Build a motion triggered IP Cam from your Android Phone

I will explain how to turn your old Android phone into a dedicated IP Cam. This will be more than just downloading an app and running it.
Difficulty : Advanced

What will you achieve ?


  • Your phone will broadcast over the internet so you will be able to watch your cam from everywhere that you are connected. (It is possible to set a password protection)
  • Not only you will have visuals, you will be able to hear every sound around your phone.
  • If your cam detects a motion, you will be notified via email that contains a link to connect your IP cam.
  • Your cam will start recording when it detects motion and keep recording until 5 seconds after the motion stops.
  • The videos that are recorded will auto-sync to your Google Drive instantly and be deleted (so that your phone will never run out of storage).

Tools you’ll need


Setting Up


First of all, you have to have an wi-fi connection for this to work. You place your phone to a nice angle and connect it to the internet. You then run the IP Webcam Pro app. Scroll to the bottom and hit “Start Server” button.

When you first start the server, the webcam runs over your private network. This means it is not open to the internet yet, it is only reachable to the devices that are connected to your wifi. When you hit start server button, the program will give you an IP address (it will look something like 192.168.1.44). That is the address of your local server. And also it indicates that the port is 8080 (this is by default, you can change it form the settings). Your local server has the IP address 192.168.1.44 and runs over the port 8080. When you open a browser and navigate to 192.168.1.44:8080 from a device that is connected to your wifi, you will reach to the control panel of your IP camera. Your server serves a simple web page that contains the controls of your IP cam. You can mess around the control panel and inspect what can you do with it, there is fun stuff like taking pictures or toggling the flash light of the phone. Now start the server from the app and we will dive into some configurations and settings…

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