brinno gardenwatchcam: time-lapse digital garden camera shoots video slightly more interesting than watching paint dry

Want to know if your green thumb is really green? This nifty garden gadget lets you keep watch over your budding plants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from across the globe if you want.

The Brinno GardenWatchCam observes your flowers as they grow, taking time lapse digital photos at intervals ranging from 1 minute to 24 hours apart. Just set the camera in front of your plants, set the desired interval, and start capturing your garden as it takes shape. You can also include time and date stamps on your images if you want. Here’s an example video taken from the GardenWatchCam’s time lapse images.

The camera is designed to take 1.2 megapixel macro images from as little as 20-inches away from your subject, or can be set to a distance focus mode for plants more than 20 inches away. Images are captured in JPEG format and can be saved into an AVI video file, and you can store up to 2GB of pictures on any USB flash drive. The camera runs on 4-AA batteries and should be able to shoot images for 4 to 6 months depending on the interval you set.

Of course, you don’t have to use it to shoot time lapse videos of flowers. Pretty much anything that takes a long time to happen is a potential subject…

You can find the GardenWatchCam over at Amazon for $139.99 (USD). More example videos can be seen here.