New Product - Power Bank With a Double Life

Click picture to see product page with price and specifications...

Although it may look like the typical power bank you can use to charge your phone, which it can do as well, this power bank has a whole other life you don't even know about.  The Power Bank Camera has a built-in 32 GB DVR with motion activation to go along with a hidden camera.  The recording time is 8 hours, but standby time can last up to 40 hours, depending on the amount of motion detected.

This camera is ideal for short term surveillance of a low-traffic location where only battery power can be used.  If long term recording is required, the Power Bank Camera can also operate while being charged.  The power bank disguise can be placed in a workplace or a home.  Recording is high quality 720p video with audio.

Retro Product - TLC Phone Recorder

The 1990's were a different time.  Music had instruments in it, Pluto was still a distinguished planet, skateboards didn't hover, and telephones were only capable of voice communication.  Appropriately, Spytech was stocked with the pre-digital technology that people needed to cope in this primitive environment.  As you can imagine the tools of spy-craft were large and crude in those days, but still worth revisiting, if only to remind ourselves how far we have advanced since then.

TLC - 1 the 12 hour tape recorder

This invention tackled the age-old problem of recording massive amounts of telephone conversations.  Back in the 90's people had to use lengthy monologues to explain concepts that are now summed up in today's more efficient texting lingo like  😠  or OMG.  Of course any normal tape recorder could connect to a phone, just by using a phone jack like this one, but the problem was that the longest tapes available were only 120 minutes long.  The solution was to build a recorder that would spin the tape six times slower than normal speed, and consequently record six hours per side instead of one.  Which is just what one brilliant technician accomplished!  The resulting product was known as the TLC - 1 (there was also a similar TLC - 2) 12 hour tape recorder.

The TLC - 1 tape recorder as it appeared on our website circa 1999 courtesy of the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/web/)

The 1990's staff of Spytech often speculated as to what TLC stood for.  Was it "Te-Le-Corder" like the label said?  Was it "Tender Loving 'Corder"?  Or maybe it was the initials of the mysterious genius who invented it?  Alas, we never learned the answer, because we never bothered to ask the manufacturer.

In it's heyday, this invention was a huge success, along with pagers and grunge music.  People were able to record their phone calls endlessly as long as they remembered to keep flipping over the tape when it got to the end.  These tapes could only play back on the same TLC - 1 recorder they were made on because obviously any other recorder would play them six times faster.  The other problem was that the recorder was not the most portable machine, so you couldn't put it in your pocket, or listen to it on the go.  But those issues were small problems compared to the positives this device offered at the time.

Finally pagers were eventually replaced by smart phones, grunge music was inevitably replaced by post-grunge and even the TLC - 1 was slowly replaced by the ever increasing memory size of digital recorders.  These days you can record hundreds of hours onto a digital recorder that is smaller than even just the tape from a TLC - 1. 

So let us salute an invention that was surely ahead of its time.  A recorder that had a 6 hour recording time in an era when digital recorders still boasted about having 30 seconds.  A machine that would never give you a computer virus but would occasionally eat your tape.  A spy gadget that was so huge that the only way to detect it was to trip over it.  This is the TLC-1.

FAQ - How does that mini wireless spy camera work?

Instead of repeating everything I wrote in the last blog (you can read it here), I will introduce the newest generation of mini wireless cameras with a more instructional article.  Take a look at the product page to see prices and all the specifications.

The Camera

As you can see in the picture, the little camera has an antenna for the audio/video transmission, and also a wire with a power connector.  This plugs into the included 4V DC power supply.  Once you have power connected, it is just a matter of placing the camera in the desired location.  This requires a bit of imagination and finesse.  At least you can use the monitor to aim the camera precisely and make sure it is right side up.

The Receiver

The receiver is also a monitor and DVR.  Ideally, you should always connect the receiver to a power supply, but it can run on battery power for about 90 minutes if necessary.  There is a switch to choose either playback, motion activation or continuous record modes.  Simply switch to the mode you want to use.  Next to this switch is the micro SD slot.  If you want to record anything you will have to insert a micro SD card (not included with this product) up to a maximum of 32GB.  If you want to be sure the card will work properly and has nothing else on it, you should go to the Format function in the System Menu. 

The two main menus are called "function" and "system"

Remember once you say yes everything on the card will be erased

Formatting the SD card in the receiver menu will ensure that it is formatted exactly the way this device wants it.  If you format it with a computer, you may choose the wrong setting and the card may not work properly.

Next you should set the time and date.  If you don't want time and date on your videos, there is a separate menu option to turn off the time and date stamp.  After setting this up, you have to choose what happens when the memory card is full.  The first option is to "Overwrite" in a never ending loop of video, which means you oldest recordings are constantly being erased as new recordings are made.  The other option is to turn "Overwrite" off, which simply tells the DVR to stop recording when the memory is full.  You can always erase the memory yourself and record again.

Spoiler: "Date Time" has nothing to do with dinner and a movie

"Off" means the recording will stop when memory is full

There are several other functions and settings I won't go into - after all there is a manual you can read - but I want to mention one other important concept involving the receiver.  I personally prefer to use the receiver on a fully charged battery in case I want to walk around with it or if I need to unplug it for any reason.  However, if you leave the receiver on record with the screen activated all the time, it uses so much power that it slowly kills the battery even while it is charging.  There is a simple solution in the system menu, called Power Save, to avoid this paradox.  You can set the LCD screen to auto shut off (1 or 5 minutes) which has no effect on the actual recording.  In other words your receiver will still function fully as a DVR but the screen will shut off until you press a button to see the image again.  When the LCD screen is asleep, it restores the balance of charging the battery into the positive side.  Please note that there is another setting to auto shut off the whole device so make sure you only activate the LCD to auto off.

Pressing any button will turn the LCD back on

Adding More Cameras

A question we hear a lot is whether you can use one receiver with more than one camera.  The answer to this, like everything in life, is not black and white.  You CAN change channels with the receiver so you can obviously view more than one camera.  You CAN change channels with the camera so you can put each camera you have on a different channel and they will not interfere with each other.  You CAN set the receiver to auto switch between the channels of your choosing (see image below).  What you CANNOT do is record more than one camera at one time!  In other words, if you have two cameras, you will see HALF of the feed from each one.  Not too bad, you still get a sense of what is happening.  However, let's say you have five cameras, you will see each one for only 1/5 of the time, which probably isn't good enough for many applications.  Please note that none of our other wireless cameras have multiple channels like the Mini Wireless Spy Camera has.

Up to eight cameras may be viewed on one receiver

Each camera should be on a different channel to avoid total protonic reversal

Hopefully this quick guide is enough information to help you decide whether this is the proper camera for your application.

Hans School
President, Spytech

Questions or comments:  stproductinfo@gmail.com

New Product - Incredible Mini Wireless Camera Invades Canada

Amazingly, despite our vast selection of hidden cameras, sometimes our customers insist on hiding their camera themselves.  We are happy to announce that we have finally caved in to this demand and will now carry the newest technology in wireless miniature surveillance cameras!  These are not disguised as anything, they are just small in size and loaded in features.  The DVR that comes with this package has motion activation and endless looping record capability for those long term recording scenarios.  It also has a 5" monitor in case you need to view a live feed from the camera.

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Thanks to global warming Spytech climatologists have discovered wireless cameras that were hidden under arctic ice for centuries.

The applications for this type of camera are endless.  Of course people most often use them for typical video surveillance projects as a substitute for any of our other cameras.  You could also mount them on a drone, produce gnarly extreme sports videos, investigate your pet cat, make a secret foodie vlog or catch people entering your property without permission.  Our customers generally hide these among their existing household items so there is the least amount of noicable change.  Some of the more common places are around fake plants or inside tissue boxes.

So if the hidden cameras in our video section are not hidden exactly the way you like, then check out the specifications of this Mini Wireless Camera, as it may just be easier to work with one of them instead.

Click image to see product page with specifications...