Wireless Security Camera System with Raspberry Pi & Android

In this tutorial we will explore how to make a wireless home security camera system using Raspberry Pis and/or old Android phones. This guide will show you how some inexpensive or unused hardware can help watch your back. This project is best used with multiple cameras to help you monitor all areas of your house.

Setting up Raspberry Pi

There are many tutorials on how to use your Raspberry Pi as a webcam server, but I found this tutorial on Instructables really helpful and easy to follow. They explain the process much better than I can, but any procedure that allows you to view feed my typing in an IP address is good.

Setting up Android Device

If you have any old Android devices that are lying around collecting dust, you can integrate them into your security camera system by downloading an app that turns them into IP cameras. I use the IP Webcam app as it's really easy to setup.

Once the app was downloaded, I adjusted my app settings to whatever I wanted, then started streaming the service. To view my Android's feed remotely, I just typed in my devices IP address and I could see what my phone was seeing!

Monitoring 'em All at Once

Both the Raspberry Pi and the Android device are great for live streaming a single camera, but what if you have multiple cameras that you want to monitor at the same time? Well luckily there are many online platforms that can help us see all our cameras at the same time. I use uBeac for their free easy-to-use dashboards. They’re an adaptive IoT platform that can connect with any platform.

First, you need to sign up for a free uBeac account here, create a team, and voila, you're part of the uBeac community!

Click the Dashboards module, create a dashboard, click edit, and drag and drop the Raw widget anywhere on the dashboard. Then click on Connect to Data and you will be able to edit the widget.

For our cameras, we go to the Advanced tab and write down our program to display the camera. We have provided an HTML code below where you just need to input the IP address of your Raspberry Pi, but there are definitely other methods to viewing your cameras live feed.

Note that for the Android device running the IP Webcam app, you need to switch mjpg/video.mjpg with videofeed.

You can use this code with all the cameras that you have and monitor them all at once! No hassle switching back and forth between feeds, but instead just one simple display showing each and every one of them.

You can view your feed from anywhere as long as you can log into your uBeac account. Its so easy and convenient, there is no reason not to give it a try.

If you’d like to see other projects check us out here, or if you’d like to recommend other interesting projects you think we can do, leave them in the comments below. Happy connecting!