Turn old smartphones into home surveillance cameras

If you know how to take advantage of old smartphones, users can set up a quality monitoring system at home.

Currently, there are many types of surveillance cameras on the market for users to choose from, such as Vantech, Questek... with prices ranging from a few hundred to a few million VND/set. However, if you have old smartphones available, you can take advantage of them and turn them into remote home monitoring devices at a cost-effective price.

Solution to connect two devices

First, prepare two old and new smartphones, the old smartphone will act as a camera and the new smartphone will act as a monitoring device. Download and install the Manything application on both smartphones at http://manything.com, compatible with Android and iOS devices. The application can detect motion and send alerts via text message, email, automatically record audio and provide a chart listing all recorded activities. When finished, click the Sign up button to create a free account or quickly log in with Facebook. The application interface is relatively simple, on the old smartphone, click on the Camera item to assign it the monitoring function; conversely, the new smartphone will act as a management device (Viewer).

In the Recording mode section, users should choose Record on motion mode (automatically record when detecting motion) instead of Continuous recording (continuous recording) to save space. The Sensitivity threshold section will be where the sensitivity is changed. If this number is lower, the smartphone will immediately record when detecting even the smallest movement and vice versa.

For example, if the area you want to monitor has a bird cage and you don't want your smartphone to continuously record when the bird moves, you can ignore it by clicking on Detection Zones and removing that area from the monitoring area. In addition, Manything also has a built-in feature to alert you by text message or email when it detects unusual movements. To activate, turn on the Send Push Notifications and Send alert emails options under Motion Detected.

On the smartphone used for management, log in with the same account and select the Viewer function, then select the camera you want to monitor in real time. Here, users can review all previously recorded videos, share with friends or upload to the Manything user community. If you want to watch on a computer, just go to https://manything.com/, log in, select the camera you want to monitor and follow the instructions.

Take advantage of software applications

In addition to Manything, you can try installing the AtHome Video Streamer application for your old smartphone (used as a surveillance camera) at https://goo.gl/5z6Jld, compatible with iOS, Android and Windows devices. The main interface will include the camera screen, CID (camera identifier), Username (login name) and Password (password) used for remote connection. To make it easier to remember, users should touch the menu icon in the upper left corner, then press Change and change it as desired. Note that the password must be at least six characters long, including lowercase letters, uppercase letters and numbers.

Similarly, on the device used for management, install the AtHome Camera application at https://goo.gl/oXbxhU. When finished, users just need to log in with the same account, the previously added cameras will automatically be displayed. If not, you need to click on the plus icon in the upper right corner and select Add Camera by CID or Add Camera by QR Code. Below are the function buttons used to record, press and hold to speak through the microphone, change quality, take photos, night mode... and many other options.

In testing, the application works quite effectively, allowing you to access the camera anywhere, as long as the device is connected to the Internet or 3/4G. However, for the camera to work stably, you should continuously plug in the device.

According to PLO