There are many different video technologies available - we've been using Google Hangouts
I like the approach to setup the camera on the canes, though your wife does seem somewhat suspicious of it. I normally use the conservatory for gaming, and it has some rods across the roof that might be able to be adapted to this.
We have found that having a couple of different camera angles really helps the remote players. We haven't done 1 on 1 gaming, but have had a host / umpire moving the figures for both sides, which helps lots with measuring etc