What was the first webcam used for?
The first webcam was invented in 1991 to check if a coffee pot was empty.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge were tired of walking to the breakroom and finding no coffee. They set up a camera to send live pictures of the pot to their computer screens.
Nerd's Section
Dr. Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky created the system at the University of Cambridge. They used a Philips camera and an Acorn Archimedes computer. The camera took three grayscale photos every minute. This allowed everyone on the local network to see the coffee level from their desks.In 1993, the feed was connected to the early World Wide Web. This made the 'Trojan Room Coffee Pot' the first webcam available for anyone to see online. The images were small at only 128 by 128 pixels. They only showed four shades of gray.The webcam stayed online for ten years until August 2001. When it was turned off, the Krups coffee machine was sold on eBay for 3,350 British pounds. A German magazine bought it. This project showed how people could use the internet to monitor physical objects in real time.Today, this technology is called the Internet of Things. It led to the development of modern video streaming and security cameras. Billions of devices now use these same basic ideas to share live video across the world.
Verified Fact
FP-0002866 · Mar 25, 2026