You can hit the camera button at the top left of the screen. If you have a Via! Learner, you can emty the program and make the unit just a monitor. I dont have Via Tools open, but I think you can set the panel to goto sleep after an 8 hour time out. Every 8 hours you would need to wake the panel by any touch. After a power loss, it will goto a default screen. You will then need to hit the camera button again. The Via doesnt have the ability to power back up in its previous state