In the past twenty years, devices such as nanny cameras have moved from the domain of the rich and famous and into the living rooms of ordinary, nine-to-five working folk. The same is true of formerly unaffordable technologies like door and window sensors and motion detector alarms.

Indeed, to say that window alarms now cost about as much as a few burgers from McDonalds is really no exaggeration. You can purchase contact pads, the simple magnetic components for door and window alarms, at large hardware and department stores, often at bargain-bin prices of under five dollars. These magnetic pads form a circuit which, when broken, signals the central alarm hub and gets that siren sounding. Even for someone with little experience in terms of working with hardware, taking on the task of installing contacts as part of their home security surveillance system will probably not pose much of a hurdle. You scarcely need more than the cabling, the contacts, some wood glue and a silicone gun. This is a service you can also have done for you by the majority of security companies, though you won't get their best prices unless you've signed up to use them to monitor your alarm system.

Installing contacts should be your first priority, as they constitute the first line of your home security surveillance system's defense against that hostile world trying to break into your home. The second line, should someone succeed in breaking in by smashing or cutting the glass of your windows, should be motion detector alarms. These are also fairly inexpensive. There are a few different types, which use different technological principles but wind up having pretty much the same effect. UWB (Ultra-Wideband) radar detectors are one. These emit sonar or radar signals, the same technology used to, you guessed it, detect enemy submarines in times of war. If the signal such a device emits gets bounced back sooner than expect, the device will register that something has moved across its detection field, and activate the alarm siren.

PIR motion detector alarms, on the other hand, are sensitive to the infrared or 'black body' radiation emitted by the objects in their cone-shaped field of view. These devices are very effective and have become a staple of home security surveillance systems across the globe. Simply put, when an object of one temperature moves past an object of another temperature, disrupting that object's infrared emissions, a PIR motion detector alarm will read this change as motion. The term 'PIR' stands for Passive Infra-Red, as PIR detectors don't shine an infrared beam like those hi-tech security systems in the movies - you'd have to shell out significantly more cash for one of those babies.

Out of all these devices, though, the potential of nanny cameras has probably grown the most. You can use them to check your house out at any time of day, by viewing their footage on your computer or cellphone. All you need to do is install them in the relevant parts of your home (which if you're actually a new parent, are those parts of the home where your baby should be), and you'll be able to tell whether the nanny's doing her job.

There is, of course, no reason you shouldn't have your entire home security surveillance system function in this manner. All you need to do is buy up a bunch of webcams and convert them into nanny cameras by putting them in common household objects and ornaments such as clocks and book-bindings. The only requirement is that your ornaments be located within reasonable proximity of a power point. The footage these makeshift nanny cameras capture can be transmitted directly to a storage cluster online, where it will remain, safe and secure, for days or weeks - the only dependency being how much you're willing to pay for the storage space. Keep in mind that an extensive home security surveillance system might require multiple terabytes of space for just a few days worth of surveillance.

There is a way to get around this, of course. It's as simple as using your motion detector alarms, along with your door and window alarms, to activate your webcams, so that they're only switched on when there's actually something going on in the house. There is a variety of software designed to integrate home security surveillance systems that allows for this, and numerous brands of security camera come equipped with motion detection right out the box.