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Camera
Monitor
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2021
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2019
How does this app work?
This app can make a home security camera from your old smartphone. To make start using this app, please install the app on two smartphones - one old phone will be you home security camera, which you will watch using your personal smartphone.
Please note that you must use the same login account on both phones!
The app works just out of the box, so no especial settings is necessary.
Hi.
I have a problem with the app. When I am looking at the cameras, they have a red battery’s color.
The red color of the battery icon means that the battery of the camera is discharging. Please plug the camera to a charger or if you made that, check if the charger and especially the cable is in good condition.
How can I remove ads from the app? Is there some kind of payment? How can I pay?
If you want to remove ads and get the other advantages, you can pay a small amount. This payment is for one year and is not automatically prolonged.
To make the payment, there is currently only one option - using the standard Google payment in the phone. To do that, go to the main menu in the app and choose "Buy..." option. You will see the price valid for your country and simple button using which you can make the payment.
With the purchase of the application how many cameras can I connect to the application?
You can have as many camera as you have, but for technical reasons, the number is limited to about 20-23 cameras per account.
How can I cancel the account in your database? I didn't find an answer anywhere.
You can cancel your account either by going to the main menu in the application, selecting "Sign out" and checking "Delete account". Or if you send an email to support@securitycamera.cz, I will cancel your account.
Every time I pull up the camera it will not show inside the house. Then I must call home and ask them to turn the camera on.
From what you say, it seems that the camera doesn't work properly. Please follow these recommendations:
1) Plug the camera into a charger. It is very important, because when the camera phone runs on battery, it tries to save power as much as possible and turns off WiFi regularly (to save energy) and then the camera seems to be "offline" and you cannot connect to the camera.
2) When possible, restart the camera phone. If there were some discrepancies, the restart will clean it.
3) Update the camera to the latest version. Each new version improves reliability.
Can we watch what is happening at home while being far from it? If yes, how to proceed?
Using this app, you can watch your home while being away. To do that, install this application on some old smartphone (this will be your remote camera), log in using some account and choose "Camera" mode. Then install the same application on your personal smartphone, log in using the same account as on your camera and choose "Monitor" mode.
The camera by default detects motions and sends notifications to your monitor. You can also watch live if you press the "video" button.
It would be useful for me to combine some more cameras in the system, not only old android devices (i.e. an IP camera to be placed outside and the camera of a desktop pc running windows). Can your system integrate any type of standard commercial cameras I can buy? Is it possible to run the camera-software on a windows pc?
This application cannot deal with commercial cameras, I am sorry. But you can watch your cameras from your PC if you visit the web page https://securitycamera.cz and choose the "Web monitor (beta)" link.
Also, starting from version 2.5.0, the application support IP camera protocol, which enables to watch your (Security Camera CZ) cameras using standard IP protocol on HLS and RTSP formats.
Remote turn on is not working.
If the camera cannot be turned on remotely, there can be three reasons:
1) error on the monitor phone: try to restart the application on the monitor phone (close the app, remove it from the list of applications running on the background and start the app again);
2) the camera has lost access to internet: check if the camera is connected to internet, you can disconnect it and connect it again, just to be sure;
3) the camera phone died or the application on the camera phone died: you will have to start the app or phone again manually.
The battery level has disappeared, how can I activate it again?
The battery level is not shown when the battery status (of the camera) is FULLY CHARGED. When the battery status is different, for instance CHARGING, DISCHARGING etc., the batter status is show with appropriate info.
So in your case, if you don't see the battery icon, then the battery in the camera is OK and its status is FULLY CHARGED.
I have connection problems despite the fact that both mobile phones have Internet. The live stream cuts off within a second. Could you tell me the reason for the failure?
If you have problems with connecting to the camera (to watch the live feed), I would first try to connect to the camera when both phones (camera and monitor) are on the same WiFi. If this connection fails again, restart both the camera and the monitor phones.
If the connection over local WiFi will work, but it doesn't work otherwise, there will be some problem in the networking. Then I would restart the WiFi router you use.
Hello,
I recently downloaded your app Security Camera, and in the help section IP CAMERA of your site you wrote this:
To set up the IP camera, enable the "IP camera mode". Although the live stream is available on your local network only, it is still recommended to enable the "Password required" option, which will protect your live stream from unauthorized access.
I do not see anywhere the possibility of getting access to the "IP Camera Mode". So can you explain how I can access to these settings so that I can use the RTSP as described by you?
These new functions like IP camera are available since the latest version of the app 2.5.0. This new version was already released, but it is deployed gradually to users so if you don't see it in your Google Play store yet, it will be available to you in couple of days.
How can I download the photos and videos? I recently got that option and now I don't see it?
The option to download images is still there.
1) First select images you want to download - on the Alarms screen, you can mark images using a long press one by one, or you can long press on a day title to select all images of a day. Or you can double long press on an image to select all images from that bundle.
2) Then press the Share icon and send the selected images to anywhere you want.
In the camera settings, there is also an option to change the default storage for high resolution images and store them (instead on the camera internal memory) on your Google Drive.
Videos that you record manually during watching the live feed are always stored to your personal "monitor" phone and nowhere else. You can find them in the standard "Movies" folder in the phone from which you started the recording.
Hello,
Thank you for such a great app. I do enjoy it on its free version with ads. I only have one question, after checking the documentation, I was not able to find how to add a second phone/camera. Can you please advise on this?
To add another camera, install the application Security Camera CZ on another phone and log in using the same account as you used on your previous camera and monitor. Then choose this phone will be the camera and that is all. The new camera will immediately appear on your monitor phone.
To the purpose of 3d print monitoring, I have converted an old laptop webcam to an USB camera. Is there any way to connect this camera to the app?
I definitely plan to support USB cameras. At least because they can have extraordinary functions, like infrared light and real night vision functions. I will add it asap.
1. The application detects movement, then the camera starts to takes photos. How many of that photos it takes? The movement can be taken single photo, or it can be taken in several individual movements, but it also can be continuous. How will the SC react in these cases?
2. Photos are small and full resolution. Where are the first ones stored? If in the camera's memory (I don't have an SD card), can they be deleted from the monitor? I want to store full resolution photos in Google Drive and I have selected this option in the settings. But does deleting low resolution photos delete full resolution photos from Google Drive?
3. At any time and after an alarm, you can open the preview on the monitor, also with a flashlight. You can start video recording. And the photos? How to make them?
4. Yesterday, during the tests, the camera refused to obey: it did not react to movement and did not send alarm signals. Coincidence or some reason. What could it be?
5. How to turn off the siren? I had trouble with it during the tests and I don't know how I managed to turn it off. I don't think even turning off the smartphone with the power key was possible, so I gave up the siren, but I would like to use it.
6. Can the camera be turned off and on remotely from the application on the monitor? After starting the SC in the camera, is it left in such a state for a longer time (e.g. for the winter in a summer house). Will frost interfere with monitoring? Do I need to insulate the camera somehow?
7. How to deal with the monitor after starting the SC on the monitor and camera? Leave it like this or turn it off? During the tests, the SC disappeared and had to be restarted. Will alarm messages be received and displayed on the monitor when the SC is disabled?
8. Is the constant connection of the charger to the camera too harmful for the battery? There are signs that batteries swell quickly, destroy smartphones and even cause fires in chargers. SC informs about the temperature and battery charge status, so if there is a threat, the camera could be turned off. But how?
9. Can the SC send alarm messages via text messages and e-mails, with photos attached, or only in the form of a message displayed on the monitor, with a selected sound signal?
10. What does sharing overview allow? Does the beneficiary of the sharing need to have an SC and does it access settings, delete photos, etc. and will it receive alarm signals? Can I share the system with a security company?
11. Can a laptop or desktop with Windows 10 be used as a monitor? Do I need an Android emulator or is there any SC version for Windows? If emulator, which one? Recommended on the web (I don't remember the name) is available in a higher version than those included in the guides and the entire installation process requires a lot of knowledge. How to deal with it?
1) The application on the camera phone takes photo each 2 seconds and compare each photo with the previous one. If the camera detects some movement, it stores that photo and sends you a notification with a low resolution photo of the movement. The camera can detect up to 3000 movements per day.
2) Photos of the movements are stored in the camera storage. If the camera doesn't have a free space to store more images, it automatically deletes the oldest images in order to make a free space. It is recommended to add and SD card to the camera phone. Another option is to setup the camera to store high resolution images to the Google Drive storage.
If you delete an image on your "monitor" phone, the image is deleted from everywhere - also from Google Drive.
3) During watching the live feed, the camera doesn't detect movements. So if you currently watch live, no motions can be detected.
4) There can be several reasons for this. Please check if you didn't reach the limit of 3000 images per day. Another common reason is that the Android operating system decided to close the application on the camera. This happens when the camera is full of old applications and doesn't have enough resources. In this case, I recommend to clean the camera phone as much as possible. The best is to make a factory reset of the phone, but this erases all data, so make factory reset only if you know what you are doing.
5) The siren starts to sound from the beginning on each detected motion. So if you set up the siren to sound 20 seconds, it will continue to sound 20 seconds after the last detected motion.
6) The camera can be turned on/off remotely from the camera settings or using a gesture (swipe the image from the camera left or right). I think you can leave it also when it freezes, it depends on the phone. If the phone works, the application will work. The only important thing is to have the phone plugged into a charger.
7) You don't need to have the "monitor" application running on your phone. Even when you close the "monitor" application, you will continue to receive notifications about alarms.
8) The application can run only when the phone runs. If the phone doesn’t have power, it will shut down. So the charger is essential. I cannot say if this is good for the phone or not. I suppose that we all use some older phones as the cameras. For instance, I work on this app for more than 6 years and I still use some phones as the cameras since that time. They are connected to a charger 24/7.
9) No. There can be sometimes thousands of alarms, so sending of SMS or email wouldn't be practical.
10) You can share your camera with someone you know. The man can only watch images of alarms, but he cannot delete them. He cannot change camera settings. But he can watch the live stream from the camera.
11) On windows, try the web version at https://securitycamera.cz. Please not that it is still in beta version. Some other users already tried some Android emulators and I think it worked for them, but I don't remember the emulators names, sorry.
The app works great with one little problem. Why can't I download a picture saved at night in high resolution? There is no download button.
The reason why the button is missing is that the picture taken in "night mode" has obviously such a low quality that it wouldn't make a big sense to have the picture in high resolution. If you have a different opinion, please let me know.
Please help me, how can I use a smart camera in night mode?
To use the night mode, please go to the camera settings and look for an item "Night Mode". Click on it and choose when the night mode should be turned on "Always", "Never" or "In dark only". Also note that during the live feed, you can turn on/off the night mode temporarily when you click on the "bulb" icon in the top right corner of the video screen.
If I pay for the app does it apply to all the devices that I use with the app? For instance if I have 2 devices running as cameras and 1 device as the viewer, does the paid version cover all the devices using the same account?
Yes, when you pay for the app, the payment will cover all your devices - all cameras and all monitors.
I can't connect to the camera to watch the live stream.
If you have problems to connect to your camera to watch the live feed, there will be most probably some problem with internet connection on the camera side or on the monitor side. I would recommend to restart both phones and if you can, also the WiFi router.
Let me know if it doesn't help.
The app misinterprets changes in the luminance as motion. Now in the darker season, with lights switched on and off in the rooms, it turns the app quite useless because of false alarms. I tried to decrease the sensitivity and zones, but the problem remains.
Avoiding false alarms is one of the most challenging problems in all similar applications. When light conditions (in a room for instance) significantly change, technically it is very difficult to distinguish it from a movement. I understand that you need to avoid false alarms but I am afraid that most applications will produce false alarms when light conditions significantly change.
How can I delete group of pictures instead of one by one. There are so many of them.
On the screen with pictures you can mark an image by a long press. You can also mark a whole bundle of images by double-long press on an image. Or, you can mark all images of a whole day by a long press on the day title. Marked images can be easily deleted by a single click on the trash icon.
Please fix the "can't access image sensor" error message.
To fix this error, please do not close the application on the camera phone. Leave the app on the display. Then the error message will not re-appear.
After the last update, I see that the remote video does not work, nor does it turn off and on. Before it worked very well.
The problem shouldn't be in the update, because it works for lots of users. Please try to restart the phone and if it doesn't help, reinstall the application. That should definitely solve the issue.
How to switch between camera and monitor modes? And how can I watch my camera on a computer?
you can change between camera and monitor mode. To do that, go to the main menu and choose Sign out... Then sign in again and choose whatever mode you need.
On the computer, just go to the web page https://securitycamera.cz and choose "Web monitor (beta)". From that page you can watch your camera.
Lately I've been having issues with some of my Camera's showing that they are off or dead. Or display the incorrect battery percentage. When I go to physically check them my phones are on, but when checked on your app they do not show. They display as Off and won't turn on.
Unfortunately, the Android system decides, time by time, to shut down the running application. I put a big effort to avoid this, but in current version of the app it can still sometimes happen. When this happen, the only way is to start the app again manually. I hope I will avoid this issue completely in a future.