Patent ID: 7702135

Claim:
An image monitoring system comprising: a central controller; and a plurality of digital still camera units operatively connected to the central controller, wherein at least one of the camera units comprises an image sensor; a motion detector operatively connected to the image sensor that causes the image sensor to receive digital still image data when motion is detected; a micro controller operatively connected to the image sensor and to the motion detector; a first nonvolatile memory operatively connected to or included in the micro controller; and computer readable program code stored on the first memory for causing the micro controller to determine whether the digital still image data should be transmitted to the central controller, wherein the central controller then determines whether the digital still image data should be transmitted to a monitoring station; wherein at least one of the camera units includes a pre-trigger feature that, following a detection of motion by the motion detector, transmits to the central controller a series of buffered digital still images captured before the detection of motion.