Is the Homeboy, interesting product name, a DropCam replacement. Here’s an excerpt from PCWorld’s take on this potential competitor to DropCam.[SL]

If you’re looking for an IP camera for home security, you’ll want to know about Homeboy. It remedies almost every drawback I’ve seen in security cameras. It doesn’t cost a fortune. And you’ll be able to buy one soon—without having to participate in a crowd-funding campaign.

If Homeboy looks familiar, it’s because it built on the intellectual property developed for the Hive camera that garnered a lot of attention about two years ago, but that was ultimately never brought to market.

Homeboy runs on a rechargeable battery, so you can put it virtually anywhere indoors (it’s not weatherized against the elements). It eliminates the expense associated with a monitoring service that can contact an emergency dispatcher, but it delivers some of the most important benefits a paid monitoring service provides. It can function as a stand-alone device, or you can integrate it into your home-control system to trigger other devices, such as a light switch.