TL;DR: you don't need a $60 pet cam. An old Android phone, a screen-off camera app, and about 60 seconds of setup gets you a live feed you can check from anywhere — plus a recording.
Every drawer has a retired Android phone in it. Here are three ways to turn one into a pet cam, roughly in order of how well they work.
Why "screen-off" is the feature that matters
Most camera apps keep the display on while recording. That drains the battery fast, heats up the phone, wears the panel, and puts a glowing rectangle in the room. A camera that records and streams with the screen completely off runs cooler, sips power while plugged in, and doesn't announce itself. That one property separates the setups below.
1. Background Camera RemoteStream (screen-off + watch from anywhere)
Full disclosure: this is my app — I'm a solo indie dev and this use case is exactly why I built it.
- Records video with the screen fully off, in the background.
- Streams to YouTube Live, so you can check on your dog from any browser or the YouTube app, wherever you are — no LAN tricks, no port forwarding.
- Works around the YouTube mobile app's own gate on going live from a phone, since the stream comes from the app rather than the YouTube app.
- You get a recording of the session, not just a live view.
Setup is genuinely about a minute: install, connect your YouTube channel (use an unlisted stream so only you can watch), prop the phone up facing the food bowl, start, screen off, leave.
2. An IP-camera app (the LAN route)
Apps in the "IP Webcam" family turn the phone into a local MJPEG/RTSP server you open from a browser on the same network.
- Pros: no account needed, and the feed never leaves your network — a real privacy win.
- Cons: LAN-only by default. Checking on your pet from work means port forwarding or a VPN like Tailscale, which is where the 60-second setup becomes a Saturday project. Most of these apps also keep the screen on, and phone-as-server battery life reflects that.
Good choice if you only ever watch from inside the house and like tinkering.
3. The video-call trick (zero new software)
Start a muted video call between the old phone and your daily phone (Meet, Zoom, WhatsApp), point the old phone at the room, leave.
- Pros: nothing to install or learn.
- Cons: calls drop or time out, the screen stays on the whole time, one of your accounts is tied up, and there's no recording. It works exactly once, at which point you go looking for option 1 or 2.
Quick comparison
| Watch from anywhere | Screen off | Recording | Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Background Camera RemoteStream | ✅ YouTube Live | ✅ | ✅ | Free |
| IP-camera apps | ⚠️ LAN (VPN to go remote) | ❌ mostly | ⚠️ varies | Free/paid tiers |
| Video-call trick | ✅ until it drops | ❌ | ❌ | Free |
Open question for dev.to
What's your retired phone actually doing right now? And for those running phone-as-camera setups long-term: any battery-health tricks for a device that lives on a charger 24/7? I've been looking at charge-limiting options and would love to hear real-world results.
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