Man Uses iPhone App To Help Thwart Burglars

Can you imagine watching thieves break into your house? Last week, Vince Hunter from Dallas found himself in this situation while visiting family 1,500 miles away in Connecticut. While pumping gas, Hunter received a text message to alert him that the motion detectors in his house had been activated. Because Hunter’s house had been broken into before, he decided to invest in an elaborate security system. This system includes three different cameras which can stream surveillance video to any computer. Thanks to the iPhone app called iCam, Hunter is able to watch this video from his iPhone as well.

After receiving a text message alerting him that the motion detectors had been activated, Hunter pulled up the live video feeds on his iPhone. Hunter’s wife also received a text message about the motion detectors so she called him to see what was going on and he asked her to notify the security company.

During the course of the attempted burglary, Hunter watched the thieves and then later watched as police arrived on the scene. As he described it, "I go back to the footage, sure enough, they're in the backyard checking things out. They're throwing bricks ... at the tempered glass and they can't break it three times. Finally, it appears they wind up and kind of go back in that area, and they just hurl this brick through the glass and ... this brick ends up in our living room."

Fortunately for Hunter, the thieves were spooked by the alarm system and ran away empty-handed. Unfortunately, his neighbor wasn’t as lucky. According to police, the robbers cleaned out her house minutes before targeting Hunter’s home. Police are using the footage from Hunter’s security system to attempt to track down the thieves.