Let's begin with the probably cheapest way. Let me introduce an interesting router from Asus. Mine is a WL-500b which I bought for over 5 or 6 years ago. What's so interesting about it is that, it comes with a USB port so that you can hook a webcam there directly. Of course, not all webcams are supported, but then since it's an open source router, you can always find suitable driver yourself. I've a Philips ToUCam Pro for planet imaging with my telescope and it works without modifying the firmware. This is the Asus router:-
So if you are interested to the firmware of the Asus, you can go here:
http://wl500g.info/
It allows you to use higher resolution image of the webcam, let you use your router as a file server, ftp server, web server, and even audio streaming server, etc. It's just too powerful. And the Philips ToUCam Pro:-
I guess most people will need a router at home, and the good thing about this combination is that, you don't have to turn on your PC to look at your home.
Of course, IP Cam is readily available these days, and some of them can even stream video with sound, and you can pan and tilt it remotely as well. But as you can guess, it comes with a price. So now I can tell you that the above combination is far cheaper, however, it's not as powerful as well. Therefore, it boils down to your own choice and budget.
Soon after that, I found that I want one more camera, and so I went for a wireless IP Cam:
It's a very simple model, again, it works and it's cheap. It's around 120 USD like four years ago, and at the time, even wired model costs higher! But as you can see, you need a wire for electricity so wireless IPCam is not very meaningful indeed. You can also carry ethernet signal with power socket, so...I've plugged my Wi Fi IPCam via a timer switch, so I don't have to turn it on every morning before I go to work. And more importantly, I won't forget to turn it on, too.
Beside this IPCam, you can see another device beside it, and this one is for audio. However, this model is not internet capable, and it is just a radio transmitor so that you can listen to your kid while you are in another room:-
And this is the mother unit. It's single duplex, or I should say, it's one way only. You can hear your kids from another room, but they will not hear about you, so it's good to keep the kid's room quiet.
For audio streaming across the internet, I used Skype but as you can immediately realize, I will need to turn my PC on while using it. At the home side, I turned on the "auto answer" mode so that I can call any time from my office, and I usually leave the connection there until I wanted to leave my office. The bandwidth consumption is very low and thus there's no problem for the internet these days. I can remotely switched off my PC when I wanted to leave as well.
Skype is also available on WM6 so that you can listen to your home any time by using a mobile phone, via 3G network, GPRS or even Wi Fi.
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