SAN ANTONIO – Keeping your home and family safe is a top priority.
But paying top dollar for a home security system isn’t always an option.
There is a budget-friendly way to keep an eye on your home while you’re away using something you may already own: an old smartphone.
These days, it's common for many of us to throw phones we no longer use into the family junk drawer.
If that phone has a camera and Wi-Fi capability, it could find new purpose.
All you have to do is charge the phone, connect the Wi-Fi and download an app that can turn that phone into a surveillance camera.
“You need this app that you download on the phone which is able to activate the camera on your phone to take images and videos,” said Pranav Bhounsule, a University of Texas at San Antonio mechanical engineering professor.
There are many apps on the market that offer the surveillance camera feature. Bhounsule says it's important to select one that has security features.
"It needs to be saying something like its Wi-Fi secure or the data is encrypted so that people, like hackers, can't get into the data and look at what you're looking at,” he said.
Some of the apps available enable the phone to start recording images and video when motion is detected in your house.
It then sends those images straight to the phone you're currently using, letting you know what's happening, as it is happening, while you're away.
"The software provides you with all those things,” Bhounsule said. “It provides you with ways to communicate back to your phone so you can monitor wherever you are -- maybe at your office, somewhere at a business event.”
The technology is not without its own vulnerabilities. Like anything connected to the internet, it could potentially be hacked.
"The person should not be able to get the password off that particular app. And it he gets that, everything is doomed to fail,” Bhounsule said.
So pick a unique password. Bhounsule suggests you make it mix of lowercase and capital letters and special characters.
It's relatively easy setup for added security.