Watchdog

Abiro Watchdog and the accompanying WatchdogTrig enables you to use a secondary
mobile phone as a camera surveillance device, either receiving photos when
things happen or trigger photos yourself by sending the other phone an SMS.

Watchdog has two principal modes of operation:

Motion detection: Photos are taken automatically when a major change in what the
camera sees is noticed. Watchdog checks for any changes at a set interval, and
sends a photo only when there is a noticeable change. The method for detection
compensates for sun light shifts and other slow changes, to avoid false
triggering.

Manual Request: This works by using WatchdogTrig or Watchdog to send an SMS to
the phone used for surveillance, that then takes a photo and sends it back via
MMS to the same phone as sent the SMS. The MMS is received in the regular
message inbox of the phone.
Main Screen

The main screen shows what the camera sees, and you can perform the actions
described below from the main screen menu.


Verify

Verify is used to simulate motion detection, so you can try out the settings
made in Setup. Use it also to get rid of initial permission warnings.


Trig

Performs the same function as the stand-alone application WatchdogTrig.

Triggers (via SMS) another phone running Watchdog to send back a photo as an
MMS.

Preferably set Watchdog on the other phone to Auto-start.

Also make sure that permission warnings are not stopping the other phone from
taking a photo and sending an MMS without user intervention.


Setup

Through Setup it's possible to control where photos taken via motion detection
(and Verify) are sent, what types of alerts should be activated locally, whether
auto-start and motion detection should be activated, and what resolution to take
the photos at.


Send method

Used for motion detection and Verify.

* SMS: Sends a text message to a given destination (phone number only). Default:
off.
* MMS: Sends a text message and the taken photo to a given destination (phone
number or e-mail address). Default: off.
* HTTP: Sends the taken photo to a server via a given URL. Default: off.
These can be combined for greater effect, e.g. HTTP can be used for transferring
the photo, and an SMS can be sent to notify the user that a photo has been
taken, etc. You can also use SMS only for lower cost, and then request a photo
on demand via WatchdogTrig.

The following three options set the actual destinations for the Send method
selection.

Phone number (SMS, MMS)

Must be a valid phone number, that can be looked up in the phone book. Default:
blank.

E-mail address (MMS)

Must be a valid e-mail address, that can be looked up in the phone book.
Default: blank.

Script URL (HTTP)

Must be a valid URL, pointing to a receiving script. See under HTTP Transfer for
how to interpret the data sent. Default: blank.

Alert

Used to alert the intruder that a photo has been taken. Due to the arguable
value of that, they are de-activated by default for maximum stealth action.

* Beep: A short audible beep. Default: off.
* Light: The display blinks. Default: off.
* Vibrate: The phone vibrates. Default: off.

Auto-start

Controls whether the application shall auto-start after a power cycle. This can
be useful for autonomously activating Watchdog after a power failure. Default:
off.

Motion detection

Activates the automatic motion detection. Note that this setting is not saved in
persistent storage, to avoid false triggering while configuring Watchdog.
Default: off.

Motion detection interval

Controls the time between motion detection snapshots. A shorter interval makes
it more likely to catch the change, but could also lead to more false triggering
if things change continuously. Default: 15 seconds.

Phone number for Trig

The phone number used for triggering a photo on another phone (see Trig above),
making it easy to send repetitive triggers.

Resolution

The pixel resolution of the taken photos. Higher resolution leads to more data,
so try with the lowest resolution first, to see if that's sufficient. Note that
cameras have different resolution choices, so this is very much phone dependent.
Default: the lowest available resolution.

HTTP Transfer

This is the information provided to the server script as URL-encoded arguments
via HTTP POST:
* text: An informative text encoded using UTF-8; the same as sent via SMS or MMS
* length: The byte length of the photo encoded using UTF-8
* photo: The photo encoded using Base 64 and UTF-8

You can discuss this application and more in the applications forum.