How To Move Security Camera To Vpn

Old Android Phone As Security Camera Hero (Epitome credit: Joe Maring / Android Key)

Buying a new Android telephone is an exciting affair. Specially if you're coming from a phone that's two (or more than) years erstwhile, there are tons of new features to check out, increased functioning to relish, and probable a new version of Android to familiarize yourself with.

That'south all fine and dandy, but what are you supposed to do with your now-one-time handset? You lot could sell it or trade it in for some actress cash, but depending on its historic period and status, the amount of money you'd become 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 phone, simply y'all may not live near i or be ready to fully give upwards your old friend just yet.

If you don't listen getting a piffling artistic, there are other ways to repurpose an Android device so that you can go on getting use out of it without farther adding to our planet'south growing pile of e-waste product. Today, I'll be teaching you how to plow an old Android phone into a security camera. Seriously!

A quick search on the Google Play Store volition reveal several apps that let you to practise this. I'll be running through the setup process and my thoughts on two of the most popular ones so you tin get started for yourself and breathe new life into that old Galaxy S9 or Pixel ii.

Alfred Camera

Starting time on the list, we have Alfred. Alfred is one of the nigh pop security camera apps by a long shot, touting over ten million downloads and a solid 4.7-star rating on the Google Play Store.

This is the app a lot of people will likely default to when looking for a way to turn their Android phone into a makeshift camera, and in a lot of ways, Alfred earns that popularity. This is an immensely powerful app with reliable performance, but before we tin go any further into it, nosotros need to go it ready.

How to set up your camera and viewer

With any security camera app that you download, yous'll demand 2 phones to complete the arrangement — your old phone to act as the camera and your current/new telephone to serve equally the viewfinder and command panel.

That may sound a picayune intimidating, simply Alfred guides yous through the setup process quite nicely. Here's a stride-past-step guide yous can follow for both parts.

Alfred camera

How to ready upwardly your Alfred camera

Y'all can fix the photographic camera or viewfinder in whatever order, but for Alfred, I decided to set up the camera portion offset. Hither's what it looks like:

Open the Alfred app on your phone.
Tap Skip in the upper-correct corner.
Tap Camera.
Tap Get Started!
Tap Sign in with Google. Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

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

Tap Allow to allow camera access.
Tap Allow to allow microphone admission. Source: Joe Maring / Android Cardinal

Alfred viewer

How to prepare up your Alfred viewer

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

Open up the Alfred app on your telephone.
Tap Skip in the upper-right corner.
Tap Viewer.
Tap Become started!
Tap Sign in with Google (since yous already signed in on the camera, you don't have to re-let account permissions). Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Taking a closer look at the app

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

Getting Alfred fix upward on your phones is extremely easy, merely once you're all proficient to go, what'south it similar really using the service?

Starting with the camera interface, there are a few settings to play around with even though almost of the controls are done from your viewer telephone. Yous'll observe three icons towards the bottom of the screen, including a shortcut for your settings, enabling/disabling movement detection, and turning on a ability-saving mode.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

The settings allow y'all to configure different things for your phone's camera, including which lens yous want to record from (rear camera or front photographic camera), audio and continuous focus toggles, and if yous want motion detection to automatically terminate when the camera is being moved. The overall UI is nice and clean, making it like shooting fish in a barrel to find what you demand without unnecessarily cluttering upward the screen.

Your old phone existence used as a camera basically turns into a fix-and-forget-it device. Y'all tin can alter its placement in your home whenever you'd similar, just when it comes to checking in on what it sees or managing virtually settings, you lot'll do that from the viewer device.

From the Alfred habitation screen on your viewer, y'all'll meet your active cameras listed (mine is moto-g-power) at the very height. Tapping on this takes you to a alive feed of that camera, along with some helpful remote controls.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Primal

Yous tin can tap-and-agree on the microphone button as a sort of walkie-talkie with the camera, allowing you lot to speak to whoever is on the other end. The video push button adjacent to that begins recording if something is going on that you want to capture and relieve.

Tap the arrow icon adjacent to those controls, and you'll find fifty-fifty more features at your disposal. In guild from left-to-correct, these include:

Switch the orientation of the camera on your phone.
Switch betwixt the back and rear camera.
Enable the flashlight on your camera phone.
Turn on a night vision fashion for enhanced visibility at night.
Play a siren sound at maximum volume from the camera phone.

If you tap the gear icon towards the tiptop-left of your viewer dwelling screen (right below the Alfred logo), you'll be taken to the full settings for your new security photographic camera. Here yous can change the camera's name, add other people that can manage/view it, configure move detection settings, fix up a schedule for when motion detection goes into consequence, and a bunch more.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Fundamental

Free users have access to a lot of Alfred'due south settings and features, but if you lot want the best experience possible, there is an optional Alfred Premium subscription you tin sign up for. You can pay either $4.99/month or $29.99/year for the service, giving you access to:

HD recording
Camera zoom
Record motion events upwardly to 120 seconds
Motion detection schedule
Deject storage for recorded events up to xxx-days former
No ads

I'd argue that's a fair price because everything that comes with Alfred Premium, and if yous program on seriously using the service, I'd recommend cough up the cash. The free version of Alfred is fine and gives you lot a good taste of what to wait, simply without spending any money, video quality is laughably bad, and the advertisements tin can be a fleck much at times.

Exterior 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 simple and easy-to-utilise app for managing everything.

I do wish the free version wasn't so limited on the video quality side of things, simply based on my experience, I'd happily pay $thirty every year to take total advantage of everything that's offered here.

Everything'due south here

Alfred Camera

The aureate standard of security camera apps
When it comes to apps that let you to turn an old phone into a security camera, Alfred is i of the best in the business. It has millions of users, an insane set of features, and a well-designed mobile app. If you desire to get the virtually out of it, however, you'll need to pay.

Security Camera CZ

While Alfred may be the become-to for well-nigh people, I wanted to run across how the app compares to something that's a little bottom-known. Security Photographic 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 thing as Alfred, albeit with fewer restrictions and a more than affordable premium subscription.

How to fix your camera and viewer

Only like Alfred, Security Photographic camera CZ requires you lot to have two devices for it to piece of work — ane that's the security camera and some other that's the viewer. The setup is mostly the aforementioned, but simply to make sure we're all on the same page, hither'due south how to get everything upwards and running.

Security Camera CZ camera

How to set upwards your Security Camera CZ camera

Just similar with Alfred, we'll get started with Security Camera CZ by setting upwardly the phone we apply as the security photographic camera. Let's dive in!

Open up the Security Camera CZ app on your telephone.
Tap Start.
Tap Sign in with Google.
Choose the account you desire to log in with. Source: Joe Maring / Android Cardinal

Tap Photographic camera.
Tap Allow to allow access to your telephone'southward camera.
Tap Allow to permit access to your phone's location. Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

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

Security Camera CZ viewer

How to fix your Security Camera CZ viewer

Now that your security photographic camera is set up to go, it'southward time to cease this equation by getting Security Camera CZ configured on your phone that acts as the viewer. Once once more, the process is pretty straightforward.

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

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

Taking a closer look at the app

Now that yous take Security Camera CZ fix on both of your phones, it's fourth dimension to get familiar with how each component works!

Compared to Alfred, the user interface for the camera portion of the app is very basic. All y'all'll come across is a toggle for turning the photographic camera on/off, and if you tap the Preview button, you can run into what the current view of the photographic camera looks like and get options to modify the resolution.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Key

Annnndddd, that'due south it. You can't change whatsoever additional settings from the phone that's interim every bit the camera, meaning yous'll need to handle everything from your viewer/monitor app. While that does make this side of Security Camera CZ more limited compared to Alfred, it's not 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 Photographic camera CZ shines. The habitation screen is almost identical to Alfred, showing a list of any active cameras that you lot take. Tap the video icon to watch a live feed of the camera, or tap the gallery icon to come across a listing of detected motions from your camera.

Source: Joe Maring / Android Central

If you lot tap on the gear icon to the right of those 2 buttons, you'll be taken to all of your photographic camera settings. There'due south a lot to mess with here, with some of the highlights existence:

Camera resolution
Zoom
Hd video
Night vision
Torch/flashlight
Movement detection
Camera name
Siren

Every bit you can see, a lot of the same features from Alfred are found hither also. While Security Photographic camera CZ doesn't take an option for simply alerting yous if information technology detects people, information technology does allow you to customize the motion detection sensitivity, set it upward on a schedule, and even exclude certain areas of the video from triggering the detection alert.

Security Camera CZ also has its own paid subscription you tin sign up for, which costs $six.49/yr and allows y'all to keep video history for upward to 30 days, supports video without any interruptions for xxx minutes, and gets rid of in-app ads.

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

Best for less

Security Camera CZ

So good, so free
If you're put off by the cost of Alfred, Security Camera CZ is admittedly worth a look. Information technology has many of the same features every bit Alfred, with its nearly significant do good being the improved video quality for users of the gratuitous version. You can pay to remove ads and get extended video history, though.

Which one should you use?

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 sometime Android phone into a security camera. The feature set is also pretty like across each service, making it a niggling catchy to decide which one you should use.

Alfred is the more expensive of the bunch, and video quality with the gratuitous version is pretty disappointing. However, when dealing with something as sensitive as security cameras for your dwelling, I have to give Alfred the upper-mitt here. It boasts substantially more users, and the company has received a fair amount of media attention over the years. Comparatively, Security Camera CZ is used by far fewer people and existence run by a developer out of the Czech Republic. At that place'southward nothing inherently incorrect with that, but if you'd rather rely on a more publicly-facing company for your security needs, Alfred takes the pb hither (not to mention it has a fairly agile forum with Alfred employees active in it).

I've been pleased with the performance and functionality of both apps, so if yous're on a tight budget and simply want something for basic monitoring of your home, Security Camera CZ is a not bad choice. The app isn't quite as pretty, and it's missing a couple of features compared to Alfred, merely because merely how proficient information technology works without spending a dime, information technology'south darn impressive.

I'd recommend giving both apps a shot and seeing which one is the best fit for you and your needs. In that location'south nothing to lose, and by trying them for yourself, y'all can become a amend feel for how they work in existent apply.

Either manner, you can rest assured that you're putting your old Android phones to skillful use and making your abode more secure at the aforementioned time.

Joe Maring was a Senior Editor for Android Central between 2017 and 2021. You tin reach him on Twitter at [@JoeMaring1](http://www.twitter.com/joemaring1).