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Why is the motion detector turning off by itself?
The motion detection shouldn't turn itself off. The only exception is when the camera makes more than 3000 images per day - 3000 images is a day limit for motion detection. If your camera such a huge amount of images, please consider to lower motion detection sensitivity of exclude some parts of the picture from motion detection. For more help, please let me know.
I am only getting.jpg files. No videos. Also, is there a setting for frame rate?
This app is unusual in that it records movements as a series of high resolution still images, not as a short video like all other similar apps in the Google Play store. I wanted to create a little bit different app than the others are. Sometimes it is useful to have lower frame rate, but high resolution images. I tried to clearly announce this behavior in the Google Play store, to not get low ratings just because this app behaves differently than other similar apps.
So the answer to your question is unfortunately no, this app doesn't record videos.
Can I buy the app and pay in cash?
Payment by cash isn't possible, it would be too difficult. For instance, sending money using a bank transfer would cost more on bank fees than the payment itself.
I don’t know how to use the app. I installed in my nice phone but I don’t know how to use it.
To use the app, you should install it on TWO phones. One phone can be some older, unused one - this will be your remote camera. You can then watch this camera by installing the same application on your regular personal phone - this will be your monitor. It is very easy; the application works just out of the box. When done, you can watch live feed from your camera, you will be notified about movements in front of your camera etc. It has even more functions, which you can use if you want (or you don't have to), it is up to you.
If you need any help, please let me know.
After the last update to version 2.4.0 of the app, the camera stopped connecting. A complete reinstall didn't help. It happens like this. I launch the application on the camera phone. On the phone-monitor, everything connects and shows. On the camera, I turn on the economy mode. After 1-2 hours I try to connect to the camera on the monitor, there is no connection. The yellow loading bar reaches the middle and does not go further. At what messages about new movements come and the picture is updated. In order for the connection to appear again, you need to exit the economy mode on the camera and connect to it from the monitor. But after turning on the economy mode, the connection with the camera works for 1-2 hours and stops again. And I can’t understand what kind of economy mode this is if my phone’s screen is now constantly on, it used to turn off. Now the phone is heating up.
Now I have installed the previous version of the application (2.3.1), it works fine.
And also, please make a version of your application for smartphones without Google services.
It is very strange that the live video in the latest version doesn't work for your, because there wasn't any change in the live video part of the application.
The only difference in the latest version is the screen saver and recommendation not to turn off the application from the phone's display. This change is due to new Android 11, which doesn't allow access to the camera chip to applications that were not started explicitly by the user. For this reason, the application must be kept on the display on Android 11.
For older phones (Android 10 and lower) nothing changes and you can still close the app and turn on power saving mode even in the latest version of the app.
I will think about the problems you described.
The Google services are unfortunately necessary for the app to run - it provides many functions which are necessary for the app. I would also like to run the app without Google services.
I get an error message “cannot access the image sensor” on a camera with Android version 11.
The latest Android 11 doesn't allow access to the phone's camera chip to applications that was not explicitly run by the user. For this reason, it is very important on Android 11, not to close the application by the Home button or phone's power button.
Please keep the camera application on the display. Until the camera application will be on the display, it can access the camera chip.
If you hide the camera application and the turn the camera off and then back on, it will not have access to the camera chip.
What is making camera app to stop by itself? When I come to the camera phone, the app is not running on the camera phone.
Concerning the question "What is making camera app to stop?". The answer is the android operating system. It decides to stop the camera application on some android models occasionally and very randomly. It doesn't happen on all phone models and it happens more on older models than on newer ones.
For this reason, it is recommended in the latest version of the app not to close the camera application by the Home or phone's power button and leave it on the phone's display. There is a screensaver which activates automatically after 1 minute to save the display and energy. When the application is on the display, the operating system shouldn't close the app by itself, so the camera should be more reliable. Please would you try to keep the application on the camera phone on the display?
Why do all cameras stop accidentally? And do not start recording until manually started. Camera just stopped itself on 10:39. Until started by me on 16:32. I lost 6h of important pictures which did not record.
When ALL cameras stop at once, it is almost always caused by some connectivity issue on the monitor side. The reason is this: the monitor device contacts each camera each 15 seconds and waits for a response. If there is no response within 1 minute, the monitor declares such a camera as being offline.
So when all cameras are suddenly declared as "offline", the problem is more likely to be at the camera side, because it didn't receive responses from all cameras. Try to restart the monitor phone, I think the problem is there.
Can't connect to the camera due to an error message “cannot access the image sensor”.
This error message appears exceptionally on older phones - cameras, whose electronics is already a little bit tired. When the application loses access to the electronics of the camera chip, this error message appears. You can clean this error only by hard restarting of the camera phone, but I am afraid that the error reappears after some time again. I would recommend to use another phone as the camera.
This error can also appear on camera that are on Android 11. If this is your case, please let me know.
I understand that an online camera has to be registered anywhere. But I need it only offline and locally. You wrote that this is possible, but I could not find a way to work without registration. If it is possible or if you have an advice for an app doing what I need (I want it for bird watching, not as a spy cam) please let me know, I will change my rating at once.
This cam isn't quite optimized for offline/local mode, because all the setup of the camera can be done only via another phone in Monitor mode. But yes, the cam works offline/locally, except the short while when you log in using any email/password combination (even not existing email). After login, you can disconnect the camera from internet and let it work. You can then download images of detected motions via your PC and cable from the location:
SD card/Android/data/cz.scamera.securitycamera/files
I bought the license for security camera to monitor our roof for rodents. The ease of use and the functionality is absolutely great.
I only have one issue in the evening. I have configured the app to automatically turn on the light and switch to night mode. Switching on the light works fine, but the night mode isn't switched on in parallel - it remains in the day mode. Is there a way to switch on both at the same time?
Switching lights and the night mode at the same moment is a little bit tricky, because when you turn on the "torch", the light conditions around the camera change significantly and there is no more reason to (automatically) switch to night mode as well. Try to place to camera so that there isn't any light object or spot in front of it, event when the torch is on. I will also double check the camera night mode and torch functionality.
My camera is on 2G mobile network. Correctly said, video broadcasting on the 2G network does not work. But the notification should come along fixed footage? For some reason, sometimes the photo is loaded at the time of detection and the notification comes late.
Notifications should arrive. If they arrive late, there can also be some issue on your "monitor" device. Try to restart it (the monitor phone). If it doesn't help, the problem will be on the camera side and (most probably) with the connection. If you want, you can check logs from the camera - they are available in the camera settings (the gear icon), almost at the bottom. Please be patient, they load from the camera, so it can take up to a half of minute until they load.
The device in camera mode is in my suburb. There is no Wi-Fi, there is only 3G or 2G. Motion frames come without notification the moment after the snapshot, but it is not possible to upload them, and video surveillance does not turn on. And I can’t turn on the flashlight and look. In my opinion, the flashlight is blinking, but the frames are not detecting at this time.
Live feed doesn't work on 2G network; it is too slow. You can try to turn off the HD quality in camera settings, may be it helps. Btw. even bad 3G signal is better than good 2G signal, from my experiences.
How hard would it be to "remotely reset the phone" with this app? In other words, power- down then power-on? The reason is for when the phone stops charging. And sometimes phones have camera issues.
The on-demand restart of the phone is prohibited by the Android system. Until the phone is so-called "rooted", no app can request a restart of the phone. Rooting of the phone isn't a big problem, but it very depends on the phone model - there is an individual procedure for each phone model.
Hi. I am loving your app but have a couple of questions for you.
I am currently on the free version and was having trouble getting high resolution most the time even with great light, my question is if I have the pay for subscription will I have high resolution more often or will it be the same?
I have started get this red circle symbol with a ! next to it and can't find any information on what it means. If you could kindly explain what this symbol means that would be great.
You should be able to get the HD quality even in the free version. The only difference against the paid version is that there is a time limit of 120 minutes of HD video per week (reset each night from Thursday to Friday) and in the paid version the limit is raised 4x, i.e. to 480 minutes per week. I have just reset the counter on your account, so please try the video now, you should get the HD quality.
The red symbol should represent the "disc", i.e. the free space in your camera device (I am sorry for the graphics). The red disc symbol means that your camera is running on low disc space and there isn't enough memory to store more images. You don't need to much worry about that, because in such a case the camera automatically deletes the oldest images in order to make space for new images. The only thing is that you are losing your history. You can avoid this issue by cleaning the camera phone or by adding an SD card.
How can I know how many monitors have been installed for my camera?
At this moment, there isn't any way how to discover how many monitors are paired with your camera.
Even though my Galaxy S7 is OK with iSpy and TinyCAM, I wonder if there could be a glitch in the camera rather than in your software. To confirm, I have ordered another used S7 on eBay. I should be able to test it before the 30-day return period runs out on the first phone. I'll let you know.
If both iSpy and TinyCAM works well with S7, I am afraid that there will be some issue in my app. The S7 probably uses some weird image format, but other apps can deal with it. I will appreciate if you let me know if the next S7 has the same problem. If so, I will try to get some S7 on my own and fix the issue.
Needs a little bit of work done on the zooming and panning area's.
The off-center zoom (zoom, pan and tilt) should work well on camera devices (phones) that natively support off-center zoom. Unfortunately, even in these days not every phone supports off-center zoom. But on the phones that does, you should be able to zoom, pan and tilt picture and live feed from your camera.
I would like to know why I cannot be connected to 4G when I am outside. The application works only over Wi-Fi?
This app should work well on any internet connection, also the mobile 3G or 4G. Don't you have some data saving software installed on your mobile phone? Or any kind of firewall?
Hi my name is Leslie and I got the security camera CZ app on my smartphone that I don't use I'm going to use it as a camera. And I have an iPhone that I'm going to use as the monitor. I can't seem to download or install the app for my iPhone because we have a different app center and it doesn't have it in there when I try to install it through Google play it tells me that it will install it soon. But it's not doing it. My email address is above. If you could help me with this problem I sure appreciate it. I have set up the camera on my l u phone and my iPhone it will be the monitor like I said thank you for
Unfortunately, this application isn't ported for iPhones yet. The only possibility is to use the web access on the IOS, but it has a limited functionality. You can try to open the web face using the Chrome browser at the address https://securitycamera.cz
Why does my flashlight keep flashing for and how can I shut it off?
You probably turned on the function "Torch" in the camera settings. Please go to the camera settings, find item Torch and turn it off.
I have a paid subscription to your service. I understand that there is only 30 minutes of video at a time, however, when it shuts off I have to restart the camera device. This should not be an issue. I should be able to immediately restart viewing the camera. I am not able to manually restart that device. That is the entire purpose of this service. If this issue persists I will be forced to request a refund as I will seek other options.
I absolutely agree, all the functions of the app must be working, otherwise I will refund you the purchase. I have check your account for possible errors, but unfortunately I didn't found any. You say that the _camera_ crashes when the video is stopped. It crashes every time? It crashes if you stop the video manually and it also crashes when the video stops after the 30-minute limit?
If you want, you can also try viewing the live feed on PC, on address https://securitycamera.cz
Please let me know, we will try to fix the issue, otherwise I will refund you the purchase.
I have been using Security Camera CZ with Samsung SM-820 and SM-J120A phones for several months now. The features and performance are excellent!
Recently I purchased a used Samsung S7 (SM-G891A) -- very good low-light sensitivity and wider view angle. There are intermittent spells when most of the motion events are as seen below, making the phone/camera unusable. I thought it must be a defective camera. To confirm, I have tried the S7 with other apps, but they do not have the problem. I would love to use the S7 with Security Camera CZ, is there some incompatibility?
It seems that the SM-G891A produces some different image format than the application expects. The application expects standard full colored JPEG image, but obviously this is not it. I must say that I have never received info about similar problem, so that must be something that concerns (perhaps) only the SM-G891A. But another strange thing is, that other apps can deal with it. So the result is that there must be something wrong with my app. I will further investigate on the problem, but it will a little bit harder without the exact phone.
If I figure out the issue and fix it, I will let you know. Thank you again for letting me know.
Is it possible to use the camera without an access to internet?
Yes, the camera can be used without internet. When the camera isn't connected to internet, it "remembers" all images of detected motions and sends them to you as soon as it is connected to Internet. Or you can download those images from the camera using a USB cable when you connect to camera to your computer.
I want to ask why the camera does not show me the actual scene - the cell phone is actually on and it also has internet connection.
Is the camera plugged into a charger? It is very important. If the camera isn't in a charger, it goes to sleep, which causes that it can be unavailable time by time. Also please check if the charger is in a good condition.
Can the camera modes be switched from one to the other?
If you want to switch between camera and monitor modes, 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 the different mode.
I was wondering how would I find out if my phone has been hacked? For obvious reasons, if my phone was hacked then whoever that was could see into my home...
And let’s say, my phone isn't hacked... is there a way to hack into the other phones that are now cameras? And how can I stop, or prevent that from happening?
Otherwise, I really kind of like what you have going on here... very easy to use app, as well as super innovative. Who doesn't have at least one old phone laying around, right?
Concerning security - Security and privacy of users' data 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.
Truly said, even I as a developer don't know how to "hack" someone’s camera. I think it is impossible.
Why did my camera disappear? I didn't remove it.
The camera shouldn't disappear by itself, unless it is unused for about 6 months. If there is no activity from a camera for 6 months, it is deleted by itself.
So as per your suggestion while watching the live feed I clicked on (i) button and I can see the details but there is no error message stating that why frame rate goes to zero and live feed getting stop after 20 seconds. So from my point of view application is working fine If I restart on camera device than it will work properly for 2-3 days and again I will face issue of disconnect which is also mentioned in below mail trail. So if I use this application as my security camera than every 2nd day I have to restart my application on camera device which is quite hectic job. Can you please look into this?
This behavior is very strange. Is your camera phone in a good condition? I mean if there isn't plenty of some old applications installed. If so, I would recommend to make a factory reset of the phone - it will clean everything from the phone so it becomes like a new one. Just attention, the factory reset cleans really everything, including pictures and other stuff.
I don't see new recordings on my Google drive. How do I retrieve them?
It seems that you are out of free space on your Google Drive! You also setup that you will maintain the images on your Google Drive by yourself. Now, the app doesn't have a free space where to store new images.
Please go to your Google Drive and free some space there.