TL;DR: that old Android phone in your drawer is a perfectly good baby monitor. Seven ways to do it, ranked from "set it and forget it" to "weekend tinkering project."
Before you spend $150 on a dedicated baby monitor, check your junk drawer. Almost any Android phone from the last 8 years has a better camera, better microphone, and better WiFi than most purpose-built monitors. The only question is which software to run on it. Here are seven approaches, roughly ordered by how well they fit the job.
1. Background Camera RemoteStream (our app — yes, we're biased)
Background Camera RemoteStream does two things that matter for a nursery phone: it keeps recording and streaming with the screen off, and it streams over the internet — so you can check in from the kitchen, the office, or another city, not just the same WiFi network. Screen-off operation is the underrated part: no glowing rectangle lighting up the crib, less battery drain, no OLED burn-in on a phone that runs 10 hours a night. Setup is under a minute: install, point, start the stream, pocket your main phone.
2. AlfredCamera
The best-known name in the "old phone as camera" space. Two-device setup (camera phone + viewer phone), motion alerts, and a decent free tier. Trade-offs: ads and persistent upsells on free, and the higher-quality video sits behind the subscription.
3. Dormi
Purpose-built Android baby monitor, audio-first. It's very good at the one thing it does — reliable sound alerts when the baby cries, even on flaky connections. If you mainly want your pocket to buzz when there's noise, this is the specialist pick. Video is not the focus.
4. IP Webcam
The classic techie option: turns the phone into a local MJPEG/RTSP server you open in a browser or VLC. Totally free, no cloud, no account. The catch: LAN-only out of the box — checking in from outside the house means setting up port forwarding or a VPN yourself, and the screen typically stays on.
5. A looping video call
Zero new apps: start a WhatsApp/Meet call between the old phone and your daily phone, mute your end, done. It works in a pinch (hotel rooms, grandma's house). Downsides: it ties up both devices, calls drop silently, and nothing re-connects automatically at 3am.
6. WardenCam
Cloud-DVR style: motion-triggered clips saved to your own Google Drive/Dropbox. Nice if you want history ("did she actually sleep at 2?") rather than a live window. Streaming reliability reports are mixed on older Android versions.
7. Home Assistant integration
For the smart-home crowd: feed the phone's stream (e.g. via IP Webcam's RTSP) into Home Assistant, then automate — lights fade up when crying is detected, feed on the wall tablet, the works. Most powerful, most setup. A weekend project, not a 60-second one.
Honest caveats, whichever you pick
A phone taped to a shelf is not a certified medical device — treat any of these as a convenience layer, not a safety guarantee. Keep the phone on a charger but out of bedding (heat), use a stand instead of propping it against the crib, and remember everything above depends on your WiFi staying up.
Question for the room
For those who've done the old-phone-as-monitor thing: what's your solution for overnight charging heat on phones with tired batteries? Charge-limit apps, smart plugs on a timer, something else? Genuinely collecting approaches.
App: Background Camera RemoteStream on Google Play · more at superfunicular.com · Built solo by Super Funicular LLC.
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