Help
Camera
Monitor
Knowledge base
2021
2020
2019
I have turned on motion detection option but it is not detecting motions.
Please check that the Motion detection is really turned on (in the camera settings) and that the camera is online (you should see a green strip on the main camera panel; if the strip is red, the camera is offline). Then you can increase the motion sensitivity. Please let me know if the problem persists.
Over the course of the last two years I have used your app on and off trying to find out why it is I can't use it. I now have two brand new phones and a brand new router. The router is set to default there are no settings engaged to block internet traffic. the phone that is acting as the camera is completely basic. I have disabled almost all running programs and rebooted the phone from scratch. The monitor phone only has your app and a Wi-Fi keep alive. It does not keep the communication alive however. I've also noticed a strange trend which makes no sense the phone stops charging after about 12 hours also. I have to turn the phone completely off to charge it up. None of my other phones ever did that and there is nothing wrong with this phone. I'm just wondering since my kid plays online games if for some reason someone is jumping in the stream and messing with your app. Every communication that I have contacted you with before in one way or another regards loss of communication between the phones. I can't imagine why I am always having this issue with your app. The viewing phone is less than 2 weeks old and has absolutely no issues in regards to your app or any of the other apps that are running on it. I am using a Nokia 3.1 c and a moto e e7. I'm running a cable modem at 60 + megs a sec, and a cheap jet stream Wi-Fi router. The router seriously cannot be in question because I've had some major brand routers in the past and all fell under the same issue of lost connection. I hope the information that I've given you points you in the direction that can solve this issue.
I have to confirm this issue, that on some phones and on some Wi-Fi, the camera phone "looses" connection, or it simply stops to receive commands from the camera for a while. After some time, it wakes up and everything start to work perfectly again. This issue appears only on some Wi-Fi networks. I don't know the reason for this issue, but I will keep working on this.
How can I change from °F to °C? I am in East Europe and the app shows me °F.
Units are adjusted automatically depending on the national localization in the phone settings. Because Fahrenheit are used in USA, Bahamas, Belize, Cayman Islands, Palau, Puerto Rico, Guam and US Virgin Islands, the app show °F in these countries and °C in the rest of the world. There isn't any manual switch.
Please check the language settings in your “monitor” phone.
Ok so I setup and old HTC phone as a camera and I pretty much can’t leave it unattended without it not working. It just will stop updating its view and the remote option doesn't work. I really need it to work because it's the difference between me keeping or losing my animals. Do you have a fix for the camera not updating issue?
In short, there are most probably some connectivity issue. Please try to restart the camera device and also the Wi-Fi router.
Long answer: the monitor periodically asks camera for a response. If monitor doesn't receive any response within one minute, it declares this camera as "offline". Also, in this state, the camera doesn't receive requests for preview updates, so it doesn't send preview updates. Please try to restart everything as I wrote above and let me know if it doesn't help.
The duration of the live feed recordings depends on the storage of the phone that is recording?
When watching live feed, no data are stored anywhere. So answer to your question is no, during watching live video the duration doesn't depend on the camera device storage. (If you face interruptions of live feed, most probably there will be some drops out of internet connectivity - I would recommend to restart the camera device and also the Wi-Fi router).
If you have any other questions, please let me know.
Allow multiple monitors or at least two.
Multiple monitors are already allowed. In fact, you can have many monitors if you want. Just install the app on another phone, log in using the same account as on your other devices and choose Monitor mode. You can also watch your cameras on PC via address https://securitycamera.cz (please note this is still beta version).
What resolution is the best?
For me, I think the best resolution is around 2Mpx (full HD). This produces quality images but keeps the image data size low. 2Mpx is the default in the app.
After the last update I am having a lot of connection problems. Suddenly some cameras disconnect (appear as off) and never turn on again. Others do catch.
This problem most probably isn't related to the app update, because I don't receive any similar emails from other users. Please try to restart the camera device and also the Wi-Fi router, even if the Wi-Fi connection seemingly works. I hope that will help.
I have 2 Asus Zenfone Zoom S that are working with Security Camera CZ. I have set the zoom to 3X (maximum permitted by this model) in one of these, and for the zoom to work I need to enter in live view and set the zoom to 3x too. A few seconds later the image appears with the zoom set properly. The problem is the other Asus (the same phone). I'm trying to set the zoom to 3x but always stays at 1x. Both are updated to v2.3.1.
Can I ask you, on the second Asus that doesn't zoom, do you see the right zoom value in camera settings? Or the value drops back to 1x? If so, then the new zoom value doesn't reach the camera phone, most probably because of some communication problems.
I'm using your app with great pleasure, but since a few days the resolution will not get higher than 352x198, although my (phone) camera has a much higher resolution. Do you have a solution for this?
The video should always start at 1280x720. If the light conditions are bad or the performance of the camera isn't sufficient to keep frame rate of 20 frames per seconds, the resolution falls down step by step. Please let me know if you start at 1280x720 or not? Also, please, send me the email address that you use as the login to the application and I will check your background profile for possible problems.
Do logs exist in this app? Like deleted files, stop/start camera etc. Another question, the images are grouped into days. Sometimes, too, they are organized by time. What is the criterion for this last group ?
In the latest version of the app, you can find event logs in the camera settings - open camera settings using the "gear" icon and scroll almost down to the item "Event logs". This option was added last Sunday, so you have to have your devices updated to the last version.
Concerning the second question - you can set up images grouping as you want - when you are viewing images, hit the icon of three dots in the top right corner and select "Images grouping".
Please tell me where the arrow to download images goes when viewing movements? On some photos it will appear and on some not. Do you choose there what can be downloaded or not? There is only to share a photo and there is no download.
The download arrow doesn't appear with images taken in "night mode" because these images have so low quality that it doesn't make sense to see them in high resolution. Also download arrow doesn't appear when watching an image that was already downloaded in high resolution and this image is stored in "Pictures" folder on your monitor device.
130 motion detection in less than minute? What I'm doing wrong? Every second show 4 to 6 detection.
Camera cannot physically make more than one image per two second. So if you obtain such a huge amount of notifications, there was (A) outage of internet connection of the camera; in this case the cam is buffering images and flushes them once it is back online. Or (B) there was short outage of internet connection of the monitor, so once it is back online, it gets all the notifications that were "in the air".
How can I set up the time from 10 pm to 5 am?
The time is only adjustable from the device settings. The application cannot adjust time of the device. I highly recommend to have a right date/time set up on all devices.
I forgot my password for this app. I need to recover my password.
You can recover your password easily when you go to https://securitycamera.cz, choose "login" in the top right corner, then "Login via email", type your email address and then click on "Login problems".
Just curious, I have a red circle with an exclamation mark next to it in the right hand corner of my screen. Why and what is that?
This icon means that there isn't enough free disc space on the camera device. It is not urgent, because in such a situation the camera automatically deleted old images in order to make a free space for new images. The only thing is that you are losing history.
You can solve this issue by adding a SD card to the camera device or by switching storage for high resolution images to Google Drive (instead to local drive).
Please add the feature to see whether the camera device is online or offline.
The feature is already there - you can check the red/green strip on the left side of the main camera panel. If the strip is red, the camera is offline. If it is green, the camera is online.
Can I use my smart TV as a monitor and my phone as a camera?
At this moment, you can install the application only to Android devices. I didn't try to install the app on Android TV yet, so if you try I will be glad if you let me know. Except that, you can watch your cameras using web browser Google Chrome at address https://securitycamera.cz
Can I connect more phones (cameras)?
You can connect as many cameras as you want. Just install the application on another android phone or tablet, use the same login account as on your monitor device and that is it! You will immediately see your new camera on your monitor!
Is it possible to hide the app notification icon?
The app icon in the notification bar is unfortunately required by Google to annonce an app that runs on background. Without the icon, the app couldn't be on Google Play store.
I tried finding an automatic reboot app, but they seem to work only with rooted devices which mine is not. Or is it possible to auto-restart your app only?
As you noted, automatic restart (or on demand restart) only works on rooted devices, there isn't any workaround. I don't like rooted devices and I don't use them.
I decided to use another camera to see if I can get around the sleeping problems. I'm now using a Samsung S4. To my amazement it started falling asleep after only 3 days! But this time I actually had an error displayed on your app when I tried to access it on the camera: "app cannot run because Google play is being updated". I could NOT escape out of the app it kept looping on this error. I had to terminated it via the android route. When I checked Google play there were no apps being updated. This has happened 3 times in a week.
The application uses pretty new Google Play library, so the phone where the app runs must have the Google Play updated to the last version. If the phone stops during Google Play update, try to restart it, it usually helps. Then go to the Application settings, find Google Play and update it manually. Then the Security Camera CZ will run.
How many delays will I have when I leave the house, since both the camera phone and the monitor phone are no longer connected to a Wi-Fi?
If you leave your home and also leave the Wi-Fi connection, the application switches to mobile data automatically and it will continue to work. You will receive all notifications immediately.
If you don't have mobile data connection on your camera phone, never mind. The camera will continue to work offline, but you will receive all pictures as soon as the camera reconnects to Wi-Fi.
It says can't access image sensor. Why is it saying that? How can I fix it?
This error message appears on some old and already a little bit "tired" phones, whose electronics doesn’t work perfectly anymore and sometimes "freezes". It usually happens on image sensor part of electronics. When this happen, the application cannot access the image sensor and take more images. Unfortunately, only hard restart helps in this situation, and usually only for a while. I would recommend to replace the camera phone with another one.
The live feed is not working. Why is this happening?
If the live feed doesn't work (you are not able to connect to the camera), there will be most probably some connectivity issue on the camera of the monitor device. It is important that both devices (camera and monitor) have good internet connectivity in order to start the live feed.
I have your app running on a Samsung S4 with Android 5 on it. After approx. a week, the phone is completely blocked, sometimes, it crashes, or is reacting very slow. The app is not working then anymore. I already did a factory reset, the phone has only your app on it. Did you experience something like this? Would you have an idea or a hint for me to fix it? Unfortunately, Android 5 does not have an automatic/scheduled reboot function like the more recent versions have it. I would be happy if you can help me here.
This kind of questions is the most difficult for me, because I don't know how to answer. I also have one phone/camera (Sony Xperia with Android 4.4) that behaves exactly as you wrote. After a week or so the phone becomes very slow and must be rebooted. Unfortunately, the process of "becoming slow" is long and I still cannot figure out what is the right reason for this. Anyway, all other phones/cameras behave ok. Sorry I cannot give you an answer,
Sometimes I cannot turn the camera on remotely.
Please check if the camera is properly connected to a charger. Also check the internet connection - I would recommend to restart both the camera and the Wi-Fi router. The camera must have continuous access to internet in order to be still online and manageable.
Hello, how can I disable a movement detection?
To disable recording of movements, please go to the camera settings (the gear icon) and look for the line "Motion detection". Turn it off.
Hi. Is there a way to get it to record a video rather than a sequence of stills?
I decided to record detected motion by series of high resolution stills (instead of video) because all other similar apps on the market record videos. I thought it would be nice to have an alternative. So at this moment, I don't plan to add recording of videos instead of pictures. Yes, I receive similar emails time by time, so may be in a future I'll add this feature.
I used your app (Security Camera CZ) with an old smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S2). I bought your app and turn off notification in App Manager, but have yet periodically notification like in photo. How can stop the?
This message is shown because of new optional functionality "turn off motion detection when I am nearby". If you don't need this function, you can ignore the message, or answer "no", "cancel" or so.
Hi, I have problem with the motion detection when I chose the option to warn me only when I am away. When I come back home it detects me as an intruder and sends alarms!
I do not know how you detect the location of the two phones.
I think the best way would be to see if they both are connected to the same router. Because usually before entering home my phone is already connected to my home router.
Please let me know what to do.
You are right that the function "stop motion detection when I am nearby" doesn't work for 100%. It is because it uses native Android system called Geofence, which on modern Android doesn't work perfectly. It because of strong power saving techniques of modern Android phones, which periodically turn off many hardware components to save energy.
Originally I built this "nearby" function based on detecting the same Wi-Fi router, but it works even worse than the Geofence system. The Android phone doesn’t detect Wi-Fi for very long time when it sleeps. So after coming home, the phone doesn't connect to the same Wi-Fi until you wake it up! Thus I changed the "nearby" system to Geofence, which works perfectly on Android 7 and lower and hopefully those Google guys will make it working perfectly also on Android 8 and up soon.
I want to spy on my aunt Lily. How can I do it?
This application is much more a home security camera than a spy camera, so I am afraid I cannot help you with this request.
I have very old first Android phones. What is the oldest version that works with your application?
The oldest version this app can work on is Android 4.1. (Jelly Bean). Older phones aren't supported by Google anymore, and their operating system doesn't provide enough functions to run this application.
How can I change the camera orientation: horizontally, vertically, rotate 90 degrees, etc.?
The picture from the camera should be automatically rotated to the right position, so there isn't any possibility in the application to manually rotate the camera image.