Security is important in every way, whether it concerns the security of your mobile phone or the security of your home. Unfortunately, securing a house with cameras can in many cases cost upwards of ten thousand crowns, which is certainly not a small amount. This was also realized by Synology, which decided to take advantage of this situation. Since practically anything that has a camera can serve as a camera, the idea came to create an interface that would allow you to use your mobile phone as a camera. Yes, even the old "five" that is lying in your drawer and you have it more or less as a spare phone. If the introduction of this article interested you, then be sure to read the entire article to the end. We'll see how you can create a simple camera system for a fraction of the price with an old phone and Synology NAS support.
Installing Surveillance Station
First, of course, you need to have an active Synology NAS in this case. The good news is that in this case you don't even need to own a station that costs tens of thousands of crowns - you just need one of the basic ones, in my case the DS218j. In the previous parts of our series, we have already shown how Synology can be set up, so in this article I will no longer deal with the initial setup of the station. The very first step is to install a special application in the DSM system. You can find this in the Package Center and it's called Surveillance Station. This application comes directly from Synology and you can use it both for professional connection of IP cameras with your station, and for our more amateur games in the form of connecting an old phone as a camera. There is no need to set anything when installing the package, just click through the installation and wait a few minutes for it to complete. Once the installation is complete, a new window with the interface of Surveillance Station itself will appear in your browser. So we have practically everything ready at the station, now we will rush to the settings on the phone.
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Installing LiveCam on your device
Again, in this case, Synology tried to make everything as simple as possible. So an application called LiveCam was created, which is available absolutely free in the App Store (if you have an older androidí phone, it is of course also available in Google Play). Once you've downloaded the app, you'll be presented with a simple interface to connect your phone to your Synology. You can use either the IP address of the station in your network, most often in the form of 192.168.xx, or of course you can also use your QuickConnect account. With a QuickConnect account, you can connect to your station from virtually anywhere, even on the other side of the globe. So, if you work in a home environment where you can connect your phone to a local network, choose to connect using an IP address. Otherwise, you will have to use QuickConnect. Then just enter your login name and password and press the Pair button. After a short time, pairing will occur and your device will appear in Surveillance Station.
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Settings inside LiveCam
Now it's practically enough to make a few settings on your phone. You can choose, for example, the image quality, the use of the front camera, the number of frames per second, etc. You must make all these settings at your own discretion. In the system settings section, make sure you have motion detection enabled so that the device doesn't keep recording and thus cluttering up your storage. Of course, all the recording is saved on the disk of your Synology, so you don't have to worry about using a completely old iPhone, which has a really small internal memory. Once you have made these settings, it is enough to place your device in the place from which it is to record the image. Also, don't forget to connect your phone to a power source so it doesn't run out of power too soon. Although the application saves your battery by turning off the screen after a minute, it still transfers data in the background, which can drain your battery quickly.
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Setting up Surveillance Station after connecting the camera
As for the settings in Surveillance Station, there are not many options when using a mobile device as a camera. However, you can still set different types of alerts, for example in case of motion detection, etc. Within Surveillance Station, you can also launch, for example, the Timeline application, where you can easily view all movement recorded by the camera on a simple and clear timeline. As I have already mentioned several times, using Surveillance Station is practically just as easy as in the case of DSM. If I were to list here all the possibilities that Surveillance Station has, then this article would be terribly long and practically none of you would most likely not read it to the end. So I believe that you will be able to find all the other functions in the system yourself.
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Where can you view the feed from the cameras?
You can monitor cameras either on a Mac or other computer within Surveillance Station, or of course on your primary phone device. In this case, Synology's DS Cam application will serve you perfectly, it has a simple user interface and you can find everything you need in it - live streaming, timeline and of course other settings. I really like the connection of all applications from Synology and I must say that this ecosystem is worked out absolutely perfectly. Personally, I have never had any major problem with any application from Synology.
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You can safely use mobile phone security solutions practically all the time, but you need to be careful about the lifespan of your phone, which you use as a camera. So, if your house does not have IP cameras for the time being, you can use this solution, at least temporarily, for a basic level of security. At the same time, I also like the idea of using an old device as a baby monitor. You simply put it in the room with the child, point the camera at the crib and you can look at your child at any time. And if you've ever come home to find that your four-legged pet has gone wild on the furniture, you can replay the show with just this solution. There are really countless ways you can use your phone as a security camera. You just have to choose the right one that suits you.
