How to turn your android phone into a security camera and the best free apps to use
Do you have one or more old Android phones just lying around at your home collecting dust?
If you do, why not give them a second life and turn them into a security camera? Even if your phones are a little outdated you shouldn’t have any problems doing this as long as they have a working camera and WiFi.
Whether you want to keep an extra eye on your babysitter or to find out what time the postman delivered your mail, this article will help you, step by step on how to turn your phone into a security camera. We used a Huawei P9 Plus and a Nexus 5 for this tutorial.
What is the best free app to use?
Basically, all we have to do to get this up and running is to download an app specifically made for this. One phone will be used as the camera and the other one as the viewer.
There are many security camera apps in Play Store to choose from and most of them let you use at least some features for free. In this tutorial, we decided to test three different apps that are popular and free to use.
This app allows us to record in 480p for free and 1080p if you go premium. At 480p it’s not that great. I wish image quality would have been better but since it’s free I think it’s okay and good enough for most situations but don’t expect face recognition further than 1-2 meters.
This is a screenshot with lights on indoors.
There is a night mode as well but without ir or any light source you can’t see anything. Below is a screenshot taken in complete darkness but with a flash on.
So how do you set it up? It’s very easy and straightforward. Just download and install the app on both your phones, you will need to sign in with the same Gmail account on both phones and then choose which phone you are going to use as a camera.
After you connect your phones to each other you should go to Settings> Camera Mode Setting and change to the back camera since by default it uses your phone’s front camera. Also, make sure you have the highest resolution possible. In our case, it’s 480p.
In Motion Detection Setting you should change Recording Video Quality to High. Here you can also turn off automatic uploading files to Google Drive if you wish. Motion detection works fine and gives you a beep and vibration sound when activated.
Overall a good app and since its free there is not much to complain about. Of course, I wish it allowed us to record at least 720p but you can’t get everything for free and you always have the option to go premium if you need better image quality.
Very easy to set up and start recording. Many great features like 2-way talk, free cloud storage alerts, and motion detection. Same as with SeeCiTV, the free option only allows us to record in 480p, and as we all know that isn’t the greatest image quality.
This is a picture taken indoors with lights on.
I did try the night vision option but could not get it to work, it was just total darkness.
To set it up and start recording just download the app on each device log in to the same Google account and assign one phone as camera and the other one as viewer.
The first thing you should do after you install the app is to change the image quality to high in Settings. There are many options for you to play around with in Settings. For example, you can turn off audio and change if you want email alerts when the camera is triggered by motion detection.
Something I liked is that you can choose where on the screen you want motion activated. That’s a great feature if you have an area where you don’t want motion detected.
I recommend you give it a try and see if the image quality is to your satisfaction. As long as you are not planning to record in total darkness or planning to read number plates I think this app should do just fine. Same as with other free apps if you want more features and better image quality you need to go premium.
Unlike the other apps we tried, this one is not just for smartphones but for security cameras as well. It takes a little more work to set up but it allows us to record in 1080p and it gives us many more features to work with which in the end makes it all worth it.
The best way to get this up and running is to download an IP Webcam on the phone you will be using as the security camera and then a second app called Ivideon on the phone you will be using as a viewer. Ivideon is a cloud service for surveillance cameras and is free to use up to 2 cameras.
Start the Ivideon app and create a new account if you don’t already have one. Go back to IP Webcam choose Cloud Streaming in Settings and add your Ivideon account you just created. Now activate the camera by clicking on Start Server in Settings, and your camera will start streaming.
To access the stream, open the Ivideon app again and add the camera to start viewing the stream. Now you can access your camera from anywhere. And don’t forget to change quality to high as well in Ivideon settings.
Another option to access your camera is to put the IP address in your web browser. IP Webcam will show the IP address on the screen so you can easily copy and paste.
This is how the web interface looks like. If you go to Other viewing methods it gives you many options on how you can watch the stream. For example, you can use a VLC media player to watch your camera.
There are many options in the web interface you can tweak as well. Just like WardenCam, you can choose where you want motion detection activated. It’s very useful if you have some areas where there is a lot of movement, like cars driving by in the background and you don’t want the camera to trigger every 2 min.
IP Webcam is a great app with many nice features for free that other apps will charge you money for. This app is not just for making your smartphone into a security camera, it’s made for real IP cameras as well.
OK, that’s all for now folks. Hope you liked this tutorial and see you next time.
