This Article Applies To: Cam Viewer for SecuritySpy (all versions) and Cam Viewer (all versions).

SecuritySpy (www.securityspy.com) is a Mac OS X application developed by Ben Bird which enables your Mac to be used as a professional quality video security and surveillance system.  SecuritySpy allows you to connect to a large range of digital and analogue camera systems using IP networks, USB and Firewire connections or hardware encoder cards, and incorporate those cameras into a fully featured security system including recording, motion detection and monitoring services.

Cam Viewer and Cam Viewer for SecuritySpy both provide the ability to view images from a SecuritySpy server on your iPhone or iPod Touch device, allowing you to monitor your existing video security system or even to provide a way to view USB or Firewire cameras on your iPhone which cannot be done with our Cam Viewer software alone.

In order to view your SecuritySpy cameras with our Cam Viewer applications, you first need to configure the ‘Web Server’ feature in SecuritySpy itself.  To do so, open the SecuritySpy application on the Mac you use as your SecuritySpy server, and select the ‘Web Server Setup’ option from the Settings menu.  A window will appear as per the image on the left:

To configure SecuritySpy to work with Cam Viewer, you’ll first need to enable the Web Server feature using the check box at the top of the window.  The port number field is the internet port that SecuritySpy listens to for incoming requests - the default setting is 8000 as this does not normally conflict with the ports used by other services that might be running on your Mac.  Make a note of this setting as you’ll need it for Cam Viewer.

You’ll also need to know the IP address of your SecuritySpy server for the Cam Viewer settings.  The address listed at the bottom of this window is the private (or local) IP address of your SecuritySpy server.  If you are connecting to the SecuritySpy server over a WiFi connection, then the address listed at the bottom of this window will be the address you use in Cam Viewer to talk to the SecuritySpy server.

If you are connecting via a 3G or EDGE connection then you will need to know the public IP address of your internet connection and have configured your router to enable access to your SecuritySpy server.  There is a section in the SecuritySpy manual (found here) that can help you with this task.

If you wish to view your cameras over the public internet using a 3G or EDGE connection, rather than just using WiFi on your private wireless network, then it would be a good idea to enable password protection on your SecuritySpy server.  To do this, check the ‘Password Protected’ box, and then click ‘Accounts Setup...’ to configure the passwords you wish to use.

In the top section, you’ll need to click ‘Add User’ to create a new user for your web server, and then specify a Username and Password for that user.  Cam Viewer does not support non-alphanumeric characters in a username or password at this time, so be sure to use only letters and numbers in your username and password.  Make a note of these details as you’ll need them in Cam Viewer.

Once you have configured and selected the user in the top section of the window, you need to make sure that user can access the cameras.  Typically you’ll want to view all cameras from your iPhone, so click on ‘All Cameras’ then make sure ‘View Live Images’ is selected.  If you are using Cam Viewer for SecuritySpy then future updates of our application will allow you to view captured footage and control the Pan/Tilt/Zoom settings of your camera, so you may wish to enable those options at this time also.

Now that you have configured those settings, click OK in both windows to save your changes.  You are now ready to use SecuritySpy with your iPhone using Cam Viewer.

To configure Cam Viewer to view a camera from your SecuritySpy server, create a new camera from Cam Settings and set the Cam Type to ‘SecuritySpy - All Versions’.  In the IP Settings section, enter the IP address, server port, username and password you created above.  In the Camera Number field, enter the number of your camera in SecuritySpy.  If you have only one camera the number to use will often be 0 or 1; if you have more than one camera you may need to try various numbers to find the right camera.  Typically cameras are numbered in the same order they appear in the Accounts Setup list in the steps above.

To configure Cam Viewer for SecuritySpy, go to the Cam Settings tab and enter the  IP address, server port, username and password you created above.  Cam Viewer for SecuritySpy will automatically retrieve your camera list and display the cameras you have configured.