Patent ID: 7339608

Claim:
A monitoring system, comprising: a camera unit comprising a cordless radio transceiver operable at a first frequency and a video transmitter operable at a second frequency; a video cordless telephone handset comprising a cordless radio transceiver operable at the first frequency and a video receiver operable at the second frequency; and a base unit, the base unit being operable at the first frequency to be in, at least periodic, communication using a cordless radio transceiver to communicate with the camera unit and the video handset unit, and the camera unit being operable to detect motion and automatically transmit an alert, the alert comprising one of (i) a signal to cause the video cordless telephone handset to indicate that motion has been detected and (ii) a still image to at least one of the base unit and video handset, wherein the camera unit transmits streaming video only after receiving an activation signal from the video handset or the base unit, the activation signal being made in response to the alert.