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2021
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I found that one of my other camera phones with very low storage capacity (500MB) ran out of space due to Security Camera CZ, which caused it to fail and the phone to get very sluggish. Not sure what it was storing however. Is it possible to limit its storage usage?
The camera deals with low storage automatically - it deletes the oldest images to make a space for new images. But yes, storing images in the camera takes place. There are two possibilities - if you are on Android 4.4 or higher, you can add an SD card to the camera and the app will automatically store images there. Second option is to switch the camera to store images at Google Drive. Google offers 15GB of free space for each account, so this is a convenient solution if you are on Wi-Fi with your camera and do not worry about data transfer.
I just downloaded the app and I don't know how to get the images.
You can download images if you go to preview of an image (just tap on the image) and then press small down-arrow (in the bottom left corner). The image will be downloaded to your phone.
The camera-phone is hanging upside down, and the picture on the monitor-phone rotated 90 degrees both when holding the phone vertically and horizontally.
The app unfortunately supports only "landscape" images, which means that the picture is like in TV and never "tall" (higher than wide). This is because I didn't figure any nice way how to display tall "portrait" images in the app.
Why should I turn on GPS?
You don't have to, it is optional. GPS is used for the function "turn off motion detection, when I am nearby my camera". If you don't enable location services for the application, this function will not be available (but the application will still work).
I have the software installed on two mobiles. One as a camera and one as a monitor. In the monitor I can change parameters such as movement sensitivity. But the modifications that I make are not saved, why?
The camera should be fully adjustable from the monitor. If any settings aren’t saved in the camera, then there is some problem in communication - the camera doesn't receive commands from monitor. First of all, please check if the internet connection is OK.
My two Alcatel (TCL) Tracfone cameras keep stopping the Security Camera CZ app. I believe I have a workaround i.e. I'm using Automate for Android to open the Security Camera CZ app every 5 seconds which seems to prevent the phone from stopping the app.
Thank you for your info about the Automate app, it is interesting. Of course you can do whatever you want. I would recommend prolonging the interval from 5 seconds to much longer (let say 5 minutes) to avoid situation when the app crashes for some reason (no memory for instance) immediately after start. In this case the app would restart each 5 seconds and because the app makes some hard work on start-up, including data transfers, this payload would be made each 5 seconds - this wouldn't be quite good for the phone.
I just discovered on https://securitycamera.cz has a web monitor! Awesome! It's in beta but I didn't notice it advertised on the google play story listing. Are there any special notes about this feature, i.e. why it's in beta?
I've published the web couple months ago and I wasn't quite sure about its functionality for crowds, so I've marked it as Beta. I think I can remove the label now.
Hello, I wanted to suggest you put a siren button when you are viewing the live image. I know that there is the option of the siren when it detects movement, but it would be very useful to be able to activate the siren when you are looking at the camera at the moment.
It is very interesting and funny idea :-) I will think about it!
Where do you twist the picture?
There isn't such an option. I made maximum for the images to be in a right position (rotation). Do you face any issue concerning wrong picture rotation? Please also note that this app support landscape only images at this moment.
The camera screen turns off, and after a while the camera turns off and no longer turns on remotely.
The fact that camera screen goes off is OK. This application runs on background, even when
screen is off.
The camera application should not go offline by itself. Please check, if there is
a sufficient internet connection on the camera side, because the camera can look like
offline only because it cannot be reachable over internet.
When I try to do so now, it won't let me. When I try to record it shows the message: "Can't record on this device, sorry" and when I try to save the preview image, it's says "Ooops, error downloading image."
Yes, the system saves recordings and preview images locally. I have already received a couple of emails with the same issue - all of them from Android 10 users. Didn't you migrate in past few days to a new Android 10 operating system? The app has probably some bug that appears only on Android 10 - video recording and saving preview images stop working. I will fix this issue on Android 10 asap.
I noticed that from time to time Security Camera CZ losses connection. It probably crashes. As I am planning to use this on a remote site with no regular physical access I need to get over that problem. I will either need some way to automatically restart the application in such cases or use some other remote control/admin app which will let me restart the application. As you are probably more experienced than me, can you advise?
One of my users uses TeamViewer for similar purpose you describe. It seems that it works for him exactly as intended.
Will this automatically delete old images in Google drive once the storage runs out?
Yes, by default, when Google Drive is full, the app will delete (its own) oldest images in order to make free space for new images. You can disable this feature: go to camera Settings -> Full resolution image storage -> check "Don't delete old images automatically. I maintain Google Drive space by myself."
How come it's so hard to view the camera in real time?
There are two most usual reasons for this issue:
1/ there is poor or unstable internet connection on one or both devices (camera and monitor), or
2/ the camera device has low performance, so it is not able to record, encode and
transmit live video. In this case, the best solution is to make a factory reset of the
camera device, which removes old stuff and makes the device to work more smoothly.
When I start/restart my tablet (as camera) the app starts at the same time. Is it possible to activate the app. manually?
Yes, you are right. I supposed that the camera device will be used only as a camera (so not for any other purpose). I will consider adding an option for turning this feature off.
A problem I've had twice now is the camera returns an error of "can't access camera", or "can't access image sensor". This happens after several hours of operation. Today I can use the audio option to speak to the camera, but the screen is blank. What's causing that?
This happen on some oldest phones, that are already a little bit tired. The problem is, that the app takes pictures each 2 seconds, over and over. Some oldest phones simply give up this hard work and the image sensor electronics freezes. Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done against this issue. Hard restart of the phone helps, but usually only for a while. I am afraid that the only solution is to change the phone. By far not every old phone suffers from this issue, so if you have the possibility, change the phone.
Can this app record more than just still pictures when it detects motion? Could I at least set it to record more stills per incident? Today I got two frames of my mail carrier delivering my mail. If it had been an intruder I'm not sure that would be enough to identify the person.
This app - contrary to all other similar apps on the market - records motions as series of still images. It doesn't record videos. It is suitable in situations when there are longer violations, where videos would be too long. So sorry for stills only, I just wanted to create something a little bit different, may be for specific needs.
If a video is being watched on the phone being used as a camera, the volume on it instantly jumps to maximum when the monitor camera connects or disconnects. Is there a way to correct this?
That is mistake and it will be fixed in the next release.
I have my camera set up on my galaxy s8 and my monitor is on my galaxy s9. The s9 can’t seem to connect to a live feed. It loads about 4/5 of the way before returning me to the main screen of the app that shows the different cameras I have set up. Is there currently a fix for this?
This normally doesn't happen. It seems that there is some kind of firewall on your network that blocks establishing the video stream connection (because everything else is ok - your internet connection is perfect and both camera and monitor receive and send everything that is necessary). Please check if there isn't some personal firewall on your monitor phone or on your home router. You can also try to connect using cellular (mobile) internet connection. If it doesn't work, there will be something wrong on your phone.
How should that function "don't record when I'm nearby" work?
When you activate the "Turn off when I'm nearby" function, motion detection will be turned off if you are with your mobile phone (monitor) within about 100 meters of the camera. The purpose is to prevent your own movement from being detected. For example, when you come home, motion detection turns itself off. And as soon as you leave home, motion detection turns on again.
The sound is bad.
The sound quality depends purely on the camera phone - most phones have a good sound quality, but some of them are poor. Unfortunately, the application cannot improve the sound if comes in a poor quality from the camera. If you try another phone as a camera, the sound will be most probably a much better.
How can i use CCTV camera?
This application uses two smartphones, when one smartphone acts as a camera. The application unfortunately doesn't support any commercial IP cameras or CCTV systems.
After the last update, the application ignores the phone's settings for fixing the display. So even if I turn off auto-rotation, the image on the monitor will also rotate when the device is rotated. I use a Samsung S8 phone as a monitor.
You're right, I've got more requests for the video to rotate "horizontally" regardless of the screen lock, similar to other video players. I thought it was a good idea - mostly we want to watch the video "landscape". If this feature does not suit you, please let me know. I'll probably return back to rotating the video based on the phone settings and its rotation.
I get a message "Can't record on this device, sorry".
I am very sorry, but currently I can't discover any reason for the error on Samsung Galaxy S10. There is some problem opening the audio-video encoder on the device, but at this moment I have no more information. I'll continue to research on this issue.
I can't configure my wife’s camera.
That is correct. Only owner of the camera can configure it. Invited persons can only watch pictures and video. That is intended behavior.
I have noticed that the video saved from live camera is cropped and an important section of the video is lost (Up and down). That is a camera problem or software? Camera is a Samsung GT-S6310 with Android 4.1.2.
I suppose that the problem is in HD (High Definition) format, which has aspect ratio 16:9 by default. This format, in contrary to 4:3 ratios, crops top and bottom parts of the picture. You can turn off HD resolution (which is turned on by default) in camera settings. You will then obtain video in the same format as pictures of motion detection.
I have changed the HD camera set to off and now the format is 4:3. However, the resolution of the recorded video drop at 480x352.
Yes, that is the con. Unfortunately, HD video doesn't support any other aspect ratio than "narrow" 16:9, so part of the picture is always omitted.
Every time I try to open the camera it tells me I'm watching the video.
It seems that the camera is frozen for some reason. Please try to remotely restart the camera - go to camera settings, at the bottom choose "Turn on | off | delete..." and then "Turn off". As soon as the camera goes off, you can turn it back on. This should solve the problem.
I would like to download all the photos taken by the camera via my phone. But I can't download everything at once.
In your case, I would recommend connecting your phone (camera) to the computer with a cable, then you will find all the photos in the folder
(phone or SD card) /Android/Data/cz.scamera.securitycamera/files/Pictures
This way you can download them all easily and quickly to your computer.
Is there a pro version without ads?
Yes, there is - go to main menu (three dashes in the top left corner of the main screen) and select Buy - you will be taken to an info screen where you can decide for a purchase.
Remote connection to the camera does not occur. Why?
Most probably there is a weak Internet connectivity on one of the devices. Another reason can be weak performance of the camera device; in that case I would recommend to make a factory reset of the camera phone to get rid of all the old stuff. Also try to wait a little bit longer for the connection to establish. It can sometimes take up to 30 seconds.
When I have motion stop active, only images are captured, but I would be better interested in capturing a small video, maybe 10 seconds, is this possible?
Because all other similar applications on the market take short videos, I created this Security Camera CZ that takes series of still images - and offers a handy way how to go through them quickly. So, I am sorry, if you need short videos instead of images, try any other application on the market.
If I already have a video recording, how can I play it?
Existing video recordings (that you recorded manually) can be played using any video player on your phone. You can find these recordings in the standard Video or Movies folder on your phone.
I am interested in acquiring the app, but I see that sometimes the capture of the image that it does after detecting a movement is all blank, is it normal?
No, this is not normal, of course. Is the picture totally blank (white)? I haven't heard about similar problem yet, so I would guess there may be some issue regarding the camera phone. Do you have a opportunity to try a different phone as a camera?
The other day when I left home someone turned off the motion detection at least 30 times as this was how many times I had to turn it on. I changed phones and the same thing happened. I have been getting stalked around my property by a neighbor and had the ladder doing work near a camera. I noticed that the last part of motion detection was turned off when I looked at pictures. The reason I checked is the phone made a noise to signal it had been either switched on or off. Is there any way you can stop the motion detection being turned off on my email address? If I want it off I can turn it off on the phone manually as all my cameras are where I can get to them but not others, this is because I literally had to Nescafe myself in as door handles were frequently nearly at broken point.
I think there can be another reason for the described behaviour: problem in connection of the camera device. When you turn motion detection on, the gear on your monitor device rotates and waits until the new settings (motion detection on) is saved in your camera. It should take about 5 seconds. If the gear rotates much longer, it means that the new settings cannot reach the camera. Please, when you set motion detection on, always wait until the gear stops rotating (an may be go to settings and check if the motion detection is really on) to be sure that camera successfully received new settings.
The sound from the camera is not clear but metallic and with echo.
Does this happen each time you connect to the camera? If yes, there will be probably some codec issue in the camera device. I don't have any complaints from other users, so I guess it could be a problem of just this one device. Can you try another phone as a camera? Or try to make a factory reset of the current device, it very often helps.
You said I could use my old phone for security reasons, but my old phone doesn't not have data to in data to install this app on to use as a monitor. I believe you forgot to mention that.
Can you use a Wi-Fi connection on your old phone? In that case you don't need data.
What exactly is the camera considered to be shown as offline?
The camera is considered and shown as offline when it doesn't respond for a one minute to any commands. It doesn't necessarily mean it is turned off or so, only that it didn't respond for a while.
For how long is the free try out?
The free version includes all features and should work well without any interruptions or problems. Paid version only remove the ads.
What does this service cost?
The application is free (including all features) if you don't mind ads. If you want to get rid of ads, you can check the price (for your country), when you go to the main menu (three dashes on the top left corner) and select Buy - you can check the price there.
I have two cameras connected and one of them disconnects very frequently. Also the Wi-Fi goes out and the camera disconnects and if I am far away I am left without seeing what is happening.
if you have such a problem with the device, especially if the device doesn't reconnect to the Wi-Fi after drop-out, consider replacing the device with a different one. Or, if you don't have another spare phone, at least try to make a factory reset on the device and reinstall the application on a clean system. I hope that helps.
I cannot activate the video in the app. It starts for a bit moment and then exits.
I have checked logs and it seems that there is some problem on your monitor device. Each
time you start live video, the application in the monitor device restarts. Camera seems to
be ok. Is it possible to reinstall the app on your monitor device (just uninstall and
install again)?
If it doesn't help, could you test with another device as a monitor? You can for instance
send an invitation to your camera to someone (share the camera from menu) who can then test live video.
How do I get someone off my camera?
Your camera is very safe application, so no one can remotely access your camera, except you and people who you share the camera with. If you don't share the camera, so only you can access it.
How can I open withdrawn data?
Captured data are available for browsing in the app. If you want to download it to your cellphone, then open the image you want to download (tap on it) and then tap on the download button (small white down arrow) in the bottom left corner. The image in high resolution will be downloaded to your Picture folder.
Is it possible to add an existing IP camera to the application?
Unfortunately, this is not possible, the application works only within itself, i.e. on smartphones.