She hadn't expected the camera also might capture awkward moments closer to home, like the time it caught her daughter grabbing a beer and talking about how controlling her mother was. "I never told her about that one," she said with a laugh.

Amazon's Ring, Google's Nest and other Internet-connected cameras - some selling for as little as $59 - have given Americans the tools they need to become a personal security force, and millions of people now seeing what's happening around their home every second - what Ring calls the "new neighborhood watch." (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

But the allure of monitoring people silently from afar has also proved more tempting than many expected. Customers who bought the cameras in hopes of not becoming victims joke that instead they've become voyeurs.