Oranges launches mobile watchdog service

Going away on business often? Or maybe you want to know what is going on in your home while you are on holiday? Now there is one more solution available besides the traditional surveillance system provided by a security company: you can monitor your home via your mobile phone.

GSM telephony operator Orange Romania has launched a new service on the market, Monitor, which allows you to keep track of what is going on in your home while at work, on the beach or just in a hotel room on the other side of the country.

The service can obviously be used not only for monitoring one’s home but also for monitoring other important locations such as a garage, the offices or the warehouses of a specific company.

“This service targets all client categories, and especially those in the SOHO segment, SMEs and individuals that have property that requires remote surveillance and do not have professional surveillance systems installed,” Bogdan Rauta, Orange Romania’s senior product manager explains.

The package provided by Orange includes a Special SIM card, a Nokia Observation Camera surveillance cam and a monthly subscription for voice calls, SMS and MMS messages.

The camera, which requires the SIM card to be inserted first, works like a multimedia phone: records images and is equipped with a motion sensor, a temperature sensor and a microphone that transmits sounds from the location monitored by the users’ phone on demand.

It is the camera that “uses up” the subscription precisely. When detecting motion or temperatures that exceed a certain level set by the client, the camera sends out a SMS followed by a MMS, which includes a photo and information about the area monitored. For instance, the temperature sensor can detect whether the temperature in a food storage has gone down below a certain limit. The users that get such information can fix the problem by calling their colleagues and asking them to check out the warehouse.

The camera installation is a breeze. Furthermore, if necessary, Orange specialists can provide support via the mobile phone.

The subscription in the Monitor package costs $6 a month (VAT not included), and comes with 10 MMS and 50 SMS messages included. Every text message sent by the camera (beyond subscription) costs $0.05 (VAT not included) and every multimedia message costs $0.14 (VAT not included). The Nokia camera costs $550 and has to be paid when the contract with Orange is signed.

The Orange service can also be used to remotely monitor occupancy or usage for various services (restaurants, fitness studios, parking lots, and public transportation vehicles).
iuliana.cerchez@zf.ro