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+--- Thread: Watching yourself sleep (/Thread-Watching-yourself-sleep)
Watching yourself sleep - Terry - 05-27-2014
Ever wonder what's going on at night?
I did.
It turns out that recording what's going on is actually quite easy.
First, you need an infrared video camera. They're easily available for several thousand dollars. Or 40 bucks, whichever you like. 8-)
If you have a spare logitech webcam, you can convert it to IR by removing the IR filter. I never knew it had one, but it does. This does make the camera more or less useless for other purposes, but considering that the camera cost me less than a co-pay at the doc, and I had an extra, it was a worthwhile sacrifice.
I can't take credit for the conversion directions. They're here:
http://www.alcs.ch/logitech-c910-infrared-conversion-for-nightvision.html
Once that's done, go to the logitech website and download their driver pack for your camera. You probably don't need the drivers (windows usually has them anyway), but it comes with a very simple video recorder that easily handles large files.
Hang a wall clock within the camera's field of vision, so you can tell what time each event happens.
Light: You can either use an infrared illuminator, which can be had for $40 or so on the internet, or an lamp or ceiling light with a 100W or bigger incandescent (not fluorescent or LED) bulb, on a dimmer, turned down to a soft glow. Incandescent bulbs throw off a ton of IR light.
Point the camera at the bed, fire up the logitech recording software, make sure the clock is in the frame, and go to bed! A full night runs about 2GB of video.
The next day, you can look at your data in SleepyHead or the software of your choice, and compare what's going on in the charts, with what's going on in your room. For example, I found that at about 5am, my cat stops in for a visit and that a place on my graph where a bunch of apneas showed up was when I rolled over and mashed my mask out of position, then fixed it and never remembered doing anything.
It's really pretty fascinating and well worth sacrificing an old webcam.
RE: Watching yourself sleep - PollCat - 05-27-2014
Interesting idea, though it seems like a lot of work. I guess some of us would have to get permission from our SO before attempting something like this!
RE: Watching yourself sleep - retired_guy - 05-27-2014
(05-27-2014, 09:01 PM)PollCat Wrote: Interesting idea, though it seems like a lot of work. I guess some of us would have to get permission from our SO before attempting something like this!
I've been thinking that for some a bedroom cam is not necessarily a new idea.....
(bad retired_guy.... kinky......... too kinky)
RE: Watching yourself sleep - PaytonA - 05-27-2014
Simplify!
Just have your SO stay up all night and record you.
RE: Watching yourself sleep - archangle - 05-28-2014
Quite a few cheap wireless security cams have "night vision" infrared LED's.
RE: Watching yourself sleep - Terry - 05-28-2014
(05-28-2014, 08:44 AM)archangle Wrote: Quite a few cheap wireless security cams have "night vision" infrared LED's.
They're usually low-res and many are analog (need a capture card to record to disk), but the other thing was that I already had the stuff I used just laying around and it was cool. 8-)