Don't know what to do with your old phone? Turn it into a home camera

Don't know what to do with your old phone? Turn it into a home camera

Using your old smartphone as a home surveillance camera is not difficult enough, and you can handle it. Here's how to do it step by step.

A camera installed in your house or apartment allows you to check whether everything is in order there and whether unwanted guests have sneaked in. However, professional tracking and security systems will cost you a substantial amount, and not everyone will buy special cameras. But did you know that you can turn your old gadget gathering dust somewhere into a camera that will transmit you a picture from your home?

Exactly! You can run the Wi-Fi camera yourself using an old smartphone. After all, a mobile phone camera has the same capabilities as factory devices for monitoring your home.

For this purpose, you can use almost any, even quite old, smartphone or tablet with a charger. It is important that it has a working camera, as well as Wi-Fi, cameras, and a screen that allows you to control the device, and preferably working speakers and a microphone, as well as a flashlight for additional illumination. You can also use a tabletop tripod or selfie accessory to properly position your makeshift security camera.

Now let's start turning the smartphone into a security camera. To do this, you will need a special app - you can find it in the App Store or Google Play. For example, the AlfredCamera Home Security, which offers an inexpensive subscription fee (it also has a free version, but it has slightly worse video quality and does not have a zoom function for the camera view and a number of other useful features). Using the web version for the Google Chrome browser as a monitoring tool, you can call up the current live view from any device, enable recording, switch between the main camera and the camera for selfie. Follow these steps:

  • Install the Alfred Camera app on your personal smartphone or other device, as well as on the old smartphone you are using as a camera. Create a user account in the application.
  • Log in to the application on your smartphone or other device and go to the "Add camera" > "Mobile device" > "Create a pair using a QR code" tab. A QR code will appear on the screen.
  • Now on your smartphone camera, click on the button labeled "Scan to Link to Viewer Device" and scan the code on the screen of your personal gadget.
  • Place your smartphone camera in the location from which you will be filming and connect it to charger. We advise you to find a place where your smartphone will not be very visible. Ready! Your home surveillance system is installed.

And one more tip. To prevent your smartphone's battery from quickly deteriorating, we recommend installing an application to set a battery charge limit on your smartphone so that charging stops after reaching, for example, 80 percent.