Here's how to use an Android smartphone as a WiFi (IP) Camera. For this project I'm using it to monitor my Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus 3D printer.

We start by installing the DroidCam Wireless Webcam app from the Play Store. I go over the settings and how to access the camera's web interface from a PC. DroidCam is a free app and lets you watch the video stream in 240p/480p/720p. There's also a paid version that supports up to 1080p.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...

Then I cover how to mount the phone to the 3D printer. If you don't want to make a custom mount, you could use a desktop tripod and a phone tripod adapter, like these:

http://amzn.to/2D34z5Q
http://amzn.to/2D3AaEx
http://amzn.to/2F75EKH
http://amzn.to/2CBF6zg

But if you have a 3D printer and know how to do some basic modeling, you can make your own custom smartphone holder. I decided to make a mount for my Nexus 4. You can usually find a case on Thingiverse, open it Blender or whatever 3D software you use, and extrude the bottom edge of the case. This creates a sort of shelf that turns the smartphone case into a bracket that can be screwed into the frame of your 3D printer.

To make things neat and compact, I decided to mount my phone's USB charger inside the chassis of my Duplicator i3 Plus. I hot glued it in place and wired it in parallel with the internal power supply. This way when I switch on my 3D printer, the charger automatically gets power and starts charging the phone.

I also show how to use a Javascript bookmark to automate the process of recording a timelapse video. The bookmarklet is used to automatically click the "Save Photo" button every 30 seconds, and it can be adjusted for whatever inteval is desired. The bookmarklet is the following line of text:

javascript:(function(){window.setInterval(function(){ document.getElementsByClassName("glyphicon glyphicon-download-alt")[0].click() }, 30000)})()

That "30000" is how many milliseconds to wait between clicks.

Finally I show how make the webcam accessible over the Internet. You can use port forwarding to pass connections to the smartphone. For this to work you will either need a static IP (which is rare for residential service) or you could use a dynamic DNS service. I have another video where I cover how to use a Raspberry Pi as web server, and toward the end of that video I show how to register your own .COM with Google Domains and how to use their dynamic DNS service.

   • Setup a Raspberry Pi Web Server with ...