Surveillance systems and CCTV security cameras can be monitored using normal mobile phones and tablets, literally taking better security to the palm of your hand. You will not need a big deal of expensive equipments or mobile handsets for that matter, and this can be quite easy and affordable.

Even though it is not a new thing, there are many people who really need this kind of security, but are yet not aware of such a probability. Here is a detailed explanation of how you can take control of the security of your home or office using your mobiles and tablets.

Understanding How CCTVs Work On Mobiles

You must be aware of “Closed-Circuit Television” or CCTVs, seeing them at places like Banks, ATMs, Shopping Malls, Offices or Traffic Signals. The system uses a video camera, which is attached to a motor, making the system run on its own. The footage that is captured in the camera is transferred wirelessly to the monitor that the CCTV is connected with, this can be a computer screen or TV screen, or a mobile phone as the point we are talking about. The monitor will have a digital video recorder or “DVR” that will record the footage for future viewing.  There are many types and models of CCTV camera lenses, and systems that can zoom in and pick more clarity in the footage, among many other features.  One CCTV system can have several cameras to capture various angles of a venue. More recently, decentralized IP cameras, some equipped with megapixel sensors, support recording directly to network-attached storage devices, or internal flash for completely stand-alone operation.

How To Connect Your Mobile With Your CCTV System

To monitor your security system on your mobile with “Remote Viewing”, you first of all need high-speed internet connection, and a storage system to store all the video footage. You can temporarily store the recent data on your phone’s drive, but it can take a lot of disc space and make your phone run slow, if it’s not properly optimized on time. We will come to the storage part later.

Getting back to the point of how to enable your mobile phone to start receiving video footages from your CCTV, you need to download a “Mobile Surveillance & Security Application/App”. You can get a number of apps from “Google Play Store” for Android phones or “App Store” for iOs phones, “Windows Apps” for Windows phones and so on.

Once you have successfully downloaded the app on your phone, the app’s user guide will enough to provide you the next steps to set up the connectivity with your surveillance system. You will be able to monitor each camera that‘s attached to the IP address of your phone, and in some cases, control PTZ cameras remotely.

Now, coming back to the storage of these videos, “Mobile Cloud Storage” is the best to rely on, like Google Drive, Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive, for Android; iCloud for Apple phones and so on.

How Your Old Smartphone Can Substitute As A CCTV Camera

Today, smart phones are seeing rapid upgrades with every new model bringing something new and exciting, as many individuals have decently running phones to either sell off or have a slumber in the drawer. Now it’s a good time to reuse old “running” smart phones as a surveillance camera. You can actually download a “security camera mobile app” from Play Store or App Store, and that’s it. Now all you need to do is fix the phone with a proper mounting system, on a wall, electric post or ceiling.

You must be thinking about the battery power… for that matter, the apps are usually power intensive, meaning it consumes very little power that your phone will run all day. You can remove the phone and charge it in a week or so. While installing CCTV monitoring can be pretty expensive, this can be a great hack for personal security.