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2021
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I have a Samsung Note 8 with Android Pie. After the last update, I can no longer view video (the video buttons are missing) or change settings (they are grayed out). I did not receive any notification related to this change, so I assume it's a bug.
Current status of both your cameras is offline - that is the reason why the video button is missing and why most of the settings are grayed out. Please try to remotely turn the cameras on using the option in Settings (almost at the bottom). As soon as the cameras are back online, you will see all buttons as usual.
Do you guys keep copies of the data we use? The reason I'm asking is someone broke into my home and I was needing a copy.
One copy of the data is stored in the camera and another copy is stored in a private cloud (so they are available quickly online). If you need more info, please let me know.
Your work and resulting application are truly appreciated. Thank you for bringing such
high value to the market. Could you share in further detail how the location trigger works
for activation/deactivation of motion detection? The more detail you can share, the better
the function can be evaluated for deployment in operation. Though not having any failures,
a concern is available regarding the sensitivity of motion detection setting. Your app runs
wonderfully. But as a security measure, knowing ideal settings are calibrated correctly
maximizes the abilities. With the sensitivity settings, a camera has never been set at
anything but maximum. No significant false positives have been experienced outside a frame
or two on rare occasions. How could one know if there are false negatives if a setting
of 1 measure over maximum sensitivity cannot be calibrated? This concern leaves a detail
of suggested ability identified, though nothing is known of the complicity of the motion
detection beyond being done in single frame by frame still image comparisons.
Sometime ago a suggestion was sent regarding use of video to be triggered by motion detection
after still image comparisons were positively detecting. Do you have any thoughts or interest
in discussing further details of this idea?
Concerning the location trigger: the app uses standard Android mechanism called "geofence".
You can read a lot about it when you google "Android geofence". The principle is easy. Camera
gets its geographic location and sends it to a monitor. Monitor then just listens for a system
event saying that it approached the position of the camera (and vice versa). Unfortunately,
devices with Android 8.0 and newer saves power as much as possible, for this reason the geofence
functionality is a little bit slower - it can take several minutes until monitor detects that
it is close to the camera. But there isn't much that can be done with this issue.
Concerning the second part of your question. I am afraid I do not fully understand. Do
you really use _maximum_ sensitivity setting on your camera? It means that the camera is
really very sensitive to any motion and it must generate a lot of false-positive
alarms. Or do I misunderstand your question?
Well, actually I do not prepare video to be triggered by motion detection. But yes, I've
got several questions regarding this functionality, so I will probably put it on my must
to do list in the future. Currently I am preparing a better night vision and a web application,
so cameras will be accessible via browsers on desktop computers.
Why, when there is a short supply of electricity, mobile phones do not automatically reconnect?
I don't have the same problem here. Does your phone reconnect to Wi-Fi when the power is back on?
How to hide the icon from the notification bar, to make it not visible?
Thank you for your question. Hiding the main icon from the system tray is prohibited by Google, the Android producer. May be that there are some technical ways how to walk around it, but in that case the application would probably get a ban in the Google Play store. For this reason, hiding of the main icon cannot be supported.
The monitor phone says that I don't have a camera. What should I do?
Basically, you need to install the app on TWO devices, one device serves as your remote CAMERA, which you can remotely control with your second device, MONITOR. You probably want some older spare device as your camera, and your own personal device as your monitor. Install the app and log in to both devices (camera and monitor) with the SAME account. That is all, devices will pair automatically and will be immediately functional.
An excellent application, only the problem is that it does not always connect to the camera. What does it depend on?
Connecting to a camera can sometimes take a little bit longer, let's say up to 30 seconds. Also, when camera is disconnected after some network problem, it can take up to 30 seconds before it accepts a new connection, so it is necessary to wait a little bit before connecting again. I will try to improve the behavior of connecting to cameras in the near future, so it will be more reliable.
I have been trying the security camera app for about a week. Excellent job. Can you tell me where images are stored? I'd like to keep an eye on how much storage is being used. Thank you.
In the camera, there are two storages for images. One place is for low-resolution images
and another place is for high-resolution images. You can find these locations at:
Low resolution images: (SD card or internal storage)/Android/data/cz.scamera.securitycamera/files/Pictures
High resolution images are located in your default Pictures folder: (SD card or internal storage)/Pictures/Security Camera CZ/
If you download an image to your (monitor) phone using the download button (on the preview screen),
it is always stored (on your monitor device) in default Pictures folder: (SD card or internal storage)/Pictures/Security Camera CZ/
By the way, the app is storing images primary to an SD card, if an SD card is not available,
it stores to internal memory.
Sorry that it is so difficult, but it has some kind of internal logic.
Thanks for that info. Does anything ever get stored in a cloud service someplace?
Yes, as stated in the Privacy Policy and Terms, (only) low resolution images are copied to and stored in a Google cloud service, to be available online from your monitor device. The cloud service is internal at this moment and is not accessible, except from the app itself.
I've updated the app and when I go into streaming live CAM it doesn't work. All the rest of functions works fine. I use Huawei P9 lite as monitor and Samsung S4 and Motorola Moto E4 as cameras. All phones have updated application. It seems like a software bug because before the update it worked.
The last version is very stable and running well for all current users, so there must be something else that is wrong. Do you have a stable internet connection on both of your devices? If possible, would you try to hard-restart the camera device to check if it isn't blocked in any way?