Horsebox Camera for £6 using an app and 2 mobile phones

Petalpoos

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I have been hunting around for a while for a cheap solution to see what the horses are up to in the back of the box. I have now found a really cheap and effective way to do it after all that searching and only finding expensive cctv camera options. It would have been a lot quicker if I had found instructions like these! I have Android phones, but I suspect there will be ios versions of the app for those Apple fans.

Here's what you need:

- 2 Android phones - I used my current S7 and an old S4 that I no longer use, but any Android phone would have done. I did update the OS on both first
- Download a copy of a remote camera app onto your main phone. I bought 'Remote Camera' by Emparador which cost £0.98. There are other similar apps, but this one worked for me
- Download a copy of the app onto your second phone. You don't have to pay for it but you do have to be logged into the same Gmail account, then it knows you have already bought the app. If you use someone else's phone then I guess you would have to buy the app again. Once you have downloaded the app, the second phone does not have to be connected to a mobile signal or wifi as the app works through Buetooth.
- Follow the on-screen instructions for the app and connect the 2 phones through Bluetooth. Make the 2nd phone the server.
- Get a phone holder for the 2nd phone. I picked one up in the Tesco's petrol station for £4.99, with a long bendy arm and swivel mount for the phone. I didn't entirely trust the sticky pad so I used a fair bit of duct tape and a rubber band as well, but actually it was fine and I needn't have bothered.
- Take both phones and the holder into your box, turn on the remote camera so you can see the picture from the 2nd phone on your main phone then find the best place where you can fix the phone holder and get a good view of the horses from the 2nd phone. I found t worked best in landscape mode.
- Fix the 2nd phone in place, make final adjustments then go to the cab with your main phone. Job done!

You can connect a number of phones through the app, so you could have multi-viewings if you have lots of old phones lying around.

I used it this weekend and it lasted for the whole 5 hour journey. I only turned the main phone app on a few times to conserve power, but you could leave it running the whole time if you had the main phone and /or 2nd phone plugged in or had a plug-in battery pack.

I hope this helps someone save money and, yes, I know, of course you must not use it if you are the one doing the driving. I was a passenger at the weekend so was free to do as much looking as I liked. :)
 

turnbuckle

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BRILLIANT!

Just the sort of bodge I love.

Of course, I'm feeling technically challenged but will read it very very very slowly many times and hopefully make it work!
 

Identityincrisis

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Good to know, I've just bought a reversing camera for inside my trailer so if that doesn't work I'll try your suggestion. Thanks for the in depth description
 

Equi

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25 October 2010
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Wow! this literally could not have came at a better time, im about to transport another horse with mine and ive never done that before, so this could be a real life saver! My aunt may forget the old iphone 4 i was going to give her..

a quick google shows that the IOS app is called "manything"
 
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