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Tell HN: Repurposing old iPads as home security cameras

126 points by evo_9 ↗ HN
Last month I asked[0] what could be done with an old iPad; the responses led me to discover Alfred Home Security[0] and It's exactly what I was looking for. The winning feature being, you can repurpose any old iOS device as a camera.

I have since used the app with 2 old iPads, and an iPhone 7 Plus. Works better than I expect, really nicely done app.

The motion detection is spot-on. I've been mostly using this to see what our new very shy kitten is up to since we've only seen him twice in 5 weeks; basically he's impossible to find during the day and only comes out to play after we're asleep. The videos are super fun / cute, and it's nice to see he's having fun and in good health! [3]

Alfred Security also make a impressive, very inexpensive camera ($34 US, 1080P, night vision, 130 degree viewing angle and easy to mount). I just received 3 of the 4.

TLDR: last month I wanted to know what was the best use for old iPads /iOS devices, and I've since discovered Alfred Home Security[1].

Supported Devices[2]:

Android: Android 4.4 or above (For a better experience, operating systems above Android 5 are highly recommended)

iOS: iOS 10 or above

Original post:

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34165418

[1] https://alfred.camera/

[2] https://alfredcamera.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039755...

[3] https://alfred.camera/tv/9IHo74Mj5

* I have nothing to do, nor any affiliation with Alfred other than pay for and use their products. * Original Post is locked; I couldn't post this information there. * Updated with devices / link, and kitty video link (this is off an old iPad, not the Alfred Camera), and formatting.

71 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 149 ms ] thread
psim1
I was excited to read this Tell HN, but quickly deflated. I have an original iPad without a camera. :(
mysterydip
I started using mine for cheap IoT devices that needed some random app installed to run. I didn't want that garbage on my main phone, but many of them still work on older devices. So I made an account that just uses these apps, nothing else for the email etc.
pfoof
What is the lowest iOS/Android version required for it?
evo_9
I updated the main comment above with this info too:

Android: Android 4.4 or above (For a better experience, operating systems above Android 5 are highly recommended) iOS: iOS 10 or above

logicalmonster
Why not leave it on your coffee table with a few games and home automation tools?
mtlynch
This is cool! Thanks for sharing.

>I've been mostly using this to see what our new very shy kitten is up to... The videos are super fun / cute, and it's nice to see he's having fun and in good health!

No links to videos? The cruelty of this post!

evo_9
Update: Camera setup / experience. The cameras are quite nice, the 130 degree viewing angle makes a huge difference over the built-in iOS camera devices I had been using.

The resolution / refresh rate is nice too. The video loads up very fast, I'd say withing 5 seconds.

I wonder if I can mount one of these outside. That might be the only 'short-coming', for a security solution they need to provide an outdoor camera, or enclosure for these (presumable) indoor cameras. The cameras are new, though, so I'm sure they are eyeing Ring and are working on more products. Either way, something to keep in mind that didn't occur to me until now (no easy outdoor camera solution currently).

Also – the setup is very easy / smooth. The camera 'talks' and you have audio prompts to guide you through pairing. It's pretty slick. I'm impressed, I'll be buying a few more for my wife's retail shop.

prawn
Anyone (else) know of an affordable weather-proof trail-cam? I want to record the nightly possums running across our roof to show the kids.
voisin
Is there anything like this that allows the same features for old MacBooks?
speedgoose
The energy cost of running an old MacBook, I assume an Intel one, may not be financially worth it. It’s probably not too bad during winter if you use electricity to heat your home and don’t have a heat pump because you will enjoy the heat. But otherwise, it’s going to be expensive.
jollofricepeas
Wish I could hide like a kitten sometimes:

I remember having a very shy kitten. To our surprise we found out that he had discovered that he could climb into an old, hardly used dresser that we used as a linen cabinet.

He would climb up the empty cavity space between the drawers and back wall of the dresser to then sleep in a drawer.

coreyisthename
When one of our cats was a kit, he managed to find a hole in the bottom of our box springs and would sleep in there. Once we figured out where his hidey hole was, it was cute, but the first time led to us being sure he was gone forever.
osigurdson
I've a vague notion that one day I would make a cloud service where people send in old iPhone 4/5/6, old iPads and various common old/unused hardware. You would get (lots) of credits for sending in your old devices. Not sure it would be successful but it would be fun to make - and fun to use for cheap little projects.
gnicholas
So is the $34 fee a one-time fee, and it works across all devices linked to your iCloud account? If so, that makes this tip much more useful for folks with several old devices.

How does the night vision work? I assume it's not nearly as good as IR-enhanced night vision on other security cams?

Can you use Alfred in combination with HomeKit or IFTTT to trigger lights to turn on?

EDIT: I'm seeing pricing of $30/yr, not $34 as a one-time fee. Am I looking in the wrong place? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/alfred-home-security-camera/id...

evo_9
$34 is for the physical camera you can buy from them now; you are correct the yearly unlocked subscription is $30, my bad I should have noted the pricing above.
gnicholas
Wait, so how does this use an old iPad? I assumed that this app turned my old iPad into a security camera. Is that not the case?

I can buy a Wyze camera for $30 and get notifications with no monthly fee (or pay a fee and get more cloud storage).

I honestly don't understand how this app is a good use of my old iPad. How is an iPad even involved? Wouldn't I view the video from my phone?

jonobird1
Have a read of the Alfred website and your questions will be answered.
gnicholas
I did. It says stuff like

> Everyone deserves peace of mind, so we made security easy and free for everyone.

which lets me know that it's not a useful source of accurate information. A quick look at the App Store page shows that there are many IAPs, including fairly expensive subscriptions. If I have a choice of paying $30/yr to enable my iPad to be a security camera, or $30 one time to buy a Wyze (which has IR sensors/lights), then I'm going to go with the latter every time.

evo_9
They started with repurposing old phones and iPads and recently started selling their own low cost camera.
gnicholas
Ah ok. But you have to pay a monthly fee regardless? What about the claim on their website that they make this easy and free for everyone? What is available for free?
s3p
Also interested in homekit. wondering about homekit secure video compatibility and whether this could be set up in an E2EE way.
ataru
I tried a similar phone app years ago but it crashed almost every day, which made it impractical. I'm not sure why it should work now as phones aren't designed to run continuously for long periods without attention from a user.
theden
Another use-case for old iPads would be to run altstore (https://altstore.io/) and install emulators for retro gaming
mozman
I just tried Alfred Camera but I can’t say I’m impressed. Poor UX and the functionality is poor. Perhaps it’s me.
coreyisthename
It can’t be integrated with anything outside of their app, which really has a “quickly translated from Chinese” quality about it.
gpas
I've used Alfred some time ago on an old android phone to catch who was throwing cigarette butts in my backyard. The app worked flawlessly, the relations with my neighbors not so much.
Gigachad
What is it with smokers being the most rampant littering offenders? The average person would never consider throwing a chips packet on the ground even if no one was looking, but smokers will happily chuck their butts in the gutter no matter how many people are watching.
codetrotter
I don’t smoke usually but, the difference between a bag of chips and a cigarette butt is that the cigarette butt is on fire and smells bad.

You can easily put an empty bag of chips in your pocket or backpack and carry it with you until you find somewhere to dispose of it responsibly.

With a cigarette butt, it’s difficult. And also it’s very small anyways so it may not seem like a big deal.

The solution is to give up smoking. If you stop smoking then you won’t have any more cigarette butts that you need to get rid of.

One neat thing I’ve seen in some places is a “poll” where they ask a question with two alternatives, and they have people put cigarette butts in the compartment corresponding to their choice. Here, the photos on this website explains it better than words: https://ballotbin.co.uk/

orobinson
A smoker friend of mine used to carry around one of those little camera film canisters to put his cig butts in. Obviously being careful to extinguish them fully first beforehand so the plastic didn’t get melted.
jonah
An Altoids or other metal mint tin would be a small, readily available and, non-flammable alternative.
mouse_
Nope, needs to be something intended to be airtight. An altoids tin would still make you stink. Film canister would work, but I would personally worry about the chemicals if I intended to finish the cigarette. Personally, I use the little tubes cannabis pre-rolled joints come in.
Larrikin
They make pocket ashtrays for the very specific purpose of keeping cigarette butts in until they can be disposed of properly.

They were a pretty common site in Tokyo until they made outdoor smoking illegal in public areas except in designated areas around the city.

behringer
Also the more naive smoker may think cigarettes are biodegradable. They are not.
TheHappyOddish
> The solution is to give up smoking. If you stop smoking then you won’t have any more cigarette butts that you need to get rid of.

What a ridiculous solution. That's like saying the solution to reducing road deaths is to stop driving.

prawn
Other than the fact that it's hard to just put in a pocket and carry around until you see a bin, is it that smoking and littering are somewhat impulsive behaviours against better judgement? Someone doing one is inclined to do the other?
extra88
There was enough premeditation to buy cigarettes and have matches or a lighter, not also planning for what to do with the butts is a choice.
behringer
If one doesn't give a crap about their health they sure af don't care about your parking lot.

Now your yard? That's just rude.

antiatheist
I'm a semi-occasional smoker, and I never litter the butts, there's usually a bin nearby or I keep it in my pocket and look for one ASAP because they stink awful. Additive-free tobacco smells a lot less though.

You can see other smokers doing it right when there's a bin nearby too, I've questioned them and never get an answer.

I think many people just live so thoughtlessly and carelessly, the rest of the city is dirty so why should they bother? It's really not much of an effort though.

throwaway67743
It also depends how close the nearest bin is, some places/countries are less averse to bins than others (oh no someone might put a bomb in it!), some also cater better for it that others, by adding an almost zero cost metal plate etc to extinguish the cigarette rather than setting the bin on fire, or just providing actual smoking bins/trays as well
rz2k
I've tried using LiveReporter[1] with an old iPad to send a RTSP stream to Frigate[2] running in a Proxmox virtual machine because I wanted to find out who was stealing plums from my trees. However, I never caught the plum-stealing-person, because LiveReporter crashed every few hours on my ancient iPad.

Does anyone know of an app that reliably streams the camera of old iPads and iPhones to your local network that is not tied to any cloud service or subscription that collects unnecessary user data?

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/live-reporter-live-camera/id99...

[2] https://frigate.video/

Havoc
Try app periscope hd for rtsp stream

Phones get really hot doing this though which seems like bad news with battery in

diedead
I use my old iPad as an ereader. I don't have any fancy setup, just sync books onto it either using iTunes or download directly from libgen or zlibrary. Works well enough for me :)
Analemma_
Same. It doesn’t have the battery life of something like a kindle but it’s a lot more flexible (PDFs, web pages, etc. are all a lot better than on a kindle), and I can take handwritten notes too. I’ve actually experimented with several note-taking devices like the reMarkable and eventually the iPad won out as just nicer to use. The one issue is the apps and web access can be a distraction from reading, but I’ve found that by throwing up enough friction in the form of whitelisting sites in Screen Time and not having many apps installed, it’s not an issue in practice.
freddybobs
I use an old ipad2 as a music controller. I have my music stored on a [subsonic server](http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp), and then use one of the subsonic player apps on my ipad, connecting to my old skool amp via a bluetooth adapter.
nocsi
If this gets big enough, Apple will add the ability to turn old iPhones/iPads into HKSV cameras. It’s one of those things that can be implemented as a feature like Luna display & sidecar mirroring.

As it is now, the subscription cost is outrageous. My current setup is mixing different cameras and exposing them to Scrypted wherein they are integrated into a larger HomeKit ecosystem. They all get HKSV support and my Apple TV does all the processing for events, detection and activity. All this piggybacks off my iCloud subscription for storage

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HellsMaddy
> Alfred Security also make a impressive, very inexpensive camera ($34 US, 1080P, night vision, 130 degree viewing angle and easy to mount).

I’m interested, but I can’t find anything about this on their site. Can you provide a link?

coreyisthename
Weirdly, I downloaded this last night. Super easy to set up and works well. I do remember it having google assistant and google home integrations on iOS a few years back, but that seems to be a thing of the past now?

I’ve messed around with tons of “diy” security cameras on various platforms, however, so it’s very possible I’ve misremembered.

lobsterbutter
Idk the details of your situation at all, but if you haven't heard of it I would suggest looking up "the two kitten rule." Kittens are happier in pairs :) They're more social and teach each other how to be. Could be worth considering.