account at the Dropcam site and pick the local WiFi network it will work on. You only have to do that once. After that, it automatically logs on when it’s powered on. New also is a 12-LED infrared light array around the lens for nighttime use. The HD WiFi Dropcam has a speaker and a microphone for two-way communication. The camera includes their free basic service that you lets you view live streaming video on a computer, Android or iOS app - assuming they're getting WiFi. For $9.95 a month you can get a package that includes seven days of archive access and the ability to download clips to your own computer. The new camera comes in at a lower price too, $149.00.
This is why my Dropcam went offline during Hurricane Sandy. That's the Hudson River flooding Riverside Park. The marina office has 7 feet of water inside!
It's astronomical high tide during hurricane Sandy. At the West 79th Street Boat Basin, the Hudson River overflows the seawall and floods Riverside Park! The marina office, that white building on the right, probably has six or seven feet of water inside. Of course there's no power, phone, etc.
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