Cell phone camera as surveillance camera?

[Quokimbo 0]

I have a few old phones I am going to take apart for recycle/tinkering. I was thinking, why could I not hook these up and make them work independently of the phone? Next thought was to mount them outside for security? I do not know if this is possible, just thinking out loud. Your thoughts? Thanks!

[vector18 1]

If you think you are electronically capable of doing something like that, why not just try it and see how it comes out rather than asking a forum?

[Quokimbo 0]

Well, I would say I am novice at best...I have not built anything. As stated, just thinking out loud. I am totally going to try soon. I imagine I could spice the camera to an A/V cable I have around the house and hook up the power cord to a plug in cord? I do not know?

[yakky 0]

If your time is worth nothing and you are looking for a project, why not. Otherwise you can pick up small cameras like CNB MN1750s for about $15 each and they have much better IQ than older cell phones and are ready to go.

[Owain 0]

it is quite likely the cellphone camera does not have an analogue signal anywhere but that the pixel image is mapped in memory directly into the phone's CPU.

[mcsurui 0]

I am a novice, do not understand very well, but I will try

[Quokimbo 0]

mcsurui - Let me know how that goes. I think I am going to try also and see what I can or can not get. I was even thinking if you looked up the camera type, and found a driver, you could hook it up to your computer?

 

OWain - The pixel image is mapped? What do you mean? The pixels change depending upon what the camera sees? Also, what do you mean it does not have an analog signal?

[Owain 0]

The camera device itself will be an array of pixels. For an analogue camera, processing within the camera assembles these and generates an analogue composite video signal.

 

For a cell phone, it's probable that the camera has no processing and passes the digital image directly to the phone's processing unit. There is thus no analogue signal to extract.

 

Building your own circuit to do so would be synonymous with designing and building a PC graphics card, from scratch, without any documentation, and using discrete logic because the specialised chips are for manufacturers only.

[mirandasieck 0]

I think you have to try this. who knows what gonna happens. Try it definitely.

[Quokimbo 0]

That makes more sense Owain...That is why I was wondering about drivers for the different cameras? I am sure they are loaded on the phone, or as you stated there is a separate graphics card in the phone for the camera? I would imagine if there is something that generates the images for the phone, I am sure it is all integrated into one board and hard to remove from the phone itself. I have not done anything with the spare phones as of yet, but still may tinker with it just because. I watch my two children M-F while the wife works and it will keep us all busy haha Thanks for all the input I have received!