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Add an option in the settings for each camera to automatically “turn off” if it detects that the monitor phone is on the same subnet (Wi-Fi network). This would be a bit more accurate as far as the “turn off when I am close” function. Since various Wi-Fi networks reuse the same private IP ranges (such as 192.168.1.0/24) the app would also have to check what its current public IP address is as well.
The main reason for this is that the current method of determining whether I am close or not does not always work. Sometimes it thinks I am close when in fact I am miles away. Sometimes when I am home it takes quite a while to detect I am now home and takes a whole bunch of motion detect pictures which uses up space on the SD card, and your server as well.
Originally I created the "nearby" function using exactly what you wrote - by detecting the same Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, the real functionality was catastrophic. Most devices don't connect to Wi-Fi when they are sleeping, or they connect after a pretty long time (probably due to battery saving features of Android). I had to give up this approach, it was extremely unreliable. On the other hand, the current "nearby" feature uses a native (built-in) Android system for detecting enter/exit of some area called "Geofence". Yes, it is not 100% reliable on modern phones which try to save battery as much as possible (Android 7 and older devices on other hands works perfectly), but at this moment it is the best system I know and I hope that Google guys improve it in a future.
Please how to turn the camera off with viewer's phone. I'm able to connect and turn it on remotely, etc. I need instructions on turning it off without going to camera.
To turn the camera completely off, just go to camera settings and almost at the bottom is a option Turn on | off | delete.... Enter this option and choose Turn off.
Can you give us the option to delete all pictures at once?
Yes, the feature is already there. Just long press the header of the day and all images of that day will be marked - you can then delete all of them at once.
If you long press twice on an image, then the whole bundle of images is marked.
The application admits to include the use of a security camera that has Wi-Fi (not a mobile camera). Is this features are supported?
I am very sorry, but the app doesn't support third party security cameras, it only supports Android cell phones and tables.
I am using 3 cameras (HTC M7, HTC M10 and Sony Xperia). All the camera phones are using the apps WardenCam or Alfred works well using off center zoom in live video but using Security Camera CZ don’t. The issue is only with Security Camera CZ. I tested that with the same cameras phones using that 3 apps. Could you solve this issue?
Security Camera CZ actually supports off center zoom in live video, but only on devices, that (technically speaking) supports camera's hardware level 3, and thus off center zoom natively. Off center zoom isn't supported on older devices.
You can check this feature if you download any camera2 info application (for instance this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hvt.camera2test) and look for line "android.scaler.croppingType". If this line contains "1", then the device support off center zoom. If there is "0", then the device most probably doesn't support it.
Hello, I was wondering how many cameras can I have running, and if I can have multiple cameras how do I connect them?
You can have as many cameras as you want (in reality, there is some technical limit 20 - 25 cameras).
To add another camera to your system, please install the application Security Camera CZ on another Android cell phone or tablet. Important: use the same login account as you used on your monitor device! Then, select CAMERA mode. That's all.
All devices (monitors, cameras), where you use the same login account will see each other - they will create one system.
Can I use SmartTV as a monitor?
The app Security Camera CZ is built for Android devices and web browsers only. I see that the TV Philips 32PFS5823/12 runs on SAPHI operating system, so sorry, the app will not run on it.
I connect the camera, it is online, it is connected to the internet, but when I look at the monitor
on the other cell phone, it shows me that the camera is offline and I can't turn it on.
I also see in the settings that the options are grayed out and cannot be changed.
Please check on the camera device, if the app is running (so you see the app's icon in the notification bar). There are two possibilities:
(1) If the app is running, then it doesn't receive commands from the monitor phone. When the monitor device doesn't receive response from the camera device within 1 minute, it marks the camera as offline (although the app is still running). In this case, there is some problem in internet connection on one of the devices (camera or monitor).
(2) If the app isn't running, then the Android system decided to shut it down, most probably due to lack of resources on the camera device. Please try to uninstall some apps from the camera device, or, which is the best, make a factory reset on the camera device.
Your app is very good. I prefer using it to Alfred's app due to the fact that there is a constant disconnection all of the phones while using their service. And nothing you try that they suggest fixes the issues. The question I have is this do you plan on adding video to the detection mode? Pictures work great but actual motion could be much better. Thank you for providing this excellent app. I hope to use it for many years.
Concerning adding the video to detection mode - well, I have created this app, because all other similar apps on the market use video, and I didn't like this way of recording a much. I believed that still images, with a tool for browsing them quickly, will be a better approach.
But yes, I receive emails like yours time by time, so I've started thinking about adding a video track as an option... But it will take me some time, because I have to figure out some nice way, how to add a video and still keep the user interface clean and clear.
On my "monitor" phone, I see a red circle with exclamation mark in the upper right corner of the image from the "Camera" phone. I search around but cannot find what that symbol mean.
This symbol means that there isn't enough space in the camera device for new images. In this case the camera automatically deletes old images to make a room for new images, so you lose history. You can solve this issue easily if you add an SD card to the camera device. Or you can switch the camera to store images to your Google Drive (if you used a Google account as a login to the app) -this can be done from camera settings.
I would like to know if the annual pay is for each camera and monitor or for the entire system? ..
How do I get sound out of the device? I have the video, but no audio?
The payment is for the entire system - for one payment you can have as many cameras you want. Respectively, the payment is for one account and you can have many cameras and monitors on one account.
During the live session, please check the speaker icon (bottom right corner). Using this icon/button you can mute/unmute the sound from the camera.
If it doesn't help, please check if the camera's microphone isn't covered by something...
Why does the motion detection always close?
It is most probably because the motion detection has a limit of 3000 images per day... After then, the motion detection stops. Isn't it your case?
The streaming issue happens mostly when using mobile data. I use T-Mobile. My phone is assigned a unique IPV6 address, however the IPV4 address is shared (NATed) among many customers at the same time. There may be times during heavy traffic that available ports for NAT become scarce. Does your app use IPV6 or IPV4?
The app actually doesn’t care about IP address; it just needs an internet connection. But yes, for live video, it uses a background media server which is hired from Google and this server is on IPv4. This server is used only when both devices aren't on the same Wi-Fi (so yes, for instance when monitor device is on T-Mobile network). Technically speaking, in such a situation there must be some translation between IPv4 and IPv6. And yes, I believe this could cause possible problem. But thank you very much for your email, I will try to investigate about this.
Note 11/10/2021: issue with IPv6 address was fixed in version 2.4.1.
Login failed.
If login fails, please restart the phone. It will always help.
I really liked the security camera application. What advantages does the payment have?
The main advantage of payment is that ads will disappear. You will also get longer history of alarms (from 15 to 30 days), longer live video without interruption (from 10 to 30 minutes) and some other advantages.
I'm also using device where I have logged in using my Gmail account; then I removed my Gmail account from the phone but Security Camera CZ still works! So do I need to be still logged in in the application?
The phone where the main Google account was removed will work for some time (may be days), but finally it will stop. The technical background is that the phone periodically receives credentials (keys) from Google servers each about three days. Without the google account the device cannot receive these credentials and the phone disconnects (as far as I know).
Can't access image sensor!
This error message appears when the app cannot access the camera chip in the phone. Don't you use any other application on the camera phone that uses the camera chip (for instance any other security application)? Because only one application can access the camera chip at a time.
If not, then the camera chip can be down or broken or something. The app takes images one by one each 2 seconds, and this can be too much for some old and "tired" phones. Try to restart the camera device to see if the problem disappears - it usually helps but only for a time. If you see this problem again later, I am afraid that you will have to change the camera device for another one.
The web monitor on your webpage does not work.
The web page uses modern technologies and at this time, as I know, only Chrome and (may be) Mozilla support these technologies. If you switch to Google Chrome, the web monitor will work.
I am having an issue turning on the camera. Is it because I signed in to my Gmail account from the camera screen and then I signed out from the camera. After signing out the camera still works but after a while it turns off automatically. So can you tell me the real reason why I'm facing this issue?
If I understood right, you used your Google account as a login to the application and then you removed the account from the phone? In this case, the camera will turn off, because it uses credentials from the phone and when you remove the credentials, it is the same as signing off.
If you don't want to have Google credentials in your camera device, start using the email-password combination.
The camera sometime disconnects. Why?
Disconnecting is usually caused by a low internet connection of one of the devices. Also, when the camera device is old and full of old applications, its performance can be not sufficient to produce (encode) a video stream - in this case the live video can also disconnect time by time. In this case I would recommend to make a factory reset of the camera phone.
Hello, I found your app to be very highly rated and very much want to choose a few outdoor and indoor cameras from Amazon to use with your app. I'm just not sure if all cameras are compatible?
This app is intended to be used only with old cell phones as cameras. It is not compatible with any external IP cameras (from Amazon etc.). So please, if you intend to buy cameras from Amazon, you will have to use a different application than this.
In the camera preview I get a red circle, with an exclamation, as if it indicates that memory is full. What does it mean? How can I remove that red circle?
This warning means that there isn't free space in the camera. In this case, camera deletes oldest images to make space for new images (you are losing history). You can (1) deletes unnecessary stuff from the camera, (2) add an SD card to the camera to enlarge its memory, (3) switch the camera to store images to your Google Drive.
When zooming in video, it only centers the image but cannot be moved, that is, for example, if you want to zoom in on a corner, you cannot do it, you only do fixed zoom centered. Other software when you zoom you can move the image where you want to see.
Actually the off-center zoom is already implemented in live video. It works on devices that natively support off-center cropping (technically - their camera supports Hardware Level 3 standard). Currently there are many of them on the market, but of course, older models don’t support this standard.
Currently I work on off-center zooming also for motion detection. I hope it will be available soon.
I love your application but I'm worried about something, I leave the app on for months, but it works for me only a few days and then stops taking pictures when it detects movement, could you tell me what it could be? I use two applications on a single phone, one camera and one to save the images. Could that be the problem? The configuration seems to be correct, everything is activated however it does not work. I have to stop the two applications and reopen them several times until it returns to take pictures.
As you wrote: "I use two applications on a single phone, one camera and one to save the images." - it depends what the second app makes. On the camera device, there can be only one application that access the camera image sensor. If there are two, there is a race for the camera sensor and yes, then there can be a problem. For which purpose do you use the second app?
My camera turns off on my phone and does not turn on.
This can be caused by several reasons:
1/ the camera lost internet connection, or
2/ the application has been killed by the Android system. This sometimes happens on old devices with lots of old apps installed, which slow down the device and consume memory. In this case I recommend make a factory reset of the camera device, it helps a lot in this case.
You can try to switch the camera remotely on to check if it is reachable again.
Can it be used with a IP camera instead of a cell phone?
This application is intended to be used only with smart phones, it cannot be interconnected with IP cameras. I am sorry.
I have old phones which I'm using as cameras and they don't record all the time. I get the option to record when the recorder icon comes up on that certain camera, but often I don’t see the recorder icon.
If I understand well, your recording icon (the icon of video camera) disappears time by time? This happens when the camera is currently offline (so it isn't possible to connect to it). Camera goes to offline mode when it loses connection to internet (for instance when it lost Wi-Fi signal for a while). It can also go to offline mode on old devices, which are full of old
I want to download full resolution images that were taken in night mode, because I have a thief in this photo and with Adobe Photoshop I can get all the details. I think that it is good to download all photos even made in night mode.
At this moment, the camera doesn't store high resolution images when in Night mode. The reason is that night vision transform would take too long on high resolution images. And downloading almost black high resolution images (without the night vision transform) would be probably confusing for most users.
Which folder are the high resolution images written to?
If you download image in high resolution (on your monitor device), the images is saved to the standard Pictures folder on your monitor device.
Why is the video not being saved to the Google cloud?
The video (which you manually record during live video session) is saved only to your
monitor device.
Please note, that this app, contrary to all other similar apps on the market, do not
record motion as short videos. Instead, it records motion as a series of still images.
How to connect the camera to Google drive?
On your monitor device go to camera settings (by pressing the gear icon). Find item "Full resolution image storage" and switch it to Google Drive. You must give the app a permission to access your Google drive. The new images will start to be stored to Google drive immediately.
Today I did use this app to record and noticed I had 999 slides or images to view. However, later in the day I used the monitor to view the slides but they are not there. I'm only able to see the latest images/slides... Please advise as to how to view the first 999 slides via the cloud.
This is most probably because there isn't enough room in the camera device to store new images. In this case, the camera automatically deletes old images to make a space for new images. Please add an SD card to the camera (to enlarge its memory) or you can switch to store images to your Google Drive. As soon as you will have enough room for images, they will not be deleted.
How can I download all photos from current day in full resolution?
There are two options:
1/ You can download images one by one. If you don't see a download button, it is
because the image is already downloaded in you Pictures folder OR the images is taken in
Night vision mode. In night vision mode, the quality of pictures is so low, that there
isn't reason to store images in high resolution.
2/ Another option is to redirect high resolution images to your Google Drive. In this
mode, images in high-res are stored to G. Drive automatically and you can access them
immediately (from your phone, PC etc.)
I don’t get updates from my camera. The last images are more than 11 hours old.
If you don't get updates, please check if your camera is online and motion detection is turned on. It can be easily recognized by the small yellow icon in top left corner of the camera preview image.
Does the camera phone record images on motion detection locally when it is offline and then send them to me when it is online? Or does the camera phone always have to be online to work?
The camera phone records images locally when it is offline and then send them to you when it is online again.
Is there any way to get back a picture that I accidentally deleted?
Unfortunately, not, what was deleted is deleted forever.
What is the limit of cameras per account?
You can have as many cameras as you want, for free. Technically, there is a limit of about 20-25 cameras per account.
Will the app have some kind of alarm to inform me that it went offline?
To discover when camera goes offline (for any reason) is pretty hard. Currently, when you open the application on your monitor device, it sends several request to the camera. If the camera doesn't respond in a short period of time, then it is declared as "offline" (because it doesn't respond). In fact, the camera can be still alive, but just don't receive requests from monitor for some reason (for instance it lost internet connection). In this case, the camera will appear online as soon as it starts to receive commands from the monitor device.
HD resolution is not working any more.
There is a week limit for HD video (then the video appears as non-HD). I've reset this counter for your account. Please would you try again, it should be HD now.
I would like to know if it is possible to change the name of the devices for my web viewer?
It is not possible at this moment. You can use an Android device in Monitor mode to change the name.
I would like to let the camera stay on permanently, so I can record video continually 24 hours a day like a normal security camera does.
Well, this is not a technical problem, but a financial. When someone watches his camera while not on the same Wi-Fi, in reality the video stream data must go (encrypted) over some media server (Security Camera CZ uses a Google server). These media servers always cost something, respectively what is paid is the amount of data sent and received by the media server. So it would have to be some kind of paid feature or so... I am sorry to disappoint you. May be that is the reason why any other similar app doesn't cover this feature.
Why does this app show nothing on night vision, while during a day, the picture is clear? The picture is fine during a day but at night the picture is black.
When the camera aims in the right direction and it doesn't show anything at night, then there is not enough light even for a night vision mode to work properly. For the picture to be clear even at total night, we would need a real infra-red night camera, which is not the case of Android cell phones.
Were are all my recordings?
Please note that this app records detected motion as a series of still images, not as
video clips. You can browse all images of detected motion very quickly, personally I think
it is faster than going through long or numerous video clips.
When you switch to Alerts screen, you can swipe images left and right using a finger.
You can also use a yellow scroll bar (yellow dot) below the image to go through images
quickly.
I think I found one bug: when I start recording from the 'monitor mobile phone', the volume of the 'camera mobile phone' skips to maximum. When I stop the recording the volume comes back to the normal level. Is there a way to overcome this problem?
this is because the camera prepares for a possible two-way communication. I suppose it is all right that the voice from monitor sounds at camera side at maximum volume level... Would you expect a different behavior? Please let me know.
I originally installed app on a phone that I used as a monitor. Now I need to make monitor phone a camera. How do I change it?
To switch between camera and monitor, simply logout from the app and you will be taken to the initial screen. From there login again and this time hit "Camera" mode.
If the camera were to run out of Wi-Fi internet signal or mobile data is that it will continue taking photos and when the connection is back again it will be able to upload all cached photos to Google Drive?
Yes, exactly. The app is especially designed to continue to take photos (detect movements) even without internet connection. As soon as the internet connection is back again, the camera will send all captured images to you (and to Google Drive, if it was set up).
I wanted to know if the application is available for iPhone.
At this moment, the app is available only for Android devices. There is also a web version, which should work on all modern browsers, so you can try to open in from your iPhone. The address is https://securitycamera.cz When there, just click on the "Web monitor (Beta)" tab.
I get a error message "Cannot access image sensor".
This can sometimes happen on old devices that are already a little bit tired. The problem is that the app takes picture each two seconds again and again. This is normally no problem, but some old devices simply give up this hard work and the camera sensor freezes. In this situation only restart of the device helps. I am almost sure that if you use another device as a camera, it will run without problem.
I bought it and it doesn't work. I want a refund.
We are very sorry for your negative experience. Of course we will refund you the purchase. Please send the order number you have received by an email to our support email support@securitycamera.cz so we can identify your purchase and make a refund. The order number has a format like GPA1234-1234-1234. You can also find this number in your Google Play store application. As soon as we have this number we will refund you the payment.
Is there a video recording function in place when motion is detected?
No, there isn't. This app, contrary to all other apps on the market, records motions as a series of still images in high resolution (and offers a handy tool for browsing through them quickly). But all other similar apps on Google Play store records videos, so I hope it is not a big issue.
Good morning, I notice that even though I bought the program now I see advertising. What happened?
Please check in the app (just go to main menu and click on Buy) if the purchase is still valid. May be the one year without ads is already over. I will be very glad if you prolong the purchase, of course.
I don't see a difference on the paid and not paid version.
The paid version (1) doesn't have ads, (2) prolongs history of alarms from 10 to 30 days, (3) prolongs continuous video and video recording from 10 to 30 minutes.
Deleting is only possible by clicking on each individual picture. How can you delete entire sequences at once?
You can mark an image by a long press. You can mark more images.
Try a double long press on a group of images - the whole group will be marked.
Or try a long press on a day title - all images of that day will be marked.
Then, delete marked images using a trash bin icon.