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I'll start with what I'm trying to accomplish. I would like to use two phones (LG G6) as cameras for a mobile forensic interview setup. One would be the close up camera (normal rear camera), the second would be the room view camera that included both the interviewee and the interviewer (wide angle rear camera). I would also like to connect a high end microphone to the headphone/mic jack on the phone to record the audio for the interview. All of this evidence would need to be admissible in court and be able to stand up to expensive lawyer scrutiny for authenticity.
I'll start with the simple questions and work my way to the more complex ones as a follow up.
1) Does your app have watermarking digital file signatures (or the option for it) built into the video files themselves? This is typically used on security systems for video file authentication to verify it has not been tampered with. This is essential when using the recordings in court.
2) Does your app support recording through a microphone attached to the headphone plug as the built in microphone on most phones is not that sensitive?
3) Does your app allow use of multiple rear cameras on a phone, like the wide angle cameras on an LG G6, 7, or 8?
4) Can the remote viewing be run in offline mode if both phones and a laptop are connected on the same network that is offline (basically a Wi-Fi router that is not connected to the internet)?
Thank you for your complex questions.
1) No, but it is a good idea. I will work on to add it.
2) Yes, but I am currently checking this, because I recently received a feedback from a user, for who it doesn't work (for me it works for all phones I have).
3) I don't know. I would be glad if you test it and let me know. Basically the app supports all cameras that the Android system presents. But sometimes multiple hardware cameras are "packed" into logical camera, which is then presented by Android system to apps.
4) Unfortunately not. Although video data flows on the local network when both devices are on the same network, Internet connectivity is still needed in order to build up the connection. Without Internet connection the devices are not able to interconnect.
I cannot move the image position when I enlarge it. We hope the next version will be fixed. I use the app on my Oppo Reno 2f phone.
The off-center zoom is already implemented, but it works only on phones (cameras) which hardware natively supports off-center zoom. Technically speaking, the device/phone's camera must support HARDWARE_LEVEL_3 and "free-from cropping type". I hope there will be more and more phones which natively support this, I agree it is very important feature.
Btw. you can check the hardware level of your device, if you install for instance this tiny app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hvt.camera2test
and check for a line "android.scaler.croppingType". If there is value "1", then the off-center zoom is supported and will work in both video and motion detection.
What could cause the distortion on the speaker on the camera device when pressing the mic?
It is hard to say, most devices (all I have) works well and also I don't receive any negative responses for this issue from other users. I would try to check if the sound is also distorted when speaking from another monitor device (or from PC's mic at the web page https://securitycamera.cz). If it is distorted as well, the problem will be most probably on the camera side. Can you try another Android phone as a camera?
The camera records all the time when it is dark and when night vision is on, even when there is no movement. The image somehow pulsates. Camera is aimed through a window at my garage.
This is most probably caused by continuously focusing camera. Please go to the camera settings, choose "Advanced..." and setup focus manually. Then the camera will stop focusing and false alarms will also stop.
Do you have an app available in the app store or for Windows on a PC?
The application is available for PC at address https://securitycamera.cz. Please note that it is still in Beta version, so only basic functionality is available.
How to recover deleted images?
Unfortunately, deleted images cannot be undeleted.
I have installed version 2.1.3 on both camera and monitor and noticed that the option to save images to Google drive is not working anymore.
The option save to Google Drive should work. Why do you think it doesn't? May be, if you reinstalled the application (i.e. uninstall and install again), there is missing permission to access you Google Drive?
It seems that the camera has stopped working.
Do you have your camera plugged into the electricity? Without electricity the camera can fall asleep and then it is not working properly. Also please check if you have a good internet connectivity of both camera and the monitor devices. Also it is good to clean the camera device from old stuff, like old applications and data, so the phone is as clean as possible.
Why does it say "can't access image sensor" when it was just working a few minutes ago? My phone is Vivo 1906.
This happen when the electronics of the (old) phone device is already a little bit "tired" and cannot make the hard work of taking pictures one by one for days. In this case the electronics get stuck and the error message appears. Hard restart of the phone will help.
How to set camera mode?
You can set camera mode during setup of the application. When you are already in the app, you can switch to camera mode when you choose Logout from the main menu - you will be taken to the welcome screen, where you can login again and choose Camera mode.
I'm having issues with two cameras. One turned off and it seems to be impossible to turn it on again from the monitor device. How can I prevent this from happening?
The other seemed like it was turned on, but when connecting to the live feed, the progress bar was stuck halfway there. Then, after a couple of minutes it looks like it's turned off and also can't be turned on again.
From what you wrote it seems to me that there is a problem in connection of your camera or monitor to the internet. The communication between camera and monitor is based on standard Android notification. If one of the devices doesn't get notifications immediately, it will behave exactly as you described. I would recommend to do this:
1/ check if your camera device is plugged into electricity (if not, the Android saves battery and sleeps often and doesn't receive notifications on time)
2/ restart the Wi-Fi router that the cameras are connected to
3/ restart BOTH your cameras AND your monitor device (sometimes there can be problem in connection even on your personal phone)
How to connect other phone to the system?
Just install the application Security Camera CZ on two phones (one phone will be your remote camera, second phone will be your viewer/monitor). You have to use the same login account on both phones.
And that is it, no more settings is necessary, it works just out of the box. Later, when you will be familiar with the app, you can press the "gear" icon to change some default camera settings and to explore all the functions the application has.
I don't have my camera plugged into a source of electricity but I have it fully charged and it sometimes gets offline even when it is at 80% battery capacity. I've restarted both phones and managed to get it to work if I do that before I leave the house but it will periodically go out. All of my settings buttons were greyed out for a large part of the day and wouldn't let me turn on motion detection. I have found that without motion detection turned on the camera tends not to work.
It is highly recommended to plug the camera device into a source of electricity. If the camera device is not plugged in, there may be communication problems and even the camera can sometimes seem to be offline (with buttons grayed out).
This is natural behavior of Android devices which are not connected into a source of electricity: the phone starts to save power, it falls asleep and it periodically turns off some unnecessary hardware parts (for instance Wi-Fi), so the online communication with such a device can be problematic. For this reason, it is highly recommended to plug the camera device into a source of electricity.
Bad night image.
In this case the camera sensor works on its physical limits. There are simply not enough light, so the sensor cannot show any image. You can see it from the light and dark horizontal strips, which corresponds with a physical construction of sensor's pixels and the reading mechanism.
In fact, nigh vision function only amplifies the image from the sensor. If there is no image from the sensor, only noise is shown.
You just signed me out of all the cameras just because I signed in with Google. Then, when I went to sign in with the email and password combination, you would not let me in, saying I already used this email to sign in.
Concerning the Google and email/password login - unfortunately this is some weird rule of Google that you cannot login using an email that has been already used in your Google account. I am sorry for this, but there's nothing I can do about it.
I like this app but it does not work consistently. Some days it will work and other days like today it will not turn on remotely and all of my buttons on motion detection and setting controls are greyed out so they are not even functional. I've already restarted my phone.
Can I ask you if you have your camera plugged into electricity? If an Android device is not plugged in, it tries to spare us much power as possible and then some functionality (like internet connection for instance) isn't steady and the application may look like offline (without internet connection).
I cannot locate 300 pictures from Friday evening? Are these available?
Images shouldn't disappear spontaneously, only when someone deletes them or, when the camera's memory is full (in that case the camera automatically deletes old images in order to make a free space for new images). Unfortunately, when deleted images cannot be undeleted. If you want to be sure, you can avoid this behavior by switching your camera to store high resolution images to the Google Drive and by marking the option "Don't delete old images automatically. I maintain Google Drive space by myself". In this scenario, images will be stored on the Google Drive until you delete them manually.
I've fix the camera issue by rebooting the phone to factory defaults (just re installing the app didn't work for me). Still there are many communications issues. Most of the time I can't set any configuration (at the distance) or turn on or off the camera phone when I'm out of my home. Even both phones in the same network won't fix that. I can only receive notifications and watch the recordings.
Could it be my router's firewall or configuration? I've turned off the SPI firewall but there is no difference. I've tested other apps in this network and they work perfectly. Do you have any ideas?
From what you wrote it looks like there is some kind of communication problem. When even settings of the camera don’t work, it means that the camera doesn't receive notification from the internet. Did you try to restart the Wi-Fi router? There isn't any special settings required on the router, the application uses standard "Android" notifications for communication.
The camera device has an SD card inserted, I also tried to save to Google drive but I still don't see the frames because it tells me memory full. Now I don't know how to solve from here because I cannot access the camera being in another city. How can I solve the issue?
Please try to remotely restart the camera (switch it off and then back on). When camera starts, it deletes all unnecessary data. I am afraid that that is all you can do now. When you will be back home, please clean the camera device (the phone from all old applications and other unnecessary stuff). Also factory reset of the phone would be a good step - it deletes everything what is on the phone, so it will be like a new.
By purchasing the Premium I can use it without the need for internet? Of all the ones I've seen none offer this function.
The motion detection works also without internet. In this case, the camera stores all records of detected motion internally into the device (to SD card, if installed). As soon as the camera is connected to the internet, if flushes all recordings to your private cloud store (to the internet), so the images becomes available on your monitor devices.
You can also find all recorded images in the camera device at location "\Android\data\cz.scamera.securitycamera\files\Pictures".
Please also note that this works even in free version, you don't have to buy Premium.
Recently I started experiencing an issue. Fresh install on an old android phone (Asus Zenfone 5) as "camera". Initially works well – I was able to see it on my monitor phone. However, after some time (say 10-15 minutes) the monitor is not able to see the camera and it shows it in red. I tried to remotely start the camera, but no success. It feels like the phone or app is going on sleep. Any suggestions?
Yes, there are two possible problems and solutions:
1) Network connection. If the camera doesn't have a good internet connection, then it will appear as "offline". The reason can be poor Wi-Fi signal or some problem on your Wi-Fi router. It often helps when the Wi-Fi router and the camera phone is restarted
2) The camera phone is old and already used device with lots of old applications installed. In this case it helps when you make a "factory reset" of the device. Please note, that after the factory reset all data will be deleted, so only make a factory reset on a device that doesn't contain any important data.
Camera - via Wi-Fi. Monitor - via mobile data on Huawei p30. Network Orange PL. Adding a new access point in the APN network settings of the device and switching to it solved the connection problem.
I can confirm that the application doesn't work well on networks based strictly on IPv6. There are some network providers that only support IPv6, so there the app doesn't work. I will fix this problem asap.
Application works fine when I am at home. But there is no more connection the next morning. It does not work in 4g network when I am at work (15 km).
Don't you use in your monitor device some application that works as a data saver (which automatically turns on when you are on mobile data)? Or some sort of firewall? Because the app works well on mobile data for lots of users, without it would be useless app...
I have paid for the application. You wrote that during the live feed there will be no interruption for 30min but I am getting interruption every 10 seconds.
If you get interruption each 10 seconds (or so), there will be most probably problem in the internet connection, because even in the free version the video is interrupted after 10 minutes. Please would you try to restart your Wi-Fi router and/or the camera device? I hope this should help.
Please help, a Verizon Galaxy Note 5 used to start on 720P and drop down to 540P after a few minutes, but now it's just on 320P.
The low resolution is because the camera tries to keep the frame ratio at about 20 frames per second. If, for some reason, the frame ratio is low, the camera decreases resolution. The information about this reason is available when you click the "(i)" icon during the live feed.
Have you ever considered allowing people to have the option in the application to timestamp images?
Yes, actually I currently work on it, so timestamping will be available in the very next update.
I can't turn off the siren. I reinstalled the application and it still doesn't work.
When the siren sounds, it should be possible to turn it off by 1) turning the motion detection off, or 2) by turning the siren off in the camera settings.
Are you guys ever going to add sounds when the camera records?
Well, this application was originally built a little bit different than all other similar apps on the market, which record short videos. I thought that it would be nice to have an app that records detected motion as high resolution still images (but of course, images are without sound).
Because I receive lot of emails like the yours, I am currently thinking about adding video and sound recording too. So the answer is yes, I will add it in a future.
What does the red circle icon mean in screen shot attachment, is it important warning?
This icon means that there isn't enough free space in your camera device. It isn't a big problem, because the camera automatically deletes old images in order to make space, but you are losing history. Please add an SD card to your camera. You can also switch storage of images to the Google Drive.
Please check the camera am having trouble logging in, I am getting an "oops having problem connecting"?
If the login doesn't work, please restart the phone, it always helps.
Kuchh Aisi kam Yad jo abhi bhi ismein ho sakti hai jaise ki Alfred camera Usne To motation Hota Hai video Kata aur ismein photo Karta Hai Kuchh Aisi chijen Jo video calling ke dauran di Awaz Ki Awaz Sun sake Awaaz Naik on Rahe aur jo on Karte Hain vah To theek hai Jaise.
I tried to put your question to the Google Translator, but I cannot get any translation. Please would you write me again in English, for instance using Google Translator (https://https://translate.google.com/)
Please hide the camera notification icon at the top of the phone.
Unfortunately, hiding the icon from the notification bar would be against rules of Google and this app would not be allowed to be in Google Play store.
Where are the videos that I download saved and where can I see them?
Manually recorded videos are stored in the standard Videos folder on your monitor device. Please note that some video players don't refresh often, so new videos aren't visible. In that case I would recommend to try any other video player.
Just last week, I noticed the app start closing out on the old phone that I use as camera mode. It was working before. So, I restarted the phone and still the app will close out when I click 'Done' button. I even reinstall the app and same thing. After a day or two, the app started working properly and I can view live and the recording. Is there a way to find out why it stopped all of the sudden?
When the camera app sometimes closes, the most common reason is that the device is running on low resources - for instance there isn't enough memory or processor power. This usually happens on older devices that are full of old applications or other stuff.
The best advice in this scenario is to make a "factory reset" of the device, which cleans everything so the device will be "like a new". The dark side of this approach is that you will lose everything what is stored in the device - history of all previously recorded images etc.
Another option is to manually uninstall from the camera device everything what is not needed, especially old apps that run on the background.
How do I turn on the camera if I have it installed on my farm?
I can confirm the issue on strict IPv6 networks and I will work on adding support for IPv6 devices. Unfortunately, it seems that Google Cloud platform (which the app uses) doesn't support IPv6 even in year 2020. For this reason, the app update will be not easy. I'll do my best to make it work asap.
I am in USA, Texas specifically. Based on my limited network and internet protocol knowledge, it seems T-Mobile's LTE network only supports IPV6 and apps that only use IPV4 does not connect. Searching for a solutions similar to my issue has revealed many people having difficulty connecting to their IP security cameras while on T-Mobile's LTE network. I am not sure this is the issue or not, but if it is can you elaborate if the app can support IPV4 and IPV6?
To turn the camera ON remotely, just swipe the preview image on the main screen left or right. Or you can turn the camera ON from the settings. Please note that the camera can be turned on only if it is connected to the Internet.
I am considering buying your premium subscription. Can you please let me know if that will allow unlimited playback? The description in the app is unclear. It seems as if it is saying that it will allow 30 minutes at a time only. I need a continuous feed.
In a free version, the video continues 10 minutes after which a "Prolong video" button is shown. If you don't click the button, the video is terminated. In a paid version, this period is prolonged to 30 minutes - so when you run a video, after 30 minutes the button "Prolong video" is shown. If you push the button, the video continues another 30 minutes and so on.
This is a security feature which prevents the video to run ad infinity even when someone left the monitor device unattended.
In the web version I am not able to sign in.
Which browser do you use? At this time the Google Chrome is the best choice (or Mozilla Firefox). If it still doesn't work, please try to restart the browser completely (or the whole computer if possible).
Is this app available on iPhone?
This app is primarily for Android, but on iPhone you can watch your cameras via web browser at address https://securitycamera.cz
What happened to the excellent night vision that the Security camera CZ app used to have??
You feel that the night vision got worse? I'm pretty proud of the night vision in its current version, also I don't get any complaints from other users. Please would you send me some screenshot of the (bad) night vision? Please also note that quality of the night vision depends on the quality of the camera device. I have tested it on many devices and its true, that on cheapest devices the quality of night vision isn't very good, but that is because the cheapest devices don't produce any usable signal (data) when the light conditions are poor.
I will be glad if you could share a screenshot of your night vision image, so I can see the real quality.