TL;DR: an old Android phone plus a screen-off recorder app makes a perfectly good work-from-home camera — watch the front door for deliveries, keep an eye on a pet, or check the home office while you're at a co-working space. Three apps get recommended for this constantly. They solve three different problems. Here's an honest breakdown — with a disclosure up front: I build the first one.
The use case
"Work-from-home camera" here means: a spare phone pointed at something you care about (door, desk, pet, kid's playroom) that keeps recording or streaming with the screen off, so it doesn't glow like a beacon or burn its panel in, and that you can check remotely without buying hardware or a cloud subscription.
The three apps that come up: Background Camera RemoteStream (mine), FadCam (open source), and Quick Video Recorder (GeniusTools Labs).
What each one actually is
Background Camera RemoteStream — screen-off recording, local-only storage, a built-in web server so you can view the camera from any browser on your Wi-Fi, and an unlisted YouTube Live option when you need to check in from outside the house. No account, no cloud storage, no subscription.
FadCam — open-source, ad-free, no tracking. Screen-off recording, live streaming over your local network with remote control via a web UI, and a clever "Privacy Black Mode." Free with an optional one-time Pro tier. Genuinely good software — the catch is distribution: it's on F-Droid and GitHub, not the Play Store, so installing means sideloading. And its streaming is LAN-only — no off-network path.
Quick Video Recorder — 4.7★ with 29k+ reviews and 1M+ installs, so it's the one your search results push first. Per its Play listing: background recording with the preview off, scheduled recordings, front/back camera, SD-card storage, dash-cam mode. It's a recorder, though — there's no remote viewing or streaming at all. It's ad-supported with in-app purchases, and top reviews mention ads gating basic actions and a default recording time limit that surprises people mid-recording.
The comparison that matters
| Background Camera RemoteStream | FadCam | Quick Video Recorder | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen-off recording | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| View live from another device (LAN) | ✅ browser | ✅ web UI | ❌ |
| View live from outside your network | ✅ unlisted YouTube Live | ❌ LAN only | ❌ |
| Install path | Play Store | F-Droid / GitHub sideload | Play Store |
| Cloud account required | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Ads | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Pricing | free + one-time Pro | free + one-time Pro | free + IAP/subscription |
So which one?
- You want a check-in camera you can open from anywhere, installed in one tap: Background Camera RemoteStream. The YouTube Live path is the differentiator — an unlisted stream you can open from a laptop at a café.
- You're comfortable sideloading and only need to check it from inside the house: FadCam is an excellent FOSS pick, and I mean that without an asterisk.
- You just want scheduled local recordings and don't care about remote viewing: Quick Video Recorder does that, if you can live with the ads.
The honest framing: none of these are "hidden camera" tools — point them at your own property, and check your local recording-consent laws for anything with audio.
Open question for the dev.to community
For those who've deployed an old phone as a permanent camera: what's your battery strategy? Straight-to-charger 24/7, a smart plug cycling 40–80%, or something better? That's the part no app solves for you.
App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.superfunicular.digicam&referrer=utm_source%3Ddevto%26utm_medium%3Darticle%26utm_campaign%3Dscreen_off_streaming · Built solo by Super Funicular LLC. FadCam: GitHub · Quick Video Recorder: Play Store
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