Monitoring system and method having gesture detection

A monitoring system comprising:

• an imaging device configured to capture and transmit images;
• and
• a controller in communication with the imaging device, the controller including
• a memory communicably coupled to the imaging device and storing a database of specific gestures and a database of facial characteristics of a plurality of specific persons,
• a gesture detecting module including instructions that, when executed, compares an image of a person captured by the imaging device to the database of gestures and identifies a specific gesture,
• a facial detecting module including instructions that, when executed, compares the image captured by the imaging device to the database of facial characteristics and identifies the person in the image captured by the imaging device as a first specific person, and
• an execution module including instructions that, when executed, execute a specific assigned task that is pre-associated with a determined combination of the specific gesture and the first specific person,
• wherein the specific gesture is a first specific gesture, and the specific person is a first person, and further comprising, using the facial detection module, identifying an image of a second person captured by the imaging device as second specific person, and wherein the execution module is configured to execute a specific task upon identifying a second specific gesture by the second specific person, the second specific gesture being different than the first specific gesture.