Gadgetory

you can easily spend hundreds of dollars on a complex home security system or you can do it yourself with almost any old cell phone and just a few accessories here's what you'll need an old cell phone today I'll be using iPhones and a way to mount it to the wall I'll be using car mounts as an option you can also use an add-on smartphone lens I'll be using a fisheye a wide-angle and a super fish eye lens and what they'll give me is a wider view of what the camera sees and finally you'll need a power cord for each security camera because those phones will pretty much stay on all the time what I'll do is set up three different cameras and you can do this at home or at your office or wherever you want to keep an eye on things I'll set up one at my desk one at a coffee shop and one word I have a view of traffic and weather once these cameras are all set up I'll be able to check in on any of these real-time feeds with my primary phone no matter where I am and there are lots of apps that turn your phone into a security camera but the one I'm using today is I cam that one is only compatible with iOS devices but if you're using Android phones then there's tiny cam the setup is really easy the way I cam works is that there are two apps the first is called I cam source and you download it on the devices that you want to use as your security cameras that one's five bucks when you've got it just create a username and password log in hit start and that's it your camera is set up then grab the device you'll be using to monitor in this case I'm using an Android because I Hamm works with iOS and Android for monitoring download I cam it's also five bucks sign in with the same username and password and voila you'll be able to view one or all of the devices that you've set up as security cameras to set up the three security cameras attached each camera to a mount place a lens on each camera then mount your security cameras in your desired locations finally to ensure a continuous stream disable the auto lock feature now that my three cameras are set up I can launch the app and check in on them in real time I camp also has a feature that record still images whenever it detects motion it doesn't work perfectly but it is good enough if you want to keep an eye on who's coming and going you should also know that the app works best when you have a strong Wi-Fi connection it'll make this whole process a lot smoother if you have any questions or tips of your own hit me up on Twitter and check out how to Xena calm for the written guide to this tutorial for CNET I'm Sharon Vaknin you