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2021
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Is it possible to make it compatible with the old android 4.0.3? I have an old HTC with a quite good camera that would be nice to use.
Unfortunately, Google currently supports only phones with Android 4.1 and up, so I cannot easily create a code for lower versions. There would be too many features that wouldn't work on version lower than 4.1, I am sorry.
If I accept position permission the app could be used to till burglers when I am not at home. Or how do you protect position?
The position is only used when you use the feature of the app "Turn off motion detection when I am nearby". If you don't need this feature, you don't need to accept the position request of the app.
If you accept the position request, the app only stores position of the camera device. It stores it on one place (in private Google cloud) and the access to this information is protected by the app security rules, so no one (except you) is able to access this info. You can read more here:
https://securitycamera.cz/privacy_policy.html
in the section Location data.
How do I connect my Merkury Smart WiFi camera?
This app works only with cameras created from Android phones (so you take some old Android phone, install this app on in and select Camera mode). It doesn't support third party cameras, I am sorry.
Does the camera need Internet connection or it can also work without being connected?
The camera needs internet only for the initial setup. After setup, it also works without internet connection - it cashes all images into internal memory. You can then read the images from the device's memory (when you connect the camera with a cable to a computer for instance) or you can connect the camera to internet (for a short while) and let the camera to flush the images to your monitor device.
How can I change the language in the application?
This application copies the language from the cell phone. So if you have your phone in Spanish, the app will be also in Spanish.
Is it possible to turn on and off the remote surveillance camera?
You can turn on/off the camera from its settings (the "gear" icon, the item "Turn on | off ..." almost at the bottom). Or you can simply swipe the preview image left or right - try it.
I use your always updated app for my two Samsung s5mini for some time and I'm thrilled. However, I have to state that the light-dark control does not work on either camera. In about 40% of the shots, these are overexposed (even during the day when the sun is shining). What can I do?
Unfortunately, I cannot give you any advice in this issue. The app uses the full auto mode when taking pictures and no exposure settings is made - all is driven automatically by the camera itself.
For most users (and their devices) the application works well. But I must say that I have already received a complaint for the same issue from one or two users. Unfortunately, I cannot fix this issue without access to a phone which makes such bad images - and until now I wasn't lucky for such a device. I will hopefully fix issue as soon as I meet some device which misbehaves in exposure control.
Hello, everything worked fine for 7 days. Now doesn't work. I tried to switch to mobile Internet, there is no difference. The magazine does not open. Maybe a problem with Google settings?
It seems that there are some problems with internet connection of the camera. Check the internet connection, I would recommend to restart the camera device and also the Wi-Fi router. In addition, I would highly recommend to update the application on the camera device to the latest 2.4 version. From this version ahead, it is recommended to keep the application on the phone's display, which significantly improves the reliability of the camera app (the app shows detailed instructions after updated).
I would like to know how I can delete the activity log, as well as the images already captured?
The most reliable way to delete everything from the camera is to uninstall the application from the camera device. Then everything will disappear from the camera phone.
You can also delete images day by day if you long press a day title (all images of that day will be marked) and then press the "trash" button. The images will be deleted from all locations where they are stored.
Where are your security policies documents?
You can find all the policies at the bottom of each web page at https://securitycamera.cz
For security policy please check the "Privacy policy".
I would like to use the camera alone without the monitor.
The camera records everything internally so if you don't need to control your camera and you don't want to see the images immediately, you don't need the monitor device.
Your app is awesome. Is there a way to make MP4 or a GIF with all the images of a group?
This is very good question; I would like to have such a feature too. I will definitely add something like that in a near future. Tell me, how fast would you like the frame rate in the MP4? Because in standard 25 fps the movie would be too fast. I was thinking about 2 frames per seconds.
I like this app but is there any special network configuration? Is so hard to connect to the camera from different Wi-Fi, maybe VPN?
Definitely not, the application doesn't need any special network settings. If the connection to the camera is unreliable, there will be some common problem with internet connectivity. Try simply restart the camera and monitor devices and the Wi-Fi router. If it doesn't help, check if you don't have some kind of firewall or data-saving application installed on one or second phone.
Does the infrared mode exist on this application?
As far as I know, not many smart phones on the market supports infrared light. Infrared light is normally filtered out of the phone's optics, so normal phone doesn't react to infrared part of the spectrum.
Also, at this moment, the application doesn't support external USB cameras which could potentially provide taking images in infrared spectrum. I plan this feature in a future, because I like the real night vision.
Remove installing this app on one more device
Yes, but this is the principle of the app that you can utilize old cell phone as a home camera. If you don't have old cell phone, you probably don't need this app. Or, if you have just one phone, you can watch it on your PC at web page https://securitycamera.cz (click on Web monitor).
What's the difference between the free and paid version?
The main difference are ads - they disappear in the paid version. There are some other improvements:
- the video plays continuously for 30 minutes without interruption,
- the HD quality of the video is prolonged from 120 minutes to 480 minutes per week,
- the image history is prolonged from 15 to 30 days.
If you make a purchase under some account and then want to transfer it to another account (email), just let me know, I will make the transfer manually.
How to install a telescope to look further away, for example, 5 kilometers?
I think that for such a huge distance you will need an external optics. You can try with a telescope that can be clipped to the phone. Also you will have to fix the camera phone very well, otherwise even a small shaking will blur the image from the camera.
Really impressed so far but sometimes it doesn’t work could this be caused by the nearby setting – what sort of distance would be regarded as nearby? 5m 50m 500m 5km? I am using the system as an alarm on a boat in a marina; sometimes because of the high walls and buildings around the GPS drops out. Does it work using GPS?
The "Nearby" function uses the build in feature of Android phones call "Geofence". It should detect if you are closer than 100 meters to your camera. It uses combination of GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular networks and may be more sensors to detect position, but which of them are used, it is completely controlled by the phone itself (not the application).
I am aware of that the "nearby" function isn't 100% reliable, it mostly it works. Unfortunately, I cannot increase the reliability, since the mechanism of detecting proximity is built-in.
If the "nearby" function doesn't work for you at all, please check if the location permission is permitted on both the camera and the monitor devices. You can check the permissions in the phone settings.
I've been trying your app in the past couple of days so far works great but recently I have been having some issues with the app. Is there a way to choose the quality of the stream? I know you can choose the camera resolution but when I use the monitor app it streams at a super low resolution (352x264) when I didn’t had that issue before and could stream at 720p without issues, I have tried restarting the app and checking the quality of the internet and there is no problem with that so I'm not really sure what to do.
This is because of the time limit for HD video, which is currently set to 120 minutes per week in the free version. The limit is reset each Thursday at night. I have reset the counter for you so you should get HD video again starting now.
Btw. the limit for HD video is raised to 480 minutes per week in the paid version.
I love your app. The only thing is I use it for both camera and monitor and I wish there was an easier way to switch between the 2. Currently I have to sign out and back in to switch functions. Either way its hands down the best app on my phone
You are right, switching between camera and monitor isn’t very straightforward - this is because the app was intended to be used in situations when some spare phone acts as a camera. But I will thing about adding some button to switch between modes.
Tell me how I can fix so that the motion detections (photos) go to the direct email and not to Google drive or to the camera?
Sending photos directly to email isn't possible yet. This is because there can be huge amount of photos and I thought that users wouldn't want to receive so many emails...
I have the camera installed on 1 mobile and as a monitor on 2 mobiles with the same account. Could I get it to only send notifications to the mobile of my choice and not to the second one?
Unfortunately not, notifications are sent to all monitor devices. But you can mute notifications for Security Camera CZ in the phone settings!
How can I see the state of the camera and how can I know that it is working?
You can recognize the status of the camera by the small yellow icon in the top left corner of the camera preview image. If there is nothing, then the camera is idle. If there is a yellow "burst" icon, the camera is detecting movement and taking pictures.
Another clue is a red or green red strip on the left side of the control panel of the camera (on the left from the camera name). If it is red, the camera is currently offline. If it is green, then everything is ok and the camera is working.
Is there a way I could change my password?
Yes, if you have used an email/password combination as the login to the app. For instance, on the web page https://securitycamera.cz - if you login and then hit "change password" in the top right corner of the page.
Or you can logout from the app on the phone, then try to login again and hit "Problems with login" - you will be instructed how to change the password.
Attention - when you change the password, all your devices where you are currently logged in will logout (because they will have the old password).
Would it be possible to make a configuration to keep the program hidden?
Unfortunately hiding the program isn't allowed by Google policies, it must be always visible to the user that something is running on the background.
The camera phone will take a photo whenever I activate monitor on the monitor phone. Even by opening the app on the camera phone it also takes a photo. Is there a way to turn it off? Meaning whenever I open the app on my monitor phone to view the current situation via the camera phone, it will not take any photos.
This feature is called "preview" - when you open your monitor application, you can see a refreshed preview from your camera each 15 seconds. These images aren't stored anywhere. If you don't like this, you can completely turn off the camera from its settings or simply by swiping the preview image left or right. You can then turn the camera back on anytime using the same gesture.
After the update to 2.4.2 versopm, the application generally stopped responding to movement or transmitting an alarm to the monitor, incomprehensibly silent in general. The camera does not capture either it does not transmit, or it does not receive the monitor. Before that, everything was cool.
The update shouldn't be the reason for the malfunction, the latest version 2.4.2 works very well for lot of users. May be there is some coincidence with something else... Please would you try to restart the camera phone?
Lately I receive the message 'can't access image sensor' and the monitor freezes. Then I have to reboot the camera Android. Is it a problem of my old Android or maybe it has to do with your app?
Could you put please an option to be and to reboot it remotely?
This error message appears on some old and already used phones, whose electronics is already a little bit "tired". On this phones, the camera electronics sometimes freezes, the application loses access to the camera chip and, as you discovered, only hard reset of the phone helps. This error cannot be solved by the app and even after factory reset it will reappear again. I would recommend to look around for another phone, if possible.
Remote (or on demand) reboot is unfortunately denied on Android phones - applications don't have access to this command (until the phone is so called "rooted").
Today on or about 5:50 pm despite several attempts to turn off the camera I was not able to do so. Also the motion detector kept going off and it did not capture any images nor was I able to see anything on my monitor. Then it turned off whenever it wanted on about 5:54pm. This has never happened before.
For these cases, when the camera seems to behave unpredictably, it contains the audit logs which records everything what’s happening with the camera. You can check the logs to see what was going on around 5:50. To check the logs, please go to the camera settings and choose "Event logs" item (almost at the end of the list). Wait until the latest logs are downloaded from the camera. Then you can list to the desired day and time to see what was happening.
Camera stays on sometimes for days and sometimes for only a few hours. Can you please advise how to keep it on all the time?
In the latest version of the app 2.4.2, there was introduced a new system, when the camera part of the app stays on the phone's display (with screensaver). I would highly recommend to update your cameras to this newest version. Keeping the camera application on the display significantly improves the resistance of the app to unwanted shuting down by the android system.
I would like to know why the camera turns off by itself.
The camera is shown as "offline" when the monitor phone doesn't get a response from the camera phone within 1 minute. This can be caused by many things, but usually it is due to some current unavailability of internet connection of the camera or the monitor device. When the connection is reestablished, the camera appears as online again.
Where can I set the storage time of the pictures? I only use the app on one device and always switch between the camera and the monitor. But the next morning the pictures are no longer there.
Are you sure that your camera is really detecting some motion? It is hard to say, if you cannot check it when it is running. At least, you can check on web page https://securitycamera.cz the (the camera should have a small yellow icon indicating that the motion detection is on).
I think that if the camera records movements one day, it cannot loose these images to the second day.
I'd like to buy your app to make an outdoor webcam station, but in my tests I've lost connection to the Android remote device. Have you any suggestion why it happens? The device has Wi-Fi access and battery Is charged.
The application on the camera is probably still running, but when the camera doesn't respond to monitor within 1 minute, the monitor marks such a camera as "unavailable". The problem can be also in the monitor device, which doesn't receive responses from the camera correctly. A restart usually helps.
Do you use the latest version 2.4 of the app? In this last version it is recommended to keep the camera application on the display (there is a screensaver, which appears after a while). If you have this last version and you lost a connection anyway, there will be most probably some problem with internet connection. I would recommend to restart both camera and monitor devices and may be also the Wi-Fi router.
Honor 20 lite does not work in camera mode. All the permits have all been granted.
The app should work also on Honor 20 lite. Don't you use any other application that access the camera at the same time? Because on Android devices, only one application can access the camera at a time. If no, try to restart the phone. Also check if any other camera application works on this phone (for instance try the default camera application).