Have been thinking about this for a couple years. I have old phones kicking around. Battery shot, hardware dated, but the camera(s) and mic and antennas still work. Would be cool if there were a way to set them up (powered) to stream audio/video or even take stills at intervals (or motion-activated) and then sync the content to the rest of the devices on my network.
I don’t know how complex the programming for something like this would be. But I suspect it’s trivial for those who do know.
I use old iPhones as video baby monitors in much the same way with an app called AlfredCamera, works pretty good for a free app on scrap hardware
I’ve run Alfred on Samsung Galaxy S4 and S4 Mini…those were realeased in like 2014.
The free version of Alfred is surprisingly useful. And the pay version was about $35 a year.
I’ve run it on an iPhone 5 or 6, I don’t recall… had it watching my living room for a month while I was away, and aside from a few false positives when light patterns changed due to the wind blowing tree branches around, it was excellent.
I find it works better in my iOS devices than my Androids. The camera is better. Then again, my newest Android running Alfred is about 3 years old.
I have 2 that run 24/7, for 6 months now, - an iPhone 6 and a Moto E5. They watch out the front window mostly to see UPS/Amazon drops.
They’re sensitive enough to trigger when tree leaf shadows move on the pavement.
I could pay for it and I’d be able to block out regions or better adjust the sensitivity.
Had one setup over the summer to watch a hummingbird feeder. Amazing video quality for such fast little birds. That one enabled me to catch the thief that was spilling the feeder ever day (squirrel), so I was able to use the notification to know he was there and scare him off. Worked out.
I tried using an old phone as a dashcam for a while. It just kept overheating. That’s my vaguely related experience. Thanks for reading.
Haven might do the trick. It’s motion activated and can stream content. Made by the guardian project / Snowden to warn you if someone breaks into your hotel room. Open source, too
I’ve used one called “manything” (Monitor anything). It turns your obsolete cellphones and tablets into a network of web accessible security cameras.
I use IP Webcam on my old phones as CCTV cameras, one for the inside of my garage and the other in my 3D printer enclosure.
Both cameras Just Work as mjpg cameras in Home Assistant. No internet, nothing.
What I haven’t (yet) tried doing is configuring them in my Frigate nvr (running on docker) - that might give you the complete package you’re looking for.
