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Comment by ja27 | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty amazing to me that there are pretty regular sales of of crappy no-contract Android 4.X phones for under $10. Here's a current one:

http://www.target.com/p/brightspot-zte-zinger-prepaid-cell-p...

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I outfitted my house with 5 wifi cameras by buying some prepaid Android phones like that from Boost Mobile on clearance. Why pay $150 per Dropcam or some other dedicated camera when you can get one with an attached computer for a couple bucks?

What app / software do you use to manage the cameras?

How do you keep them powered, have you had to run extra power cables?

Each phone came with a charger, and they run "IP Webcam", a free app on the Play Store. I have them semi-hidden in bookcases and other out-of-the-way locations so they're not obvious. I usually just use IP Cam Viewer Basic, another free Android app, to check on the pets when away from home. My home automation hub (Vera) works fine with the phones as IP cams as well.

Yeah I've run IP Webcam on crappy Huawei Glory phones that were cleared out at $7.99. Works okay with Zoneminder too. You can use ScreenFilter to bring the screen brightness down to nearly zero.

IP Webcam runs as a background app for me. I don't have the screens on at all.

Eh, not really comparable to Dropcam. Dropcam is more about "out of the box, it just works" type of experience + its hosted webservice with infrared assisted night vision and motion alerts for user defined zones. Really, my mom could set it up. Pretty sure she couldn't download apps for phones, configure each device, fiddle with mounting, or adjust the router however necessary for remote viewing etc.

That said, Dropcam is still overpriced and will have to compete when the next copycat comes along, or someone provides their type of service for these phone-cams or Foscams.

>Android 4.X phones for under $10

did you mean Android 2.x for $40?

Nope. There are plenty of those but phones like the LG Fuel run KitKat. Multiple "black friday" sales have those at $9.99, but they've also been on the same sale at different times outside of black friday.

The one that you linked is now showing as 39.99$

This is probably locked to Target or whoever they use.

Yeah it's clearly sold with the razor / razor blades (or printer / ink) pricing but I see a lot of people buy them as wifi-only devices.

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