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2021
2020
2019
I quickly loose mobile data with your app.
Which device spends data, camera of monitor? I am interested, because I designed the application especially with respect to the low amount of transferred data. The app was originally designed for exteriors, without WiFi. For instance, only low resolution images are send to your device etc. The only thing that uses data a lot is the live video, but it cannot be well avoided...
Good evening, why can't I download the application on my PC?
If you want to use the application on your PC, please try the web version of this app on https://securitycamera.cz. When there, go to the "Monitor (beta)" tab.
Why do I keep getting a message “Pause detection for 30 minutes”?
This is a new feature in the version 2, when you can postpone motion detection for a half of hour, if you want, directly from the notification. If you don't want, just ignore this option.
I've added this option because lot of people complained that when they come home, the camera starts to notified them about a movement, so they want to stop the motion detection directly from the notification.
How do I get started?
To start, install the Security Camera CZ application on two Android phones (or tablets). One phone will act as a remote camera which you can remotely monitor by the second phone. Please note that after installation of the app on both phones, you have to use THE SAME login account on both devices. That is all, no other settings are needed, the application works just out of the box.
Hello, I shared my camera with friend. How can I unshare my camera so he stops seeing it?
To unshare your camera, go to the Sharing overview again, long press on the sharing you want to delete and then press the trash icon.
The motion detection function is deactivated. I have to be checking all the time.
The only situation when motion detection disables itself is when you reach the limit of 3000 motion detections per a day. As noted in FAQs here (https://securitycamera.cz/faq.html):
Originally there was no limit for number of alarms per day. Unfortunately, some users fired even more than 20.000 images per day, which caused that costs of the app increased rapidly. So, just a safeguard against misuse, there is currently threshold of 2.000 images per day after which user is informed that motion detection of his/her camera is not set properly; after 3.000 images per day the motion detection is stopped.
Isn't it your case?
Just wondering, what's the trick to access live video from mobile network (i.e. when away from local WiFi network).
Actually, the app doesn't care about the type of internet connection, it normally works over both WiFi and mobile networks. Sometimes, the connection over mobile network can take a little bit longer (up to 30 seconds). If it still does not connect, can I ask you where are you from? Because historically I had two or three guys from Poland who were facing the same issue on one of Poland operators...
In other cases, when someone couldn't connect over mobile network, there was always some kind of firewall or data sparing software on the monitor phone that blocked the connection.
Motion detection doesn't work on my Teclast P10 HD_EEA tablet.
Please would you check, if you see a small square yellow icon in the top left corner of your camera preview on the main screen? This icon indicates that motion detection is on. If you see it, please would you try to increase the sensitivity a little bit (in the camera settings)?
I would like to ask if the front cam of a camera phone can still capture or view a video or record a video while it is being used by another application? For an instance a Facebook video chat is ongoing can I still manage to stream the live video feed?
My second question is I cannot understand where is the motion detection images are saved? As I have read it is on the cloud? Not on the cameras phone? And not on the Monitors phone? Could you clarify thank you very much.
Unfortunately, the cameras hardware allows only one application to access the camera at a time, so no, it is not possible.
The images of detected motion are stored on two places: (1) images in the original high resolution are stored in the camera (SD card or internal memory) or at your own Google drive (if you set up this option). (2) images in low resolution of about 480x360 pixels are send to a private storage (hosted on Google cloud system) so they are easily accessible from your monitor devices.
You can download an image in hi-res on your monitor device when you go to Preview screen and hit the small white download button.
I've become more familiar with the software and like it even more. The 'if nearby' feature is slick. I'm just not sure if adding location to the viewer cam makes me comfortable. How private is it? Can it be exploited in your implementation? I'm somewhat familiar with P2P and the IP is always visible.
I am unclear and afraid of using the 'Turn off-on-delete' options. Could dump files to off-line storage and delete on phone be implemented here. Just wondering.
The near-by function stores only position of the camera, position of the monitor device isn't stored anywhere. Actually, this function uses build-in functionality of Android devices, which can natively report entering some area (for instance position of your camera plus minus 100 meters). This means, that even the Security Camera CZ application doesn't care about absolute position of you (of your monitor device respectively).
Btw. all data from the camera and monitor are transferred to/from Google cloud storage via https protocol, so it is safe as far as I know...
By pressing "Turn off" the camera turns off all its functions. The only thing that the camera device accepts is the Turn on command, after which it wakes up to the state as it was before. When you press "Delete the camera", all data from the camera will be deleted, all pictures, settings etc. Attention, once the camera is deleted, it cannot be undeleted.
What is my password? I forgot it.
To reset your password, just go the https://securitycamera.cz, hit login (in the top right corner of the page) and then choose "I have problems with login". You will be offered to reset your password.
How do I delete the photos the movements all at once? So far it lets me erase one by one and there are more than a thousand I'm going to get tired of erasing one by one.
You can mark all images of one day if you long press on a day title. You can also mark the whole bundle of images when you double long press on an image. As soon as images are marked, you can delete them using the trash icon.
I logged in with my Gmail account up to now. But on one of my (old) phone-cameras I had to disable play store and Gmail etc. to make space - meaning that I can't use the Gmail account on that phone - and I thus am using 111@yyy.com - with a manual password. But now I want to "merge the two accounts?
Is it possible to manually "set" a password for 222@gmail on this app (and not use the google auto-login) - or must I switch to a different email address for all the cameras?
I am afraid that the app doesn't support "merging" accounts at this moment. You have to use the same account on all your devices (monitors and cameras).
Concerning changing passwords on an email account, please go to https://securitycamera.cz, login and change your password there.
When I set the camera to detect motion and then to not send notifications when I am at home. I expect that it does not send alarms when I am at home but send me alarms when I am away from home. This does not work for me. When I am at home it shows the home picture on it but when I get away it still shows the home picture and does not send me alarms.
Don't you have more monitors? Because the "Turn off when I'm nearby" function detects all monitors you have and all of them must be away. You can check, which device causes the home status: go to the camera settings and in the "Turn off when I'm nearby" switch, there is a notice "Now nearby: xxx", where xxx is the monitor device model, which causes the home
Why when I try to connect to the camera, the connection doesn’t establish?
When connecting to the camera, please try to wait a little bit longer, it can sometimes take up to 30 seconds.
The images that the camera captures when it detects movement are they stored locally in the camera phone and in which directory?
The images are stored locally in the camera at these locations:
\\SD Card\Android\data\cz.scamera.securitycamera\files\Pictures
or, if SD card isn't available, at
\\Internal storage\Android\data\cz.scamera.securitycamera\files\Pictures
Please also note that if you switch to storing images at Google Drive, no images will be stored in the camera device.
Is there any way to rotate the picture on the monitor phone?
Can you tell me what kind of file these movies are and what file extension they use? The icon cannot be hidden, because it would be against rules of Google Play store. Google requires that all apps running on background announce this by showing a visible icon. Who doesn't meet this rule cannot be on Google Play store.
Unfortunately, not at this moment. The app was originally created as "landscape" only, because I didn't figure and nice way how to display "portrait" images. But many users want --
On 21.04.2020 21:36, Michael Ramsey wrote:
Video files are stored as .mp4 video. But I am afraid that if you cannot find it in you Video folder, then there will be some problem. But why I am wondering about this issue - because if you button "shines" during recording, the video file was created and it is being filled with video data...
How do I hide the app’s icon?
The icon cannot be hidden, because it would be against rules of Google Play store. Google requires that all apps running on background announce this by showing a visible icon. Who doesn't meet this rule cannot be on Google Play store.
I am wondering who all can go and look on my camera? I would like to make it where only I can see it.
Security and privacy of users' data and access to their cameras is one of the highest priority in the app's concept. Current world is highly technical and security solutions are complicated. For this reason, we decided not to solve security by ourselves and instead to rely on ready-made security solution of Google, which we believe is the world's leader in commercial security and engages the best brains in the world. So your data are secured similarly to your data in Gmail account or any other product from Google. Furthermore:
- All data and information you send over Internet (or are sent by the app) are encrypted by current standard https crypto protocol.
- Images from your motion detections are securely stored and encrypted in Google cloud (btw. only low resolution images about 0,3 MPx are stored).
- Access to these images is protected by standard Google security system, i.e. the same like for an access to Gmail or Google Cloud.
Nevertheless, do not forget to physically protect your camera device itself, because all data are stored in the camera as well. It is important to set up screen lock, pin code or gesture. When someone even physically steal the camera from you, your data/images will be safe.
Can I make the noise and background noise more noticeable?
Since Android system has no internal nor external settings for microphone sensitivity, it isn't possible. From my experiences, some phones are more sensitive, some are less. You can try to aim your camera using the front facing camera, so the mic will also aim to the same direction.
I think that it'll be better if you can be user app change icon or hidden icon.
Unfortunately, hiding of the icon is prohibited by a Google Play store rules, so without the icon, the app couldn't be available at Play store.
My Samsung Galaxy Note 2 as a camera keeps showing an error message “cannot access image sensor”. All permissions are set up.
This error exceptionally occurs on some older devices, which simply give up the hard work. The application takes pictures one by one each 2 seconds and this is sometimes too much for some old and used phones - the camera sensor jams. I am afraid that there isn't much that can be done with this problem. You can manually restart the camera devices, but it usually helps only for couple of hours or days. The only really reliable solution is to replace the camera phone for another one.
Why does the camera need data to connect? In some of our countries data may be expensive. I would prefer direct connection between camera and monitor phones.
If you have monitor and camera devices on the same WiFi, then during a video stream they are connected directly, without a need of internet connection. The video stream goes directly between devices, not over internet connection. The only thing, why internet connection is needed, is the beginning of the communication. On the beginning, there is always chat like this:
Monitor: Hi, my camera, where are you? I want to connect to you.
Camera: Hi monitor, I am here, on some WiFi named XY.
Monitor: That is great, I am on the same WiFi, lets connect directly.
Without this initial chat the devices aren't able to connect. Similar chat then repeats each (let say) 3 minutes. But everything else (mainly the stream) goes directly, your expensive internet data are save.
No sound on the monitor you are viewing.
Please note that this application records detected motion as a series of still images, not as a video. That is because all other similar app on the market records videos, so I wanted to create something little bit different.
None of my images from last night have the download icon. Yesterday's images do and this morning do but late last night do not have the download icon. Any way to recover the higher quality images?
It is most probably because images taken by a night vision technology aren't stored in high resolution. The quality of the "night" image is very low and it doesn't make much sense to store them in hi-res. Btw. currently I finish a new version of the app, with a huge improvement of night vision technology.
Hi, how long after a motion can we download a high resolution image?
You can download high resolution image immediately after the motion was detected. You can do so from the preview screen by taping on the small white "arrow down" icon.
Is there any upcoming feature to zoom and pan? Currently we can just zoom on the center.
Currently I am finishing a big update to the app, which will bring a much better night vision and beside other features also off-center zoom (pan). Unfortunately, it will be at this moment supported only on phones (cameras) that natively support off-center zoom. I hope this feature will be soon available on all cameras (phones).
How can I switch from a camera mode to a view mode?
To switch from camera to view mode just go to the main menu (three dashes in the top left corner) and choose Logout. You will be taken to the main screen, where you can log in again and choose a new mode.
I have a camera that I have deleted. Is there any way to reactivate it?
I am afraid that this can't be undone.
How do I turn on the backlight?
To turn the backlight, just go to the camera settings (press the gear icon) and tap on the "Torch" item. You can choose for how long will be the backlight on.
Can't match camera and monitor.
It is necessary to use the same login account on both camera and monitor, so the devices know about each other. All devices, where you use the same login account will "see" each other.
I have a suggestion for the security camera. Shortening the intervals between snapshots so I could capture photos of the passing cars in time to see them. Currently, I just find headlights and taillights and not able to identify them. If you could make the interval a user setting variable that would be wonderful!
Yes, I know about this limit. Unfortunately, this delay is mostly determined by a hardware of the Android devices. This application, contrary to all other similar apps on the market, takes still photos - and taking of still photo takes some time, usually about 1 second. So it is not possible to shorten the current interval (a much).
But you can use any other security camera app, all of them record video, so maybe it would be more suitable for your needs.
Can I download this app to a PC and use my webcam?
Actually, only "monitor" functionality is currently present on a PC (you can try at https://securitycamera.cz). I don't have a plan to port a camera functionality to PC at this moment, because, sincerely, there aren't many people who want it...
How do I use my smart TV?
Unfortunately, I haven't tested this app on smart TV, and I don't know anybody who did… Sorry I cannot help you in this.
Why does the motion only take pictures it does not record a video?
This is because all other similar application on the market record videos, so I wanted to create something a little bit different. If you prefer video, you can use any similar app on the market, but someone (me for instance :-) prefers still images - this approach is more suitable for long events, so one can go very quickly through them… So, at least, there are now two different apps on the market so everybody can choose from.
I only have one smartphone. I don’t have the second smartphone.
This application (like all similar apps) is intended for two mobile phones. One phone acts as a remote camera that is monitored by the second phone. So if you want, install the app on two phones, use the same login account on both devices are mark one phone as a CAMERA and the second as a MONITOR.
I want to transfer about 700 images all at once.
I am afraid that right now there is only option to download these 700 in seven bundles of 100 images - you can mark up to 100 images and share them (for instance via email or anything you want).
Another possibility (for future images) is to setup the camera to store images to you Google Drive (in camera settings choose "Full resolution images storage").
Is it possible to attach more than 1 camera to be viewed on the monitor phone or does each camera need its own monitor?
You can have as many cameras you want and you can browse all the cameras from your monitor device. The only restriction is, that you can watch live feed from only at one camera at the time.
I can’t find the down load button to download my security footage.
You have two options:
1) To download images in low resolution: just mark the images by a long press and then share them with yourself (using email, Google Drive or whatever you want).
2) To download images in high resolution: by taping on the image go to the (black) preview screen and there hit the small down-arrow (in the bottom left corner) to download the image. Please note, that images taken in night vision mode don't have high resolution version (the quality would be too low).
I don’t know what for is yellow icon on left upper corner.
This icon informs you about the current motion detection status of the camera:
1) icon of motion detection (small square with a line on the left): the motion detection is turned on;
2) icon of clocks: motion detection is currently off due to scheduler settings;
3) icon of a house: motion detection is currently off due to the Nearby function (which turns motion detection off when you are near by the camera);
4) no icon - motion detection is currently turned off.
I'm having a problem downloading the timestamped footage from the app to my Android phone. I'm downloading the file, but I can't find it.
If you download image in high resolution, you will find it in your default Images folder on your phone (please note that there was a bug in version 1.8.4 which didn't allow to store the image on Android 10, so if you are on Android 10 please upgrade to the latest version of the app).
Please add the ability to turn off the camera from the monitor... I can turn it on, but I can't turn it off...
It is possible to turn the camera off from camera's settings (it is almost the last item in the settings). When there, you can also delete the camera, which will erase everything in the camera and disconnects the camera from your monitor.
Why is there no audio?
As I notice on Google Play, this app records motions as a series of still images, so without audio. You can connect to the camera and watch live, then the audio is present.
When quality is set to 1,8 MPx, battery is ok. But when I set it to max resolution (9 MPx), the battery lasts a couple of hours. Is it normal?
It is very interesting; I must say that I have never noticed this behavior. By my opinion, using large images shouldn't be more heavy on battery, because large image is only stored to a disk and shrunken. All image processing is then made with the shrunken image, so it doesn't matter how large the original image was (2Mpx or 20Mpx).
How is that there is no access to the image sensor?
This error occurs on some older devices, which simply give up the hard work. The application takes pictures one by one each 2 seconds and this is sometimes too much for some old and used phones - the camera sensor jams. I am afraid that there isn't much that can be done with this problem. The only really reliable solution is to replace the camera phone for another one.
Won't connect with shared camera by my friend.
Can I ask you to try it again using this method:
(1) Go to "Sharing overview" and click on the yellow "plus" icon at right bottom corner.
(2) Send the invitation to your friend. You can send the invitation using any way - WhatsApp, email, Viber - choose whatever you want.
As soon as your friend receives the invitation, (s)he should click on it. If (s)he doesn't have the application installed, (s)he will be automatically taken to the Google Play store.
I can't turn on the camera remotely.
Do you have your camera phone plugged in (to electricity)? Also on old and used phones (that act as a camera) it sometimes happens that the Android system decides to kill the Security Camera application, due to lack of resources. Then in cannot be turn on remotely, because the app is down. In this case it helps when the old phone is taken into the factory defaults and also when you turn off automatic updates. Then the phone will be like a new one and will act well.