IP Camera:ONVIF&RTSP&RTMP&WEB

Star Studio

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this app

Turn an old phone into a security camera in about two minutes. No subscription, no cloud account, no extra hardware.

You already own the camera. That spare Android phone in a drawer has a lens, a microphone, Wi-Fi and a battery. This app turns it into a real IP camera that speaks ONVIF and RTSP, so it works with the NVR, NAS or player you already use.

WHAT PEOPLE USE IT FOR

- Old phone as security camera for a front door, hallway or driveway
- Baby monitor using two phones, one as camera and one as viewer
- Pet camera to check on a dog or cat while at work
- Shop and small business surveillance without a contract
- Garage, shed, workshop and warehouse checks
- A temporary camera while a real one is being repaired or shipped
- Webcam style monitoring viewed from a PC browser

STREAMING AND PROTOCOLS

- ONVIF Profile S so NVR, NAS and surveillance software can discover the phone automatically
- RTSP stream that opens in VLC, OBS, Blue Iris, Synology Surveillance Station, Frigate, Home Assistant and most NVR software
- RTMP push for streaming platforms and remote servers
- Built in web server, so any browser on the same network can watch live video and browse recordings with no extra app to install
- Works fully on a local network with no internet connection required

MOTION DETECTION AND ALERTS

- Motion detection with adjustable sensitivity
- Automatic snapshot when motion is detected
- Email alerts with the snapshot attached
- Every event is written to a log so nothing gets lost
- Timeline markers on recordings, with jump to previous event and next event

RECORDING AND PLAYBACK

- Continuous recording or scheduled recording
- Loop recording with automatic overwrite so storage never fills up
- Configurable segment length
- Recordings stored locally on the phone, not on someone else's server
- Fast playback navigation that jumps straight to the moment something happened

CAMERA CONTROL

- Front and rear camera switching
- Resolution, frame rate and bitrate settings
- Audio on or off
- Exposure, white balance and video stabilization
- Custom save path
- Screen off while streaming to save battery and reduce heat

STARTUP AND RELIABILITY

- Auto start after device boot, so a power cut does not end the monitoring
- Auto start streaming when the app opens
- Designed to keep running for days without being touched

PRIVACY

Video stays on the phone and on the local network. There is no cloud account, no upload to a third party server, and no subscription. The stream goes only where it is pointed, whether that is a browser, an NVR or a NAS.

WHY AN OLD PHONE BEATS A CHEAP CAMERA

A five year old phone usually has a better sensor than a budget Wi-Fi camera, plus a battery that survives a short power cut and a screen for checking the framing. Reusing it costs nothing and keeps one more device out of a landfill.

GOOD TO KNOW

Android needs to keep the camera running in the background, so exclude the app from battery optimisation on the phone acting as camera. A charger is recommended for full time monitoring. For remote access from outside the home, use a VPN or a port forward on the router.

Free to use, with an optional in app purchase to remove ads.

Stop letting an old phone gather dust. Install it, point it at what matters, and watch from anywhere on the network.

Ratings and reviews

While connected to my LAN via wifi, if I copy the HTTP address to open another browser and access the video stream, it produces an IP address that is not in the local range on my LAN. Instead of being something like 192.168.1.x it's returning 192.0.0.x and there is nowhere in this app to specify an IP address for the HTTP server it creates. Please fix this and I'll rate it again.

Generally OK but if you stream the video it starts with about 1-2 seconds delay but as you continue watching the lag increases, I got to 10 seconds before I refreshed the browser and it went back to 1-2 seconds. Also if you select to watch a recording it shows the list in Chinese not English.

Recording an RTSP stream using clients such as: FFmpeg, VLC & other open source results in an empty file & app getting frozen after a while of such recording. Only viewing such stream with the same clients does not cause this issue. (pixel 7)