Did you know... the very first webcam was built in England to monitor a coffee pot!
Researchers at the University of Cambridge in England built it so they could see if there was coffee in the pot before making a trip to the breakroom!
Built in 1991, it initially connected only to the local network. in 1993, it was made accessible on the internet, making it one of the earliest examples of a live webcam feed.
Webcam caches are rare in geocaching today because they are a legacy cache type, meaning they are no longer published on Geocaching.com, and the existing ones are being archived as they go offline. The ability to publish a webcam cache was discontinued on Nov. 6, 2005. This happened because Groundspeak, the company behind Geocaching.com, decided that logging by taking a snapshot with a webcam should be part of the Waymarking game instead.
However, there are still webcam caches out there. If you find one, there are certain procedures to follow to log it.
To log a Webcam Cache, follow these steps:
- At the posted coordinates, stand within view of the associated webcam.
- Go to the website that shows the webcam feed. If the webcam is not in service you cannot claim your “find” online.
- Follow the instructions on the cache page. Sometimes the cache owner will require you to pose in a specific location or in a specific way.
- Use your phone to capture a screenshot of the webcam image or arrange for a friend to take a screenshot on a computer.
- To post your log, select the “Webcam photo taken” log type and attach your captured webcam image.
Only logs with a screenshot from the webcam feed are acceptable. Logs with photos taken at the location can be deleted by the cache owner.