Have been thinking about this for a couple years. I have old phones kicking around. Battery shot, hardware dated, but the camera(s) and mic and antennas still work. Would be cool if there were a way to set them up (powered) to stream audio/video or even take stills at intervals (or motion-activated) and then sync the content to the rest of the devices on my network.
I don’t know how complex the programming for something like this would be. But I suspect it’s trivial for those who do know.
I use old iPhones as video baby monitors in much the same way with an app called AlfredCamera, works pretty good for a free app on scrap hardware
I’ve used it too, it works really well.
I’ve run Alfred on Samsung Galaxy S4 and S4 Mini…those were realeased in like 2014.
The free version of Alfred is surprisingly useful. And the pay version was about $35 a year.
I’ve run it on an iPhone 5 or 6, I don’t recall… had it watching my living room for a month while I was away, and aside from a few false positives when light patterns changed due to the wind blowing tree branches around, it was excellent.
I find it works better in my iOS devices than my Androids. The camera is better. Then again, my newest Android running Alfred is about 3 years old.
I have 2 that run 24/7, for 6 months now, - an iPhone 6 and a Moto E5. They watch out the front window mostly to see UPS/Amazon drops.
They’re sensitive enough to trigger when tree leaf shadows move on the pavement.
I could pay for it and I’d be able to block out regions or better adjust the sensitivity.
Had one setup over the summer to watch a hummingbird feeder. Amazing video quality for such fast little birds. That one enabled me to catch the thief that was spilling the feeder ever day (squirrel), so I was able to use the notification to know he was there and scare him off. Worked out.
I tried using an old phone as a dashcam for a while. It just kept overheating. That’s my vaguely related experience. Thanks for reading.
Same. But I used it for a full screen clock.
After a year, it just keeps crashing.
Haven might do the trick. It’s motion activated and can stream content. Made by the guardian project / Snowden to warn you if someone breaks into your hotel room. Open source, too
FYI, the Haven F-Droid repo has seemingly not been updated in 4 years. Latest available .apk is from 2019.
Damn, thank you so much!
You can use obtanium to install from GitHub and f droid and more, it even checks for updates
I’ve used one called “manything” (Monitor anything). It turns your obsolete cellphones and tablets into a network of web accessible security cameras.
Thank you. I’ll look it up!
I use IP Webcam on my old phones as CCTV cameras, one for the inside of my garage and the other in my 3D printer enclosure.
Both cameras Just Work as mjpg cameras in Home Assistant. No internet, nothing.
What I haven’t (yet) tried doing is configuring them in my Frigate nvr (running on docker) - that might give you the complete package you’re looking for.
I know there is, or was. A meth head I knew used old cell phones to watch to outside of his house. I saw the app and it worked really well. The phones were all on the same wifi and had no cell service.
DroidCam.
This thing was revolutionary.
For some reason we couldn’t get the cable TV outside, so we took our other TV and then streamed from inside via DroidCam watching the TV to the TV outside to watch sports, wasn’t the best but it covered us for the day. Phones run red hot however (:
trivial for those who do know.
Erm, no
Idk… Lots of devs I work with write software for mobile devices all the time. I could’ve worded it better I guess: I’m not a dev. 🤷♀️
Yeah, making an app isn’t hard in and of itself but trust me, no matter how easy something seems, it just keeps getting harder once you start building. I don’t mean to say you couldn’t make this app in a weekend if you have the right experience, but it’s gonna be buggy until you spend quite a few more hours ironing out the kinks and maintaining it
Feels on that, I know it’s not a one liner. I suppose I asked here because I was looking for a possible open source/community made solution (several devs working on and refining it collectively). As it happens one of the other commenters linked to pretty much this type of solution i.e. Haven which looks dope AF and I’m a take it for a spin shortly.
The hard part is the hardware as you should really remove the battery from the equation to prevent catastrophic damage from constantly draining and charging an old worn-out battery. Unfortunately most older phones won’t run off wall power without a battery inside so one method is to solder some wires attached to ~4V to the battery contacts in the phone to trick it into thinking there is a battery present and allow you to run the device off USB power directly. This method might vary from phone to phone.
It’s not exactly what you’re wanting, but there is Remote Video Camera on F-Droid.
If I were doing it, I would look for an app that just implements the same basic functionality as a network-connected camera. Then video storage, alerting, motion detection, etc. would all be handled by something like zoneminder.
I’m not aware of software to achieve this, but I assume it wouldn’t be possible to activate the camera based on motion detection, as the phones do not have hardware for this. Sure, it could be possible to have the camera working 24/7 and only record when there’s movement in front of it (e.g. watching for pixel changes in the image being captured) but I doubt these cameras can sustain that kind of uninterrupted use, meaning at some point they will just fail. Just my thoughts, as I find the idea interesting but would love to have that same kind of solution.
I doubt these cameras can sustain that kind of uninterrupted use,
I had an old HTC phone that I used as a garage security camera for 2-3 years straight. It had to be restarted every couple months, but otherwise worked fine. Now you can get a $20 IP camera that surpasses it in every way tho.
Glad to know. 2-3 years is a good lifetime, especially when compared against keeping the phone unused and stored in a drawer.
The camera is on all the time, the recording/streaming only starts when requested or on motion detection. Did you expect a PIR sensor on a phone?
The camera is on all the time
That’s what I meant: I don’t know (as in I have zero clue) the camera is designed to operate that way. Is a naive assumption on my side and I’d be glad to learn this is not the case.
PIR sensor
No, I didn’t expect a sensor, that’s what I tried to say: the hardware is not there, so (on my mind) a constant image analysis/monitoring would be necessary in order to perceive movement and start recording, as in writing video to storage.
I don’t know (as in I have zero clue) the camera is designed to operate that way.
There is no reason a camera cannot be on all the time other than power consumption. Why couldn’t it? The only limitation is software. Other parts of a phone can overheat from continuous operation (CPU et al., voltage converters, maybe flash LED and vibration motor) but not the camera.
There is no reason a camera cannot be on all the time… Why couldn’t it?
Sensor wear, mechanical parts (if any), heat, etc. Essentially wear and tear. Just like nothing lasts forever, using it in a way that it’s not intended/tested/quality assured, may reduce its lifespan.
Basically: “is the device intended to be on and recording 24/7?”
- yes: good, the device should last and perform for its purpose
- no: well, let’s gamble and see how long it lasts
Sensor wear
This does not happen AFAIK. Most phones have no shutters so tge sensors receive light all the time, and the little required power does not overheat it.
mechanical parts (if any)
This is a valid point but the actuators in a phone camera’s focusing mechanism are more like a speaker than a motor. They can last for ages, and many apps allow disabling autofocus when idle.
heat
This one is valid. Even basic image processing is a load on the CPU, and recording/streaming definitely is. Depends on how the camera is mounted to allow airflow.
gamble and see how long it lasts
Sure. The stakes are not very high if the phone would otherwise lay in a drawer.
That should be possible. There was an old security cam app for the iMac built in camera that would do this. There was no motion sensor — you just stepped out of frame to take a “still” image and then the app would monitor for changes compared to it.
