I skipped buying an expensive smart camera by repurposing an old Android device

I was online window shopping the other day and came across a pretty good deal on a smart camera when I noticed something that got me thinking.

Going through the description for technical details, I realized that I already had a device that could fit the bill. Solid camera? Check. Two-way audio? Double check.

The device I already had actually seemed to have the better readout, and I was much more familiar with the user interface. I’d used this device nonstop for ages.

It was an old Google Pixel gathering dust on a top shelf. The screen was cracked, but otherwise in good condition.

I’ve been meaning to put it to good use rather than sell it, and a smart camera seemed like the perfect experiment.

AlfredCamera makes it easy

It barely took half an hour

It would have been challenging to convert a smartphone into a wireless security camera if there wasn’t literally an app made to do just that.

With AlfredCamera, I had the whole thing up and running in less than 30 minutes, and a good chunk of that was spent choosing a location to test the system.

The app splits the job between two roles: a Camera device that does the filming and a Viewer device you use to check the feed. My old Pixel became the camera and my daily driver became the viewer.

I installed the app on both phones and signed in to the same Google account on each, since the pairing only works when both devices are under one account.

On my current phone, I tapped to add a camera, which generated a QR code that I scanned with the old Pixel.

That’s the whole pairing process. After that, I tapped into the live feed on my viewer phone to confirm the Pixel was actually streaming, then walked in front of it to check that motion detection was triggered.

The free tier covers more than I expected, including live-streaming, motion detection, and 30-second event clips. Also, there’s a looping continuous-recording option that stores footage locally and writes over the oldest files after a few hours.

The features behind the paywall are mostly things I could live without, like HD streaming, AI person detection, cloud storage, and removing the watermark.

For a single camera pointed at a hallway, the free version does everything I need it to.

Why my old Pixel is actually better

It was a flagship phone after all

This wasn’t my first time giving an old phone a second life, but this time around, it wasn’t actually as much of a hack job as you might think.

Scanning the spec sheet of the intended smart camera showed that my Pixel has better sensors, cleaner visuals, clearer audio both ways, and requires less setup.

Even where the smart camera might have had a leg up, the workaround was easy.

AlfredCamera has a low-light filter built in, so I had usable footage at night without buying anything. This relies on software rather than the real infrared a dedicated camera uses.

I moved the phone around a couple of times, trying to figure out where it would be most useful. At no point did I need to drill a hole in the wall for a mount.

It really was working much better than I had expected, even if it was my idea to begin with.

A few tweaks kept it running around the clock

Power, background limits, and a warm phone

There were a couple of things I had to address to get this to work long-term, and none of them took much effort.

The power situation came first, since a dead phone makes a useless security camera. I fished out a 2m USB-C cable and plugged it into an outlet beside the door, which settled that.

Next was stopping the OS from killing AlfredCamera in the background.

AlfredCamera flags this itself as the most common cause of a camera going offline, so I disabled battery optimization for the app under Settings > Apps > Alfred Camera > Battery.

I also turned off app auto-updates, since an update could cause downtime while I was away and defeat the point of the setup.

The last thing was heat. The phone never ran hot around the clock, but it did stay warm, so I pulled the case off and let it breathe.

After that, I let it run uninterrupted for the most part and enjoyed the functionality.

Where this setup falls short

Phones aren’t built for the porch

The first thing I realized after getting the old phone running was that it wouldn’t work as an outdoor camera, since phones aren’t weatherproof and a flagship is far too expensive to leave exposed to the elements.

For anything facing the street, an old phone is no substitute for a Ring doorbell or a proper outdoor unit. Past that limit, there isn’t much else holding the idea back indoors.

I ran the numbers on expanding this across all the other old devices scattered around my home, and the math is about what you’d expect.

If you have a solid Android phone and only need what the free plan offers, this is a great setup that costs nothing.

If you want more features or more than one camera, buying a dedicated smart camera or two is cheaper, even with enough old hardware lying around to build a Terminator.

There’s also the matter of the flashlight being less discreet than a smart camera with a proper night sensor. For my single indoor hallway, though, none of that matters, and it works just fine.

This setup works great

I was more curious than certain when I set this up, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how little maintenance it has needed since.

We can already get plenty of mileage out of aging smartphones, and it’s reassuring that even after upgrading, there are practical ways to put the old hardware back to work instead of letting it gather dust in a cabinet.

It’s been months now with no complaints, which means the smart camera in my cart is going to sit there for a good while longer.