Know How... 57: Turn Your Android into a Spy Cam

You demanded it! Today you'll know how to make your Android into a surveillance camera!

Find full show notes at http://twit.tv/show/know-how/57

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you demanded it today you'll know how to
turn your android device into a spy cam
hype
yeah
oh hi welcome to know how I Maya's actor
this is the show where we give you a fun
project you can do yourself
I say pretty much in every episode if i
can do it you can do it
and this particular episode that is the
case because i didn't know anything
about this
you guys since like I think episode like
three have been writing in asking us to
make an android device into a spy camp
so the first thing i did was i asked you
guys because I don't know what I was
doing so I went to Twitter and ask you
questions
let's go to know dolls so we went to you
guys on Twitter and i posted on Twitter
said ever turn your android phone into a
surveillance camera and what app did you
use the hashtag quit cage always looking
for that
and when the first guys who wrote us was
Michael tons he writes me a lot he
actually says he's a ustream it means if
somebody steals the phone i still have
evidence on the ustream site a couple
people actually rode with that I'm a
little iffy on that but the next person
wrote in alex how he says use IP webcam
and tiny camp monitor and that's
actually two applications we're going to
be using today
ustream a really good idea if you want
to use that but I want to use IP webcam
because it's based in this application
not necessarily going off to somebody
else's servers but i'm sure it's equally
valid to go for that if you want to
so what you need for android to make it
into a webcam you need something called
IP webcam it's a free application
it's incredibly powerful and it runs on
android 1.6 and higher
so theoretically if you've got a super
old android phone
you should be able to use this although
we've had certain issues with i believe
the Galaxy Nexus didn't seem to work as
well i'll show you what it looks like
after you install it so if you saw the
application if you need help installing
application you need a lot more help
than I can give you to install the
application from the play store
what you're greeted with is a huge
amount of options here we've got
resolution photo resolution quality
orientation so we're going to take the
resolution a little down so that way
when it's streaming on the web we can
get it will say like 800 x 480 and then
for quality we can change the quality we
want to so it's not so great quality
wanted that we have a frame rate limit
focus mode if you want security
you can add a login and password
you can select the port you want you can
even have your device
listen to your audio so if you want to
be able to spy on what's going on
you also have the option if you want to
be really sneaky you can disable
notifications prevent this to go to
sleep at the very bottom here we have
start server
I'm going to run that right now what
you'll see is the desk really up close
and it's a really exciting shot before
we move this camera though move this
actual device you'll see the IP address
the internal IP address of your device
have that information ready for you this
one and that one . . 142 for that 163
so write that down somewhere we're going
to actually hook this up on a window
over there
so let's do this mhm alright so we have
to have a doc over here that you can use
from a car
wonder what kind of doc this is will
have a link attached with . TV / KH
i would like to thank you please let me
borrow this close this up because it
throws a lot of light
so if you go to my laptop on my lap top
we have what you would do is you go into
the URL bar and you type in that that IP
address you had and what you get
this is crazy as long as you're on the
same network as that device you'll
actually see this android webcam server
if I want to I can say use JavaScript to
update frames and browser and now I can
look outside without looking out the
window
yes this seems crazy lazy because this
happens to be within the same what five
or six feet but you can probably do this
pretty much wherever you want
so you see the outside we've got moving
trees we've got a breeze you've got an
idea of how that works
and that's just on the web that's on the
web browser side so if you've got any
device that has a web browser
you just need that IP address within
your network to get that but if you want
to actually access your interviewer on
an Android device should try out an
application called tiny can monitor free
I need to go get my phone back to show
you how that works tiny can monitor free
as another free application
I will let you do it lets you see other
devices other cameras on your actual
android device so i'm going to show you
another camera have set up somewhere
else
another house tiny cam monitor free
so right now you can actually manage a
camera and you can see you've got lots
of options here so you can just add a
camera and what you would do the same
kind of thing so this is a second
android device you would go ahead and
put in your camera name something you
actually recognise later on you can tell
what kind of camera vendor you'll see
that IP webcam / android is one of the
options
you're putting your hostname or IP
address that i showed you before
make sure you keep that there you can
also put in your username and password
so you want to do that every single time
you're actually using this application
and let's go to a live view of my dogs
at home if you can see this very well
this is excuse me this is there room
right now you can see a little bit of
green and there's too little yellow
blobs you can hardly see them i'll show
you what that looks like right now on my
web browser because it's too hard to see
to go back to the web browser on my
laptop
so this is an actual live view at my
house of my sleeping dogs now i have
tried to prod them by calling my home
phone
they don't seem to respond to that I
don't know why they don't bother to do
that but they're not
this is a live picture now you're
obviously seeing something different
than what we've been shown you before
this is obviously showing you a camera
available via the web now to do that you
got to do some extra extra steps
I can't show you everything how to do
that because i don't want people getting
my IP address and messing with my system
at home
what you do is you simply look up your
IP address your external IP address
simple way to do that go to google type
of what's my IP address you'll get that
information then you'll have to go into
your router and then actually set up
port forwarding and port forward and can
be a long topic it's very very in-depth
the best way to do that go to
portforward com
they've got instructions for every
single router that seems to exist at
this point and my router at home i have
an asus router and I had to go in and
set up a virtual server and what that
allowed me to do was I set a port and
that the port 80
I actually pointed that that to the
nexus 7 which is at home sitting on a on
a step stool looking into the dogs room
and that would be like the internal IP
address and port import the local port
which is a DAT and in selected TCP is
the protocol
after adding that server make sure you
can apply because I was like why isn't
this working is it didn't apply it apply
and then you're able to access that
so what you would do in a web browser or
tiny can monitor what you would do is
you actually put in the external IP
address that will hit your home and then
you'll be able to access that camera
now that's assuming your IP addresses
and change that can change from time to
time
so unless you're paying for a static IP
address which i seriously doubt you are
that could change that can break so just
be aware of that
now we showed you where to put these
cameras obviously i put on these cameras
are inside the house so you can see the
dogs or i can and they're not doing
anything
i'm really lazy new anyway I wouldn't
suggest putting these cameras outside i
like the amount we use their I will have
a link again at TV / KH
goodbye in the front window or something
front door unless you want to build a
device that is going to make this thing
waterproof
I don't I wouldn't suggest doing it
because otherwise you leave your phone
out there
you gotta keep it plugged in you have to
keep our whole bunch of stuff that makes
it a little bit more difficult than
simply leaving it in a window like over
there
I think that's it let it sit ok
last edit this part out this
I'm sure there's lots of different ways
you can do this this was one of those
challenges you guys wrote in your like
hey I got an idea i want to see how it's
done
this actually worked i was using a
little bit more powerful machines and i
think i recommend if you're going to use
an s4 galaxy nexus 7 the second
generation to be cameras might be a
little bit ridiculous up but then again
those devices are about on par with the
prices of some of these IP cameras would
buy so remember that this is actually
somewhat more cost-effective than buying
those dedicated cameras on top of that
if you guys want to know how to do an
iOS version i found it to be kind of
expensive but we'll have links to that a
guide for that
that's what . TV / KH will have all our
show notes they're all the instructions
you need I think starting an episode 6
there are show notes full instructions
starting episode 6 for some reason the
first five weeks I didn't bother to
write too much but you can get all
information need their twit.tv / page if
you've got better ideas if you've got
other project requests
lots of ways to contact us you can go to
google plus i love our Google+ page
gplus . t 0 / twit KH
that's the quickest way to get to it
over i think is over 3,000 people and
they're constantly coming up with new
ideas figure out projects together great
way to connect with the whole community
of people on google+ is also Twitter
always looking at the hashtag 28 k-h so
if you've got an idea question
throw it over there or you can do that
old school email thing know how at
twit.tv send us an email ideas jokes
whatever you want praise criticisms I've
seen it all I actually do check the
emails pretty much every day so I have
seen a lot of things
so keep writing in with everything
you've got next week i think what we're
doing it might be setting up a server or
something even crazier or I'll let you
know somewhere on twitter or google+ so
definitely check out those places and
that pretty much does it for us this
week
now that you know how to turn your
android device into a spike him go do it
yeah