These 3 Easy Steps Helped Us Reuse an Old Phone as a Security Camera

So you simply acquired the most effective iPhones of 2025 to exchange your outdated mannequin, huh? What are you going to do with the outdated one? Don’t be hasty. Before you trade-in or recycle your outdated telephone, take into account placing it to good use. With only one easy app, you’ll be able to flip it right into a free and efficient indoor safety digital camera. This is particularly helpful in case your trade-in worth is low-why not repurpose your outdated gadget as an alternative of letting it sit unused?

This trick works particularly nicely with a devoted telephone mount, however you need to use the brand new digital camera’s stay feed in a myriad of how. That contains watching over an entryway, play space, house workplace and many extra. Let’s stroll by means of three straightforward steps to offer your outdated smartphone new life like this.

Step 1: Install a safety digital camera app in your outdated smartphone

To start, you will have to decide on a safety digital camera app. Most apps provide most of the similar options, comparable to native streaming, cloud streaming, recording and storing footage domestically or remotely, and movement detection and alerts. Once you are arrange, it is possible for you to to observe your residing house and management your safety digital camera from wherever, straight out of your new telephone.

One of the perfect app choices for organising your telephone as a safety digital camera is Alfred. It’s cross-platform, so it does not matter in case your outdated telephone was an Android telephone or iPhone. And the identical goes on your new telephone.

Alfred is free to make use of and provides you a distant view of your stay feed, movement detection with alerts, free cloud storage, a two-way audio feed and use of each the entrance and rear cameras. To unlock extra options, like higher-resolution viewing and recording, zoom capabilities, advert elimination and 30-day cloud storage, you’ll be able to improve to Alfred Premium.

1. Download Alfred (Android, iOS) on each your outdated and new telephones. You haven’t got to make use of a telephone as a monitoring device — you may as well obtain Alfred to your pill or PC in case you want to maintain watch from there. Just ensure the app is on each gadgets.

2. On the brand new telephone, swipe by means of the introduction and faucet Start. Select Viewer and faucet Next.

3. Once you get to the sign-in web page, click on Sign in with Google (a Google account is required) and register together with your Google account credentials.

4. On the outdated telephone, repeat the identical steps, however as an alternative of choosing Viewer, choose Camera. And ensure to register to the identical Google account.

Once each telephones are signed in to Alfred, you are just about finished with the setup. Alfred has simplified the digital camera choices to incorporate just a few settings. On iOS, you’ll be able to solely allow movement detection, select between the entrance and rear cameras, and allow or disable audio. If you are utilizing an Android gadget, you have got these choices and may also allow steady focus, have Alfred mechanically reopen if the telephone reboots, set a decision and allow a passcode lock.

From your new telephone, you’ll be able to change just a few extra settings, comparable to turning notifications on or off, setting a digital camera or viewer title, including different folks to your Trust Circle (granting different folks entry to your video feeds), eradicating a digital camera, checking what number of occasions a digital camera has disconnected, setting movement detection sensitivity and enabling a low-light filter on cameras.

If Alfred is not actually doing it for you, you’ll be able to discover different cam app choices, too. Other apps that can provide your outdated telephone a safety cam improve embrace: 

• Faceter: Faceter is a surveillance app that gives fast setup and cloud storage for Apple and Android telephones.
• Epoccam: EpocCam is a really speedy cam app that is made for content material creators however can serve all kinds of functions. It’s at present made just for iPhones. 
• iVCam from E2ESoft: iVCam is a extra open-source cam resolution that is finest for many who actually need to tinker with digital camera settings and customise them, though like EpocCam it is targeted a bit extra on webcam-related actions than safety.

Step 2: Pick a spot on your new smartphone safety digital camera

After you have got the stream up and operating, you will have to arrange and place the digital camera. You might want it targeted on the principle entry level to your own home, your yard, the place the place you retailer valuables or some extent you assume may be significantly susceptible. You may also arrange an IP digital camera as a child monitor.

If you have got a number of outdated telephones mendacity round, you’ll be able to arrange a number of cameras for pretty strong video protection.

Step 3: Mount and energy your safety digital camera smartphone

To mount or place the digital camera, a small smartphone tripod or suction-cup automobile mount can work wonders and aid you place the digital camera in an not noticeable place. To broaden the sector of view, take into account shopping for a wide-angle lens on your telephone, one thing that may be bought for between $5 and $20 on-line.

Streaming video may be very power-intensive, and the telephone might be on 24/7. To maintain the telephone from dying within the first few hours, you will have to place it near an influence supply. A 10-foot Micro-USB,Lightning cable or USB-C offers you extra flexibility in the place you place it.

And that is it: Now you need to use the safety cam app in your new telephone to view the feed out of your outdated telephone’s digital camera, and you’ve got made your own home safer with out spending a lot in any respect. 

Final notice: Old smartphones and safety considerations

Smartphones will finally age out of safety updates, which suggests they’ll finally grow to be susceptible to assaults. If your outdated telephone remains to be on-line — like once you’re utilizing it as a safety digital camera — that is an issue.

First, we advocate wiping any private knowledge off the telephone earlier than you remodel it right into a digital camera. Second, automate your updates when potential. Third, take into account giving the telephone a remaining use-by date, after which you will recycle it. These days, corporations attempt to push safety updates for 5 to seven years after launch (with some going even longer lately). We have a full information on the safety of older telephones if you would like to study extra.

Finally, if we have got you enthusiastic about utilizing your smartphone for house safety functions, remember which you can additionally obtain an app like Hidden Camera Detector to mechanically seek for telltale indicators that there is a cam watching within the room. Airbnb might have outlawed indoor safety cameras, however we do not blame you in case you nonetheless need to examine once you’re touring. 

For extra, try six fast suggestions for getting probably the most out of your own home safety digital camera and the finest DIY house safety programs.