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2021
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Is there any way to keep the app hidden?
The application cannot be hidden, I am sorry. That would be against Google Play store rules. By the way, the Android system continuously improves against hidden apps, so I doubt that it is even possible to hide an app that uses camera and microphone on modern Android operating system (version 11).
The application shows that the connection is lost and I have to open it all the time.
If the live stream stops with the message "connection has been lost", there will be most probably some problem with internet connectivity of the camera or monitor phone. I would recommend to restart both the camera and monitor phone and if you can, also the WiFi router.
Hi there. Apparently I've passed my year for ad free. Is it possible to renew that? If so how can I do it?
To renew the ad-free year, please just go to the main menu (three dashes in the top left corner on the main screen) and choose Buy... You will see your purchase status there and the option to renew the ad-free year.
I am a premium user of the app, once the app detects a motion and sends the image to the monitor, for example if there are 38 captured images, few of them are visible and few of them become blank, like a black screen. I have checked physically that no one is blocking the camera. The live video works perfectly but the images are a black screen. Please look after the issue because there is motion detection but half of the images are completely black.
Sometimes it takes couple of seconds before the image is loaded into the monitor phone - during that time the image looks like "black". You can check if there is just a problem with loading the images: go to the image preview screen (just tap on an image) and then hit the "download" button on the bottom left side of the screen (white "down" arrow). Wait a little bit until the high resolution image is loaded from the camera. This is the real image that were captured by the camera, in high resolution. Is this image also black?
The date on my videos are off by one day. It's showing the 24th instead on 23rd. Is there a way to fix this?
The date/time in the application is always taken from the data/time settings of the camera phone. Please check and fix the date/time settings on the camera phone. Just to be sure, please also check the date/time settings on the monitor phone.
Good afternoon, I have been using your application and everything was going very well, I liked the application... until 3 days have passed, that I cannot connect with the camera. When trying to do it, it only shows me images until Monday in the morning, and it doesn't show more. I tried to connect with the camera and it has not been possible, it says that the image sensor cannot be accessed. I'm outside and I can't access the phone, is there any way to correct this error?
This error message sometimes appears, when the phone that is used as the camera is old and already a little bit tired. When the electronics on the camera phone freezes, the application loses access to the camera image sensor and it cannot work. Unfortunately, only hard restart of the camera phone helps in this situation. And probably this error will reappear after some time. If that happens, I would recommend you to find another phone as the camera.
I would like to know what is does mean the yellow icon of the disc that shows in the app sometimes.
This icon means that there isn't enough disc (memory) space on the place where you save your images. Normally images are saved in the camera phone memory or if you setup the camera to store images on Google Drive, then images are stored there.
Please check the storage and make some free space there. This problem isn't critical, because the app automatically deletes old images in order to make a free space for new images. But you are losing a history.
Suspending of the application happens when the camera phone is only on battery. Apparently the phone detects a high consumption and stops the application. When it is on the charger there is no such problem. I use a similar app but it doesn't have this problem. Is it possible to overcome this in Security camera as well?
The problem is that different phones behaves differently when running on battery. Some of them work well, some of them kill applications very aggressively. I put a big effort to make the application as stable as possible, but without an access to an individual phone/model it is very hard to fix an individual issue. What about plugging a small power bank in the phone, which will simulate a charger?
Hello to you,
I use this great application and it is very well designed frankly. But I would like you to add one more option. In fact, I have old Samsung on which I use your application on it. I also have termux so it's an android linux terminal and so I have ssh client on it which allows me to connect to it remotely and so much I would like to be able to turn off and on the camera just by executing a file (with a code) which will make a request on the application? Or the easiest way would be for you to add widgets that I can put on my phone's home page with a button "Camera Power On" and "Camera Power Off".
I really plan to add a small "widget" to the application with a simple button "On/Off", so please stay tuned, I will add this in some next release. Just to let you know - you can also turn on/off the camera when you slide left or right over the camera preview image.
Does purchasing a license remove ads? I bought another year and still have ads.
Please try to close and reopen the app - sometimes it is needed in order to reload your purchase status. If you still see ads, please send me your email address that you have used as the login to the app, so I can check your account and fix the purchase.
Ok.
The anomaly has happened. After only some hours of correct behavior, the picture and the camera are out of phase by 90 degrees. The phone is placed horizontally.
When BOTH picture and video from the camera are out of phase, then there is a failure of the rotation sensor in the camera phone. This failure isn't common, but I saw it already several times. You can check it by running any other app on the camera phone, it will be also out of phase. Bad news is that this is a hardware problem, which cannot be fixed by restart of the phone.
I am trying to use my old phone as the camera and my new phone as the monitor and I'm trying to set it up but I'm having trouble doing that.
Please check if you followed these steps:
1/ Install the application Security Camera CZ on both phones (old phone will be your camera; your new phone will be your monitor)
2/ Check if both phones are connected to Internet (using WiFi for instance)
3/ Run the app on the old phone. Go through the intro, and use some log in account. Then choose the CAMERA mode.
4/ Run the app on the new phone. Go through the intro, and use the same login account as on your camera phone. Then choose the MONITOR mode.
And that is it, you should now see image from your camera on your monitor! Also motion detection is turned on by default.
This app uses a lot of mobile data.
I tried to design this application especially with consideration of mobile data - the app was originally designed to be used in exteriors. So I think that this app doesn't spend much of mobile data. For instance, each 100 disruptions (images) take only about 3 MB of data transfer. Why do you think this app spends a lot of data?
Live stream from my camera has a wrong orientation. I tried another phone and on that phone everything is all right. So I suppose that this is a problem of the Redmi phone that is used as the camera. I think that I'm not the only one to use an old Redmi as a camera...
I have checked the application's background database and there are lot of Redmi 6 cameras used by other users with this application installed. Until now however, no one have complained about such an issue. Previously, I had an issue, when a rotation sensor on a camera was broken, but then BOTH the images (preview and live feed) had wrong orientation. If you want and have a time, you can check the live feed using a computer - open the web https://securitycamera.cz, go to the tab "Web monitor (Beta)", log in and open the live feed. Has the stream also wrong orientation?
Okay thank you for your clarification but I still didn't get the answer to my other question does leaving the charger plugged into my Android phone will it damage my battery and phone.
I believe that modern charger and its electronics successfully controls the charging process and when battery is full, it stops charging (although the cable is still connected to the phone). But I am not a pro in charging, so if you need to be sure, please ask someone for more reliable answer.
Why does this app want you to keep your charger plugged into the camera and will it damage your battery or phone?
The main reason is that the app consumes lot of power when the motion detection is turned on (basically, the camera sensor, which in progress, consumes the power). Also, Android phones tend to go to the sleep mode when not connected to a charger. In sleep mode, they turn off some electronic parts to save power - for instance WiFi module, so the phone then seems to be offline for some periods of time. For that reason, it is recommended to plug in a charger. But if you don't, the camera application will still work.
Your application consumes a lot of power online. Is it possible to turn on the camera in frame-by-frame mode with a period of 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours etc.?
The application consumes power only when the motion detection is on. You can achieve the behavior you want by using the scheduler, which is part of the app - just go to the app settings, choose Scheduler item and setup desired times.
Hi how do I know that the app is working?
You can recognize that your camera is working when you look at the main screen - the camera panel has a colored strip on the left side. When this strip is green, the camera is working and online. When the strip is red, the camera is turned off or offline.
Except that, when the camera is online, there is a small yellow icon the top left corner of the camera preview. You can recognize the status of the camera by this icon:
* no icon - the camera doesn't do anything
* burst images icon - the motion detection is on
* home icon - the motion detection is postponed because you are nearby the camera
* clock icon - the motion detection is postponed because of scheduler
I would like to know if this app works without Internet.
Basically yes, when the camera doesn't have access to Internet, it stores all images locally. Then, as soon as it becomes connected to Internet again, it sends all images to you, all at once.
Trying to operate ones with Security Camera CZ but I'm using an offline network. I'm connecting both phones to an old router with a battery so I can use it during camping. Without ad support, the monitor device won't connect to the camera device. Will purchasing the product allow offline use? How can I connect the two phones without accessing internet?
The problem is that the camera and monitor phones doesn't communicate with each other directly "peer-to-peer", but the communication goes over internet. So even when both phones are on the same WiFi, but the WiFi cannot access Internet, the whole system will not work. I am sorry for this.
The application doesn’t let me change the detection area or set the sensitivity. My camera phone is a UMX and the phone I'm using to view is a Motorola e6. I even signed in using a different email and that didn't help. So I deleted all my accounts and made a new account and it still didn't help. So I'm out of ideas.
If you cannot change settings of your camera, there will be most probably problem with internet connectivity of your "monitor" phone. Is it connected to Internet? If yes, please try to restart the app in the "monitor" phone (just close the app, remove it from the list of backgrounded apps and start it again).
How can I just delete today's images without turning off the camera?
To delete all images from a specific day (today for instance), long press on the day title (bar) of that day. All images of that day will be marked, then press the "trash" icon.
I love the way it works. But it is not saving video when a motion is detected.
This app doesn't save videos, because all other similar apps on the Google Play saves videos. I just wanted to create an application that will be a little bit different. It was also originally aimed to outdoor areas with restricted connection over mobile data, where sending small images is much cost-saving than sending videos.
How to hide the app?
I am sorry, but the app cannot be hidden. That would be against rules of Google Play store and the application couldn't be there.
Is there a way we can undelete something that was not supposed to be deleted?
I am very sorry, but what was deleted cannot be undeleted.
How can I get more light when recording at night? Otherwise it works great.
The camera has built-in auto night exposure control, so it always "lights" the image as much as possible. This function works good, so until now no manual exposure control was needed. You think that the night image is too dark? Would you send me a screenshot?
When a camera detects motion, have there be an option to have it take continuous pictures for a set amount of time or record for a set amount of time
I really plan to add similar functionality - many people prefer video over still images, so I will probably add an option to switch between still images and short videos (like all other similar apps have).
Why the camera recordings have no audio?
On Google Play, I try to notice in bold, that this application records detected movements as a series of still images in high resolution and not as a short video, like all other similar apps on the Google Play. This app is just an alternative and the only one that takes high resolution images. This can be convenient for someone, who can live with lower framerate of recorded sequence.
I use the rear camera of the S5 through a peephole to see what is happening in front of the front door and who rings the bell when I am not at home. The images from the front camera, on the other hand, are always sharp. Maybe it's due to the fact that I'm using it through a peephole. However, the camera image in the live stream is always sharp through the peephole. I will continue to watch this and thank you in advance for your help. Maybe an app update will solve the problem.
The app update will unfortunately not solve the problem, until I make some changes in the focusing algorithm :-) The problem will be really in the peephole. Please would you be so kind and send me some example of the blurred image taken through the peephole? (You can easily share an image directly from the app, just long press on it and then press the share button.)
First of all, thank you very much for providing the "Security Camera SZ" app, which can be used perfectly as a surveillance camera with another cell phone. Unfortunately, I only have a problem with motion detection. The images with motion detection are almost always blurred and you can hardly see anything on them. In the live view, on the other hand, the image is always sharp.
Perhaps it is due to the focus distance, as my camera does not support manual focus and may have to re-focus first in order to get a sharp picture. If the picture is taken directly before the autofocus has been able to focus the picture, the photos may therefore usually not be sufficiently sharp.
Or could it have other causes? Is this known or will there be adjustments in the app if necessary?
The issue you describe is quite unusual. Are also steady items in the picture blurred? Because if only moving items are blurred, the problem can be caused just by insufficient light conditions. The algorithm of taking a picture is 1) measure light conditions 2) measure focus 3) lock 4) take picture. So it would mean that this sequence doesn't work in your case. What phone model do you use as the camera?
I think what will be better app when motion photos will be send in Telegram. Please, add this function.
Thank you for your suggestion! Did you consider that there can be even hundreds of images of detected motion? If something moves in front of the camera, the camera makes one image per two seconds. I think that receiving all of them on Telegram could be a bit annoying. At this moment the app has an option to store images to Google Drive.
I've been using the security camera app for a while now I've had no problem with it but in the past 2 days I can't change the detection area and I can't zoom in or out and I'll change the detection area and I'll back up out of it and the settings icon won't start spinning to load up my new settings well it doesn't do that no more it won't turn off the motion it. But it still works in all other ways. Like detecting motion, it still sends me a notification when it does have a detection. but it won't let me change any settings on it anymore. Please let me know what to do. Or if I'm doing something wrong?
Please try to restart the application in your monitor-phone (to do so, close the app, remove it from the list of apps running on background and start the app again). Alternatively, you can restart the whole monitor-phone (but this takes more time). After that the app should work fine again. If not, please let me know.
I'm trying to use the Security Camera CZ app. The first thing it does is asking for an email address. I give it one and click Next, and it just sits there. The Next button is grayed out and a line moving across the top. Any idea what I could do to fix this?
Please restart the phone and try again - it should work after the restart.
I'm a new user of your software, so far so good. I would like to ask if there's a chance to switch camera, my current phone has two mains camera and one of those has a great angular lens, that suites much better for the case.
I have to say that maintaining cameras on modern smartphones (which have more than one front and one back camera) is my big debt in this app and I have it on the top of my must-to-do list. So I hope that the next release will fix this issue. I will be glad if you participate on beta - please let me know in about one or two weeks and I will add you to the beta program (currently there aren't newer version than on Google Play store).