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2021
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Is it possible to program a restart function from the monitor for the connected surveillance cell phones? Such a remote restart would be very helpful for the user of your app because the camera phones sometimes fail and no longer send surveillance images to the monitor phone.
Application unfortunately cannot restart the Android device, because this command is not allowed by the Android system (unless the phone is "rooted").
The problem I am having is that the camera client keeps rebooting the phone. it runs for about a day and then reboots. I tried two fairly recent phones, one with Android 9 and another with Android 8. Plenty of free disk space. I even tried reducing resolution to minimum and removing HD option. The battery seems cool and stays in the green as far as I could see.
Is there a way to check the logs to see why the camera phone reboots or is there something else I can try?
I am currently finishing an update to the application, which adds an event logs. Using this feature, you will be able to check the behavior of the camera several days ago. This feature will help to investigate the reason for the restarts. I hope it will be available very soon.
Why can't I use live streaming anymore?
If you cannot connect to your camera to watch live, there is probably some connectivity problem on your camera or monitor devices. Please try to restart the camera and monitor phones. I would also restart the Wi-Fi router, just to be sure.
I have to turn motion detection on too many times. It doesn’t stay turned on.
Don't you fire more than 3000 images per day? Because this is the limit, after which motion detection stops. If you send me the email address that you use as a login to the application, I can check your account for other possible issues.
You can develop this app by scanning QR code from the camera.
I am afraid it wouldn't work, because the basic principle of the application is that you need to log in using some account (Google, Facebook or email password) to identify yourself. With QR code you wouldn't be logged in... But thank you for the idea, I will think about it.
Hello how can I set an email notification in case of movement's detection?
I didn't build in email notifications, because I thought that it would be too many emails and normally you don't want to receive hundreds of emails each day. For what reason you need email notifications?
Where is the recording of the live feed stored?
When you record video, it should appear in your standard Video folder on your monitor phone. If you do not see the video there, please try to install some other media viewer, because some viewers don't refresh immediately, so the video isn't available at the moment when you record it.
Anyway, the video is stored in standard Videos or Movies folder on your monitor phone.
I have 2 old Android phones supported by solar panels, charge controller and a 12 volt battery. I have switched the scheduler on and adjusted the times so it detects motion from 16:00 every afternoon. One of the phones works fine but the other switches in off and I can't switch out on again remotely. So, instead of switching on motion detection the phone switches off altogether. It automatically switched back on later on but I don't know when this happens.
When the application turns off, but then it turns on spontaneously, there can be two reasons for this behavior:
1/ The camera has low or unstable internet connection. In this case, the camera seems to be offline for a while, but when the internet connection reactivates, then the camera looks like it is back online. In this case, the application on the camera still runs, but due to insufficient internet connection the camera looks sometimes offline.
2/ The Android device (the phone) turns the application off for some reason. When this happens, the application will never start again, unless the phone is restarted. So in your case, the phone must restart itself time by time. Generally, this behavior indicates that there is something wrong with the Android phone: it doesn't have enough resources, so it kills background applications (it shouldn't) and furthermore, it restarts by itself for some reason (it shouldn't).
I have experience with both cases. In the first case it helps when you check the internet connection, restart the phone, Wi-Fi etc. In the second case... It happens on some old "tired" phones and I am afraid that nothing will help forever. Factory reset will help for a while, but as all the built-in application will update, the phone will be more and more overloaded and then it will give up and it will start to kill background applications again. I would recommend to start to look for a different phone.
How do I record the live feed?
When viewing live view, there is a small red button in the bottom left corner. Using this button, you should be able to record the live feed.
Now with this wave of mobile phones with angled cameras, it would be interesting if you had how to choose which camera the app will use, in this way, choosing from the wide angle and having a larger area of view.
I must say I wrote this application before the boom of phones with many different cameras. I will definitely fix this in a (hopefully) near future and add a possibility to switch between wide and zoomed lenses.
Hello, please tell me how to fix the error when connecting to the device, the sound turns on if it is turned off on the device.
When you connect to the live video, the application remembers the last audio settings, so when sound was off during last call, then it will turn off again in the next call. This is also camera specific, if you have more cameras.
What are the great benefits of this app?
The biggest difference of this app (among all other similar apps on the market) is that this application records detected motion as a series of still images, contrary to all other apps, which record as a video. For someone it can be advantage to have a pictures in very high resolution (event 20 MPx or more) than just a video clip in only 2MPx HD quality.
When I try to share it, android wants to open and install the program. I'm sure that all I want to share it with are not going to want to do that. They just want to see the camera. If I try to open on a PC using Chrome, I get the 404 error.
The invitation can be opened only on Android phones at this moment. But thank you for your impulse, I will try to change the web page so it can accept invitations as well.
I am still testing the camera getting darker and darker and noticed that when there is too much light the pictures are getting lighter and lighter up to completely white as well. I have the Night vision set to Always off. When I connect to the camera the picture is perfect clear and with real light on the live view and after a while the starting picture is repairing itself and motion sensors are starting to work again. I have already reset the camera settings to default and cleared the both app settings.
Unfortunately, I cannot give you any advice concerning this - no other user has similar issue. I am very sorry. I would recommend to use another device as the camera, because I think this will be something device specific...
I'm unable to sign up either by email or Google account.
Please try to restart the phone on which you cannot login. It sometimes happens when Google Play services were just updated that the login doesn't work without restart.
Do you need to be on the same Wi-Fi? And can Bluetooth make the work?
You don't need to be on the same Wi-Fi. The only condition is that both camera and monitor devices have to be connected to internet. It doesn't matter how.
If the two devices are interconnected with Bluetooth, it will not work, because connection to internet is required, the direct connection between devices isn't enough.
I have a set of cameras at home at my mom, these cameras have a google account of let say "A". Both my sister and I are able to check mom and see that everything is fine, exactly you explained. I have another set of cameras with google account let say "B" which also work fine, I can check them logging into this account with a DIFFERENT phone/monitor setup.
The question: is it possible to check BOTH "A" and "B" set of cameras on one and same phone monitor device?
That is very interesting question and unfortunately even me, as a developer, cannot give you 100% answer.
1/ One solution: you should be able to watch all your cameras from one monitor device, if you switch between accounts A and B on that device - you can go the main menu, log out from A and then log in to B account. Unfortunately, this approach isn't tested, so I will be glad if you let me know how it works.
2/ Second solution: you can share your camera on account A to a user with account B, so then you will see on your monitor A all cameras A and also cameras B (as "shared"). The bad thing is that you cannot change settings of cameras B, because only owner (A) can change settings.
It takes a long time to connect cameras via Wi-Fi.
If it takes long time to connect to the camera, there will be some network issue. Please try to restart your Wi-Fi routers and also the camera and monitor devices, if possible.
Can the app work without internet? Does the Wi-Fi router turn off and at that moment will the camera take a photo when objects move?
The motion detection works even when the camera disconnects from internet. The camera stores images locally and flushes them to you (to a private cloud storage) as soon as it reconnects to the internet.
I want to switch one of my phones to the monitor. How can I do that?
To switch between camera and monitor, go to the main menu (three dashes in the top left corner) and choose Logout. You will be taken back to the welcome screen, where you can log in again and choose different mode.
Is it possible to connect to 2 (or more) different google accounts with a single monitor device? I was unable to find settings for this. I don't want to grant access for my sister to my home cameras, however she also needs to be able to check the camera. Please advise me, how to connect to both (set) of camera(s), or how to install two instances of the monitor app.
The answer is very simple - you can add more cameras to you monitor (for free): Just install the application on another Android phone or tablet, login using the same account as on your monitor and choose camera mode. This new camera will immediately appear on your monitor.
Then, share the camera with your sister: open camera settings and choose Sharing overview. There hit the "plus" icon and send your sister invitation. After opening the invitation, your sister will be taken to Google Play store to install the application on her phone, then she creates any new account and then she will see the camera on her phone. She will be only passive viewer, because guests cannot change any camera settings or delete images.
Your app randomly cuts my cameras off. When I try to turn it back on remotely, it won't work.
The camera starts to look as offline when it doesn't respond to a network requests for a period of 1 minute. So in your case, your cameras lose internet connection for some reason. Are your cameras plugged into a charger? If the problem persists, please try to restart the Wi-Fi router.
Because my Galaxy S9 turned camera off and was impossible to restart, I changed to a Note 8. It worked for about 5 days, now it has turned the camera off and it isn't possible to start it again!
May be it is not a problem of the Samsung devices. The camera seems to be turned off (offline) when it cannot be contacted for a period of 1 minute. There can be several reasons for this, the most common is lack of internet connection or when the camera isn't connected to a charger or when the charger is weak (in that case Android device saves energy and turns off Wi-Fi which causes that the camera isn't available via internet and seems to be offline).
Please check the charger on the camera side and also try to restart the Wi-Fi router, may be the problem is in connection to internet.
It would be great if there could be a toggle or widget to enable/disable motion detection. It would be phenomenal if there could also be any kind of IFTTT or Google Home integration, for example "Hey Google, I'm going out" or "Hey Google, I'm home" which turns the detection on or off.
I appreciate all requests for new features. Currently there is a toggle to turn your camera on/off - simple swipe the camera image left or right. I would like to add a similar toggle to turn motion detection on/off, but I don't know where to add the toggle to keep the user interface simple. If you have any idea, please let me know.
Yes, I am also enthusiastic user of Google Home and IFTTT, so I am aiming to add this feature in a near feature. Currently I think about the security issues - we don't want that some intruder who comes to our house simply said "Hey Google, I'm home" and the security camera will listen to him and go off. Unfortunately voice recognition of Google Home isn't 100% reliable (for instance my daughter can imitate my son almost reliably). So there will have to be any "secret" that will unlock and enable voice commands. But then it will not be as easy as I would like it to have. What do you think?
Sometimes the system does not respond to my command to turn off the camera. I have to repeat the command up to three times if not more and sometimes (the opposite) the camera does not turn on.
Can I ask you if you have your camera connected to a charger? It is very important. If yes, please check of the internet/Wi-Fi connection of your camera is ok. I would recommend to restart the camera device and also the Wi-Fi router. As soon as the camera has a good internet connection, all the commands (like turn off) will start to work.
I'm experiencing some issues with new smartphones as cameras like Huawei p20 or Asus Zenfone.
With old phones like Samsung S3mini or LG L9 the app keeps running properly even when the main power goes out while with new phones, once the power goes out and then comes back, the app is killed after some hours.
Neither the settings permit me to change the battery management for the single app (at least, till android 9...).
I must confirm your findings. New phones (starting from Android 8.0 I think) have very strong power management policy and they try to save as much energy as possible. For this reason, they turn off Wi-Fi module (for instance) periodically, so the camera is not connected to internet and it seems to be offline and unavailable. I have to recommend to always connect new Android phones to a charger.
When I download an image in the app, what folder does it go to?
The images should appear in the standard "Pictures" folder on your phone. If you use Google Photos application, it takes a while until the app scans and find the new image. But you can use any other media browser and go directly to "Pictures" folder and then to "Security Camera CZ". You will find your downloaded images there.
Since I'd like to use your app from a (camera) phone with a limited data volume plan (20GB/month), I'd like to know if camera, when active, is sending data continuously or only when it is viewed remotely from the control device (either upon notification or not). I also would like to know if motion detection is sent as pictures or as video, and if it possible to share/export it.
The application was designed to use as low data as possible. So with your plan 20GB/month you can be sure it will not dry your data account. Each alarm takes about 30kB of data, so 1000 alarms/images takes only about 30MB. Please only note, that live video stream takes lot of data, so use it carefully. You can check how many data the live stream takes when you click the "i" icon during live video stream.
The motion detection sends images (not video) in low resolution, each image is about 480x360 pixels and about 30kB of data.
You can share/export the image, when you "long press" on the image and then click share icon.
Can you tell me how to connect another cameras to the system?
If you want to add a camera, install the application on some android phone and log in using the same email address as on your monitor. Then choose a camera mode and that is all - the camera will immediately appear on your monitor.
I can't record videos; camera is HTC One M8.
This doesn't happen to many users, but yes, I have already heard about this error. The error means that there is some problem with media encoder on your "monitor" device. Unfortunately, I don't have a solution for this issue yet. You will not most probably meet this issue if you switch to another phone, or (may be) if you put your device to factory defaults. I am sorry I cannot give you some better advice.
Images disappear, even if they are not deleted. The app shows that there are about 2 thousand images, but when I open the motion detection screen, there are only a hundred of them!
If images disappear, there is probably low storage memory on the camera device. In this case, the camera automatically deletes oldest images in order to make a free space for new images. If you add an SD card to the camera device, or if you switch the camera to store images to your Google Drive, the problem will be most probably gone.
The app was working fine until the update. Now I get the error “cannot access image sensor” all the time. What should I do?
This messages appears on older phones/camera whose electronics is already a little bit "tired", so the camera sensor freezes time by time. Restart of the camera device will temporarily help, but I would recommend to look ahead and to use another phone as the camera.
Can I store the images that were recorded or are they only in real time?
You can store recorded images, when you click the download button (small "down" arrow at bottom of the preview screen). Or you can mark more images (using long press) and then click share button and send these images anywhere you want. Or you can set the camera to store images to your Google Drive (instead of storing these images locally).
I am using the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active to monitor and as the camera. The motion sensor keeps turning off by itself and images are sometimes all blue or all green or pink and blue or some strange combination.
I don't know if this your case, but motion detection turns itself off when reaching a limit of 3000 images per day (but you should receive a warning about that in advance). Motion detection shouldn't turn itself off in any other case.
Please is it possible to send me some example of green or pink image from your S7 camera?
I like your app - it is very easy to use - but I am having problems with installing the app on my HP Laptop. How can I do that?
To use this application on PC or Mac, please open the web page https://securitycamera.cz using the Google Chrome web browser.