How To Turn Your Old Smartphone Into A Security Camera

Old Android Phone As Security Camera Hero

Old Android Telephone Every bit Security Camera Hero (Image credit: Joe Maring / Android Central)

Buying a new Android phone is an heady matter. Especially if you're coming from a phone that'due south ii (or more) years old, there are tons of new features to check out, increased performance to bask, and likely a new version of Android to familiarize yourself with.

That'southward all fine and peachy, just what are you supposed to do with your now-former handset? You could sell it or trade information technology in for some extra cash, simply depending on its age and condition, the amount of coin you'd get may not be the worth the hassle of going through all of that. There are stores and other establishments that allow you to recycle your telephone, but you may non live near one or be ready to fully give up your sometime friend but nevertheless.

If yous don't mind getting a lilliputian creative, at that place are other ways to repurpose an Android device so that you tin can keep getting use out of it without further calculation to our planet's growing pile of eastward-waste. Today, I'll be teaching you how to turn an erstwhile Android phone into a security camera. Seriously!

A quick search on the Google Play Store will reveal several apps that permit you to practice this. I'll exist running through the setup process and my thoughts on two of the most popular ones so you can go started for yourself and breathe new life into that one-time Galaxy S9 or Pixel ii.

Alfred Camera

Get-go on the listing, we have Alfred. Alfred is 1 of the most popular security camera apps by a long shot, touting over 10 meg downloads and a solid 4.7-star rating on the Google Play Store.

This is the app a lot of people will probable default to when looking for a style to plow their Android telephone into a makeshift camera, and in a lot of ways, Alfred earns that popularity. This is an immensely powerful app with reliable performance, simply before nosotros can become whatsoever further into information technology, nosotros need to get it set up.

How to ready your camera and viewer

With any security camera app that you download, you lot'll need two phones to complete the organization — your erstwhile phone to act as the camera and your current/new phone to serve as the viewfinder and control panel.

That may audio a little intimidating, but Alfred guides you through the setup process quite nicely. Here'due south a step-by-pace guide you can follow for both parts.

Alfred camera

How to prepare your Alfred camera

You can set upwardly the camera or viewfinder in any order, but for Alfred, I decided to ready the camera portion first. Here's what it looks like:

Open up the Alfred app on your phone.
Tap Skip in the upper-right corner.
Tap Photographic camera.
Tap Go Started!
Tap Sign in with Google. Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Choose the account you want.
Tap Allow to confirm account permissions. Source: Joe Maring / Android Primal

Tap Allow to permit camera admission.
Tap Allow to allow microphone admission. Source: Joe Maring / Android Primal

Alfred viewer

How to set your Alfred viewer

With your old phone set up with Alfred as the actual security camera, information technology's time to get your electric current phone configured to be the viewer. This process is pretty like and goes as follows:

Open the Alfred app on your phone.
Tap Skip in the upper-right corner.
Tap Viewer.
Tap Get started!
Tap Sign in with Google (since you already signed in on the photographic camera, you don't have to re-allow business relationship permissions). Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Taking a closer look at the app

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Getting Alfred prepare on your phones is extremely easy, only once you're all good to become, what's it like actually using the service?

Starting with the camera interface, there are a few settings to play around with even though near of the controls are done from your viewer phone. You'll find iii icons towards the bottom of the screen, including a shortcut for your settings, enabling/disabling motion detection, and turning on a power-saving style.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

The settings allow you to configure different things for your phone'south camera, including which lens you want to record from (rear camera or front camera), audio and continuous focus toggles, and if you desire move detection to automatically stop when the photographic camera is being moved. The overall UI is prissy and clean, making information technology piece of cake to find what you need without unnecessarily cluttering upward the screen.

Your old phone existence used every bit a camera basically turns into a prepare-and-forget-it device. You can modify its placement in your home whenever you'd like, but when it comes to checking in on what it sees or managing most settings, you'll exercise that from the viewer device.

From the Alfred dwelling house screen on your viewer, y'all'll come across your active cameras listed (mine is moto-g-power) at the very top. Borer on this takes y'all to a alive feed of that camera, forth with some helpful remote controls.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

You can tap-and-concur on the microphone push button equally a sort of walkie-talkie with the camera, allowing you lot to speak to whoever is on the other end. The video button next to that begins recording if something is going on that you want to capture and save.

Tap the arrow icon next to those controls, and you lot'll discover fifty-fifty more features at your disposal. In social club from left-to-correct, these include:

Switch the orientation of the camera on your telephone.
Switch between the back and rear camera.
Enable the flashlight on your camera telephone.
Plough on a night vision fashion for enhanced visibility at dark.
Play a siren sound at maximum book from the camera phone.

If you tap the gear icon towards the top-left of your viewer home screen (right below the Alfred logo), you'll be taken to the total settings for your new security camera. Here you can change the camera's name, add together other people that can manage/view it, configure movement detection settings, set up a schedule for when motion detection goes into consequence, and a agglomeration more.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Complimentary users have admission to a lot of Alfred's settings and features, merely if yous want the best experience possible, at that place is an optional Alfred Premium subscription you can sign upwardly for. You tin pay either $4.99/calendar month or $29.99/year for the service, giving y'all access to:

Hard disk drive recording
Camera zoom
Tape motion events up to 120 seconds
Move detection schedule
Deject storage for recorded events up to 30-days erstwhile
No ads

I'd argue that's a fair price considering everything that comes with Alfred Premium, and if y'all plan on seriously using the service, I'd recommend coughing up the cash. The costless version of Alfred is fine and gives you a good taste of what to wait, but without spending whatsoever coin, video quality is laughably bad, and the advertisements can be a flake much at times.

Outside of that, Alfred has been incredibly reliable during my testing, offers timely notifications when motion is detected on your camera and provides you with a unproblematic and easy-to-employ app for managing everything.

I do wish the free version wasn't then express on the video quality side of things, just based on my feel, I'd happily pay $30 every year to take full advantage of everything that's offered hither.

Everything's here

Alfred Camera

The gold standard of security camera apps
When information technology comes to apps that allow you to turn an old phone into a security camera, Alfred is one of the best in the business. It has millions of users, an insane gear up of features, and a well-designed mobile app. If yous want to get the most out of information technology, nevertheless, you'll demand to pay.

Security Camera CZ

While Alfred may be the go-to for virtually people, I wanted to see how the app compares to something that'southward a piddling lesser-known. Security Camera CZ is another option that I found, coming in with over 100,000 installs and a iv.2-star rating.

It does the same general affair as Alfred, albeit with fewer restrictions and a more affordable premium subscription.

How to set up your camera and viewer

Simply like Alfred, Security Camera CZ requires you to have 2 devices for information technology to work — one that'south the security camera and some other that'due south the viewer. The setup is mostly the aforementioned, but merely to make sure we're all on the same page, here's how to get everything upwards and running.

Security Photographic camera CZ photographic camera

How to ready your Security Photographic camera CZ camera

Only similar with Alfred, we'll get started with Security Camera CZ by setting up the phone we use every bit the security camera. Allow's dive in!

Open the Security Camera CZ app on your phone.
Tap Beginning.
Tap Sign in with Google.
Choose the account you want to log in with. Source: Joe Maring / Android Key

Tap Camera.
Tap Allow to allow admission to your telephone's camera.
Tap Allow to let access to your phone's location. Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Tap Let to allow access to your phone's microphone.
Tap the toggle to permit CZ Camera to brandish over other apps. Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Security Camera CZ viewer

How to gear up upward your Security Photographic camera CZ viewer

At present that your security camera is ready to go, it'southward time to finish this equation by getting Security Camera CZ configured on your phone that acts as the viewer. Once once again, the process is pretty straightforward.

Open the Security Camera CZ app on your telephone.
Tap Beginning.
Tap Sign in with Google (your account should already exist remembered)
Tap Monitor. Source: Joe Maring / Android Primal

Tap Permit to allow access to your telephone's storage.
Tap Allow to permit access to your phone'south microphone. Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Taking a closer look at the app

Now that you lot have Security Camera CZ ready upwards on both of your phones, it'south fourth dimension to get familiar with how each component works!

Compared to Alfred, the user interface for the photographic camera portion of the app is very basic. All you'll see is a toggle for turning the camera on/off, and if yous tap the Preview button, y'all tin see what the current view of the camera looks like and go options to alter the resolution.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Annnndddd, that's it. You can't change any boosted settings from the phone that's acting as the camera, significant you'll demand to handle everything from your viewer/monitor app. While that does brand this side of Security Camera CZ more limited compared to Alfred, it's non that big of a deal considering the nature both of your phones play in this setup.

Moving over to the viewer/monitor phone, this is where Security Camera CZ shines. The home screen is well-nigh identical to Alfred, showing a list of any active cameras that you accept. Tap the video icon to watch a alive feed of the photographic camera, or tap the gallery icon to see a list of detected motions from your camera.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

If you tap on the gear icon to the correct of those ii buttons, y'all'll be taken to all of your camera settings. At that place's a lot to mess with here, with some of the highlights being:

Camera resolution
Zoom
Hd video
Night vision
Torch/flashlight
Motility detection
Camera proper noun
Siren

Equally you can see, a lot of the same features from Alfred are plant here equally well. While Security Photographic camera CZ doesn't accept an selection for just alerting you if it detects people, information technology does allow y'all to customize the motion detection sensitivity, fix information technology up on a schedule, and even exclude sure areas of the video from triggering the detection alert.

Security Photographic camera CZ also has its ain paid subscription yous can sign up for, which costs $six.49/twelvemonth and allows you to keep video history for upward to 30 days, supports video without whatsoever interruptions for 30 minutes, and gets rid of in-app ads.

This is pretty similar to Alfred Premium, with the exceptions that Security Photographic camera CZ is much more than affordable and doesn't completely cripple the video resolution for free users.

Best for less

Security Photographic camera CZ

So proficient, so free
If you're put off by the price of Alfred, Security Camera CZ is admittedly worth a look. It has many of the same features as Alfred, with its most significant benefit being the improved video quality for users of the free version. You tin pay to remove ads and go extended video history, though.

Which one should you utilise?

Alfred And Security Camera CZ Hero — Source: Joe Maring / Android Central (Image credit: Source: Joe Maring / Android Central)

All-in-all, both Alfred and Security Camera CZ are solid applications that legitimately turn your old Android telephone into a security photographic camera. The feature set is also pretty similar across each service, making it a picayune tricky to determine which i you should use.

Alfred is the more expensive of the bunch, and video quality with the free version is pretty disappointing. However, when dealing with something as sensitive as security cameras for your dwelling, I have to give Alfred the upper-hand here. It boasts substantially more users, and the visitor has received a fair amount of media attention over the years. Insufficiently, Security Camera CZ is used past far fewer people and being run past a developer out of the Czechia. There's nothing inherently incorrect with that, but if you'd rather rely on a more publicly-facing company for your security needs, Alfred takes the lead here (non to mention information technology has a fairly active forum with Alfred employees active in it).

I've been pleased with the performance and functionality of both apps, then if you're on a tight budget and just want something for basic monitoring of your domicile, Security Camera CZ is a not bad selection. The app isn't quite every bit pretty, and information technology's missing a couple of features compared to Alfred, but considering merely how good it works without spending a dime, it's darn impressive.

I'd recommend giving both apps a shot and seeing which one is the best fit for you and your needs. There's zip to lose, and by trying them for yourself, you can get a better feel for how they work in real use.

Either style, you can balance assured that you're putting your onetime Android phones to practiced apply and making your home more secure at the aforementioned time.