Help
Camera
Monitor
Knowledge base
2021
2020
2019
Is it possible to get and SMS message when a camera detects a motion?
No, it is not possible at this moment. I supposed that usually there will be no SIM card in the camera phone. I can add this feature in the future if there will be more requests from users.
I get an error message when I try to record video from the camera.
This message means that there was an error while starting the audio-video (AVC) encoder on your monitor device. This is probably issue that appears also in other recording apps on the phone. If you can, try to make a factory reset of the phone, to clean it and reset the AVC encoder to its basic state.
I would like to use two phones. how can I do this? use two phones as a camera and one as a monitor.
To use more phones as cameras is very easy - just install the app on another phone and use the SAME LOGIN (email) as you have used on your previous devices (and choose camera mode). The device will be added to your account and will be available immediately. You can add as many phones/devices as you want.
Since the last update I have the problem that the camera I am connecting to turns up the volume to max which is really annoying.
At the beginning of the live stream, the camera really adjusts its audio level to the max. It is from the first version and it is intended - I suppose that the listener doesn't hold the camera in his hand and instead he is standing more or less far from the camera, so adjusting volume to maximum is reasonable.
I am using security camera CZ app but it becomes deactivated automatically why?
The camera is shown as "offline" when it is not reachable (it doesn't respond) for about one minute. It doesn't necessarily mean it is really off, just it is currently not connected to Internet. Try to check its internet connection or force to turn it on remotely.
It doesn't work. How can I connect both phones together?
The only thing you need is to use the same login account on both devices.
If your devices are currently confused, just logout from the menu (on both devices) and
start again. To be quite sure, you can hit "delete my account" in the logout dialog, so you
will start from scratch.
Good morning. Is there a paid version of this app? If so how to purchase?
Yes, just go to the mail menu (tree dashes in the top left corner on the main screen) and choose "Buy". You will be taken to very easy screen where you can decide for the purchase.
I am trying to switch camera to detect motion, but it does not save the settings.
When the gear rotates (after some changes in settings), it is waiting for a response from the camera. So probably, for some reason, the command with new settings doesn't arrive to the cam. The second possibility - if you switched modes between monitor and cameras, or made several installations of the application on the camera device, or login/logout several times using different accounts - simply there can be some mismatch in your account and your monitor lost connection with your cameras. In that case I would recommend to delete (or reinstall) the camera and set it up again.
I do not understand why it looks cut if it is a camera it would have to be seen running.
If you see your camera offline, it can have several reasons - loss of power, loss of internet connection, or freezing of the device. You can try to remotely turn the camera on, if it doesn't help, check the power and internet connection and/or restart the device.
Is there any way to rename the camera in the app?
Yes, go to camera settings (the gear icon) and look for "Camera name" option (it is the 5th line from the bottom). Just hit this option and rename.
The motions detected from my cameras are continuing to disappear. It says I have 485 images, I click, and all of those are gone and it will only show a few. On both active cameras. I don't even get a chance to view them. I want to purchase the full version, but if they keep disappearing, then I can't.
I have checked your account and there are several issues, that cause your images are automatically deleted:
1/ You fire as many as 2000 - 3000 images per day
2/ You have set up the highest resolution of images, let say 6 - 8MPx, so one image can
occupy about 2-3 MB on your disc space
So, each 1000 images occupy about 2-3 GB (Giga bytes) on your camera. Currently, free
space on your cameras is about 1 - 2 GB. As a result, all your cameras go out of disc space
each day. In that case, cameras automatically delete old images to make a room for new images.
That is the reason for images disappearing.
You can solve it by (a) setting lower resolution of images, let say to 2MPx, so you
will be able to store more images on the remaining disc space of your cameras, or (b) adding
a bigger SD card to your cameras, let say 32 GB. In this case, you will be able to keep
your history for about 15 days.
Do you know of any app that will remotely re boot my camera phone?
Android device cannot be rebooted by any application (so you won't find any in the Google Play Store) unless the device is "rooted". Rooting is the process of allowing us (users) to attain privileged control and run commands that are normally denied by Android's developer, for instance rebooting device. You will find a lot of info if you search for "root android".
I am very sorry not to be able to use it, otherwise it was working very well. You should try to solve the error; it would be perfect if you fixed it.
This is because other similar application records continuous video. This apps records motion
as series of still images - it takes images one by one, compares each image to the previous
one and if motion is detected, it saves the image. This has advantage of much better motion
detection and resistance to false alarms. On the other hand, this processing puts more work
to camera image sensor, which takes lots of images. Some devices, especially older phones with
Android 4 or 5, give up the work sometimes and thus the error "cannot access image sensor".
If you use another phone as a camera, I am almost sure you will be fine and the app
will work as a charm.
Will the camera be recording while screen is off?
Yes, absolutely, this app records even when screen is turned off.
After 2 months of the program's work, my connection to the camera began to disappear. If I pay for an annual subscription, will the connection be permanent and stable?
The app should work the same in free version, you don't need to pay to use it. The camera device can sometimes freeze, especially older devices (Android 5 and older) sometimes give up their heavy work. You can solve it by restarting of the camera device.
How to shut down annoying reports "battery charging, 100% remains" and "battery discharging, 100% remains" repeating every few minutes?
To get rid of battery notification please go to main menu (three dashes in top left corner), select Notifications and depending on your Android version: (1) turn off "Status changes" directly or, (2) on newer Androids, hit "Notification settings" and then turn off "Camera status changes".
How can I arrange that every time when there are movements I get and email with photo or the photos are available at Google drive?
Images of movements are now only saved to camera and accessible via your monitor. I currently work on a new version which enables storing these images to Google Drive. I hope it will be available soon.
I feel that perhaps it is not as reliable as you can make it. My camera works great, but then after a week or two, fails to do anything.
I must say that you are right. Some phones, especially older ones, sometimes and for some reason freeze. The problem is, that it happens very rarely (not often) and randomly, so it is extremely hard to fix it completely. At this time the only solution is to use a newer device as a camera, because newer devices work perfectly. Sorry that I cannot give you a better advice, but the non-100% reliability is my nightmare, at this time I cannot find a solution.
I need to improve the sound processing of the live stream. Sensitivity of the microphone is not sufficient.
Android devices unfortunately don't have any settings for microphone sensitivity. All the sound
processing is done automatically by the device itself. Some devices are very sensitive with wide
dynamic range; on the other hand, some devices are very bad concerning sound. If you try a different
device, you will most probably get a (much) better sound.
You can also improve sound quality if you use the front camera, so the device will be facing
the scene with its front (display) side, so microphone will be also facing the scene.
Is the data captured through the camera device recorded anywhere else, without my permission?
Captured data (images) are stored on two places:
(1) In the camera itself. All captured images are stored in high resolution in
the camera's SD card or native memory, if SD card is not present. You can find those
images in standard "Images" folder.
(2) Low resolution images are also stored in a private Google's Cloud, so they can
be reachable by you (your monitors devices) from anywhere.
In a future, there will be also option to store high resolution images to your private
Google Drive, instead of (1), but at this moment, this feature isn't available yet.
Hi I'm using your app and the whole first week of December is missing from my motion detections.
This is most probably because of low disc space (memory) on the camera side. When there is no remaining space in the camera to store new images, camera automatically deletes old images to make a space for new images. You can solve for intance it by adding a SD card to your camera or cleaning up the phone.
Can you improve the night vision please? I always get a glowing green on all my phone cameras. Night vision is just not good. Doesn't matter if I'm viewing out a window or in the house.
Night vision on all similar applications is just a trick - the only thing what it can do is to increase some remaining light. If there is no light at all, nothing can help. So the night vision is useful in dark or other low-light conditions but not in total night.
Could you advise if it's possible to switch off sound on the camera, so you can't hear it on the monitor when in video mode?
Did you try the "speaker" icon on bottom right side of live video screen? This icon turns sound on/off. It also remembers the last state, so the next time you run live video, the sound will be on or off, depending on the last settings.
Congratulation for this awesome app. I’m using this app for my duty in Law Enforcement against drug dealers and it is very helpfully. I think that it is necessary to add an option in the app for sound detection alert and make available an option to record video if the motion detection detect any move.
The initial decision to make this app was to have something a little bit different than all other apps on the market, which detect movements and records videos. I didn't find this very handy, so I created this app which records still images and offers a handy way to go through them quickly. So everyone can now choose between two different approaches.
I am enjoying Security Camera CZ very much, but found I cannot set a motion detection area when it is totally dark. Is there a way to do this?
Well, when totally dark, even the camera with night vision turned on can't see anything.
In that case, it is blind and motion detection doesn't work. Night vision is usable until
at least a little bit of light is present.
Btw. I plan to prepare a new version of the app which will work with cheap external
"real" night vision cameras that uses infrared light. When ready, the camera will see and
detect motion even when totally dark.
Why is the battery percentages keep getting lower, after a full charge...
This is usually because of the phone itself. Some phones periodically charges/discharges battery (I don't know why, probably to keep the battery in an optimal condition). The application doesn't influence charging/discharging behavior of the phone in any way, it only listens to battery events. So it is up to the phone when it decides to charge/discharge the battery.
I wish this app didn't rely on Wi-Fi to be fully operational. What about a Bluetooth option? So you could send one device on the go...
Camera communicate over Internet in order to be available from anywhere. But Wi-Fi is not the only option, camera can be connected to the Internet using mobile data or some Bluetooth connection, it’s up to you.
There're no any sounds come with notifications/alarms at monitor side. I tried all the settings with no result. I have Alfred app installed on other camera, sounds are OK. Could you suggest?
Did you also check the system settings - from the main menu (three dashes on the top left corner) choose Notification, go to Notification settings and check if they aren't muted for all items you will find there. You can also try to change the notification sound to "default", just to be sure there isn't any problem with the media.
How can I configure the image to be saved to the memory card? Because the memory in the phone is full.
Images are saved to SD card of the camera or to its internal memory - this cannot be change at this moment.
In the next release there will be option to save images to Google Drive as well.
At this moment, you can reduce image size (go to the camera settings and set up lower resolution) - the lower resolution is, the more images can be stored to the memory.
Or you can decrease sensitivity to motion detection to produce smaller amount of images.