Every year, “smart” technologies, including video surveillance systems and video analytics, are increasingly penetrating into our daily lives. With the help of video recording tools, fines for traffic violations are automatically issued, people and cars are searched for, and serious crimes are revealed. Not so long ago, ordinary video intercoms were considered a curiosity, and suddenly we extremely quickly found ourselves in a reality where the public subway literally recognizes its passenger – using the Face Pay biometric identification and fare payment system. Systems for home and office surveillance, baby monitors, etc. are popular. At the same time, not everyone has the opportunity to install a full-fledged video surveillance system and connect good IP cameras to it. At the same time, in some cases, the user’s needs fit within the minimum capabilities of the simplest devices in this category. For simple cases, the option of turning an old or backup smartphone into an IP video camera can come in handy: this requires the gadget itself, special software and a Wi-Fi Internet connection, preferably with a dedicated, so-called white IP address. We will look at the process of transforming a regular Android smartphone into an IP camera, but when using other software, the same can be repeated on an iPhone or laptop with a webcam. the so-called white IP address. We will look at the process of transforming a regular Android smartphone into an IP camera, but when using other software, the same can be repeated on an iPhone or laptop with a webcam. the so-called white IP address. We will look at the process of transforming a regular Android smartphone into an IP camera, but when using other software, the same can be repeated on an iPhone or laptop with a webcam.
Base
First you need to find a stale (or not so) smartphone, then, under its technical characteristics, select a special program with which it can perform the functions of an IP camera. Most Android applications in this segment appeared a long time ago and can run even on very old devices. On the other hand, any work with video content, and even more so video streaming, requires significant computing resources, so in the end it will be possible to understand whether your device is suitable for these tasks only in practice.
There are many applications for realizing IP-camera functions by phone: Alfred (Alfred Systems Inc.), SafeCam (TrackView), DroidCam (Dev47Apss), IP Webcam (Pavel Khlebovich) and others. Using these programs, you can transfer video and audio streams captured by individual smartphone cameras to other remote devices, including desktop computers and mobile gadgets. One part of the parameter can be configured only on the device turned into an IP camera, and the other part can only be configured on the receiving device. On a smartphone that will act as a signal source, it is imperative to install a program that, in fact, will turn it into a mini-server that broadcasts AV data and provides access to control the nuances of this transmission. Receiving devices sometimes require a special client program to be installed.
Most of these programs, by default, record video locally on the built-in ROM (Read Only Memory) of the smartphone, but, with rare exceptions, the software also provides work with some cloud storage services. With the help of additional functions, you can teach your smartphone to respond to movements in a certain area of the space captured by the camera and turn on video recording only when motion is detected. Recording can also be triggered by loud sounds that go beyond the usual background noise. However, in both cases, the delay between registering a trigger event and turning on the recording is likely to be 2-3 seconds or even more, especially when it comes to a gadget with poor performance.
In theory, IP cameras assembled on the basis of ordinary smartphones can be used both for continuous video recording of what is happening and for online monitoring without recording, simply by connecting to the device at the right time. In the latter case, you can turn recording on and off at will. Usually, video is recorded as long as there is free space on the smartphone or in the cloud, however, it is possible to separately configure the length of recorded video clips and the minimum remaining storage space at which overwriting will begin. Not every smartphone can withstand constant video recording in IP camera mode, so it’s better to set the gadget to auto-record certain events.
On the example of IP Webcam
Let’s take a look at the features and basic settings of one of the most famous free Android apps in this category – IP Webcam. After installing the server part of IP Webcam on the device that we decided to make a node of the video surveillance system, we open the application and find ourselves in a large settings menu. At the very bottom of it there is a button “Start and start broadcasting”, by pressing which, even without preliminary settings, the program will most likely successfully launch the Android Webcam Server. In some cases, when you need to access the streaming image from the camera as quickly as possible, this is a working option. If we are talking about more long-term cases, it is better to understand the settings more carefully. The first item is the “Extensions” section, where you can install and configure various add-ons – usually these are small scripts,
