How to turn your iPhone and iPad into a surveillance camera

Have you ever think of buying a surveillance camera for your home or office? You want to see or monitor what is going on at the other place. You went to a mall or internet to look for the best surveillance camera but when you looked at the price-tag, you had to put this aside because the price is too expensive or not within your budget. I got this a lot and had been looking around for the possibility of using my old iDevice to connect to the internet for surveillance camera purpose.

Yes, it is finally here and it is literally free but of course you need to have a spare iDevice around. I have an old iPhone 5 which I didn't manage to sell it off when I bought an iPhone 6. Someone offered to buy my iPhone 5 for $550 but I was looking for $600. In the end, I have forgotten about it and have let it in my closet. When I wanted to sell now, iPhone 6S is already in the market. I think the price that I will get is quite low and not worth it anymore.

So, when I want to buy a surveillance camera for my new home, I think of whether my old iPhone 5 can be used as a surveillance camera. I did some research and found that it is possible now.

The free app that I used is Manything. Go to the Appstore and download the app called "Manything". It is free if you just need to monitor an area with only an iPhone. The basic free plan allows you have live streaming, motion alerts and set detection zones for one camera. If you need more recording options, then you can check out the pricing.

If you have many cameras, you can have the options for multi-camera views or switch between each camera. Also, there is a beta Android app which can be used as a viewer.

I tried out the app using an iPhone 5 as a camera and iPhone 6 as the viewer. I must say that the user interface is smooth and there is a slight lag in the live streaming. But it is quite good and better than I have expected for a free app.

I used the front facing camera and the image quality is quite bad on the viewer. I switched the camera to the rear and the image quality improved significantly because the rear camera itself has higher resolution than the FFC. It is recommended to use the stock or genuine charger to power the device because it is going to consume energy during recording and you wouldn't want the camera to go flat in battery. For non-genuine parts, there will also be a risk of overheating and may cause fire.

Christmas Wonderland at Gardens by the Bay

I didn't know that there will be a Christmas Wonderland at the Gardens by the Bay. My wife happened to have the Fun Attractions Card worth $10 each. You still need to exchange the card with tokens. Each token is $2 and you will get 5 tokens with the $10 card.



Fun Attractions Card 

The fun attractions card entitles you with $10 worth of tokens to be used for the attractions at the event and a 15% discount at the cooled conservatories where there is an exclusive Christmas Toyland exhibition in the Flower Dome. The card is valid till 27th Dec 2015.

For more information, you can refer to the Christmas Wonderland website.

SuperTree Grove

Token Booth

 

The rides and games can be quite expensive. Luckily the cards are free if you happened to have some. One ride is about 4 tokens (which is $10). The games are typically 2 tokens per game (depending on the game, you get 2 or 3 tries). I think the rewards (soft toys) are a bit small. Not sure how the people get the big ones. I'm assuming that you can exchange two small soft toys with a bigger one. Anyone can correct me? Thanks.

Wonderland Map

Wonderland Map

Some of the rides for children. Not much crowd in the late afternoon. The rides are quite space out and not much queue.

 

Swinging Chair - 4 tokens per ride

The Marina Bay Sands Hotel in the background.

 

MBS hotel in the background

When the night falls, you can enjoy the great lightings and atmosphere. It seems liked you are in a Christmas Wonderland minus the snow. Yes, you get occasional rain instead.

 

Carousel - 5 tokens per ride

Supertree Grove

Christmas Wonderland Decor

Lighting displays at the Supertree Grove

Supertree Grove

We waited till 8pm on a Saturday but didn't see any blizzards. Not sure whether it was because of raining that there was no blizzard.

The Blizzard Time @ the Saplliera schedule is:

• Mon - Thur, Sun: 8pm, 9pm and 10pm
• Fri & Sat: 8pm, 9pm and 9.45pm

If you are driving, please come early to avoid the long queue to enter the carpark. You can take risk by parking some places nearby but watch out for the traffic police. You might end up with a summon ticket. Try to go early or take public transportation. The crowd can be quite big and you need to take care of your personal belongings and children.

AKIRA Ionic Air Purifier AP-606C

When the recent Haze condition persisted over a couple of months, people started to find a long term solution to minimize breathing in harmful particles that are smaller than 0.0025mm (2.5 microns). The Pollutant Standards Index or PSI in short, had gone above 100 points in most days. The living rooms, bedrooms, kitchen areas all smelled of smoke. Imagined that you are sleeping and breathing in all the pollutants.

People started to go crazy and snapped up all the available air purifiers that they could find at the electronics shops.

My colleague from Finland actually went around to search for an air purifier for his home. He remembered that he saw a branded air purifier in his homeland that looked similar to the AKIRA ionic air purifier. The price was selling at $249 and after a hundred dollars discount, it was selling at $149 at the Giant Singapore at IMM. He immediately bought one and started to use at home.

When he came to the office, he recommended us to buy the same model because it was cheap and value for money. My boss went to buy three for the whole office. One is placed at the door entrance, middle of the office, and the third one at the area near the back of the office. The rest of the colleagues realised that the price is very attractive and wanted to buy for their own homes. On the same day, the air purifier was sold out. We couldn't find any AKIRA AP-606C at any electronics shops anymore.

The design of the air purifier is sleek and small. The operation of the purifier is simple and just needs to press a few buttons on the front to get it going. It is not noisy and you will not notice whether it is there or not.

You can set timer to the air purifier if you want. The filters are at the front. Just remove the magnetic cover and the filters will be exposed.

It eliminates airborne allergens and germs via negative ion generator, germicidal UV lamp and high efficiency filters. It is a multifunction purifier which combines purifier, ionizer, disinfector in one machine.

AKIRA Ionic Air Purifier AP-606C

AKIRA Ionic Air Purifier AP-606C

Manual

The precision of the HEPA filter is 0.01 micron. It is able to eliminate particles which are larger than 0.01 micron with the filtration rate of 99% or more. Dust, bacteria, fungi, viruses, allergens and other small and tiny particles are not able to get through the HEPA filter.

Filter 2 (Antimicrobial and HEPA Compound Filters)

You can see dust particles trapped at the edges. I'm not sure whether this is the dust particles from the floor/carpet or from the haze.

 

Dust on the Filter 2

Filter 1 (Cold Catalyst and Activated Carbon Compound Filters)

Types of Filters

Parts and functions of the purifier

Electrical specs

Remote controller

How do you know your radiator coolant is leaking?

My Mitsubishi Lancer is almost 10 years old now. It has not given me any major headache or repair. The only time I have to replace is the timing belt. There are no issues with the suspension, brake, engine, gear-box, etc. It has an issue though that the horn will sound even without you activating it. That is a pain while imaging when at night, the horn will sound by itself and wake up the neighbourhood, or even worst, the police will knock on your door to ask you to deactivate the horn.

It is time for me to change my car. I still have about 6 months before I need to scrap my car. I will take back about $7K at the end of its tour cycle. It has served me well for the past 9.5 years and I have not regretted buying it.

During my last servicing at the garage, I was told that my radiator coolant was leaking. I didn't believe it as I did not have any issue with it. There are green stains on the radiator and based on the servicing agent's experience, the radiator is leaking. It will cost me $900 to change the radiator. The agent advised that since the car will be scrapped early next year, it is not worth it to replace a new radiator. He advised me to top up the radiator with water every morning before I start the engine. It is very troublesome and I tried to change the water level. There was no change in the water level for a week. I guessed the agent was trying to pull a fast one on me.

It is now almost 5 months since the last servicing. The car is due for servicing next month. I was stopping for a while to wait for someone and I noticed that the air-con was not cold. It started to become warm in a few seconds. I was thinking that the air-con was going to spoilt soon and did not take note of the car engine temperature. After my car moved off, the air-con became cold again so again, this did not cause an alarm to my mind.

Then, I was at a traffic red light and I stopped my car. Immediately the air-con turned to warm again, I looked at the car engine temperature. Normally, the indicator is at the middle of the range. Suddenly, the indicator went to the hot zone quickly. It was hovering between the three quarter mark near the H. I was panicking and thought that the radiator would shutdown and whole engine would stop. Luckily, the lights turned green and I managed to reach home safely. I wasn't sure whether it was the radiator problem but from the surface, it seemed like one. I couldn't open the radiator cap as it was still very hot and remembered not to open the radiator cap when it was still hot. It is better to let it cool down overnight and open the cap in the morning.

The next morning, I opened the radiator cap. True enough, the radiator was almost empty. I poured in about 600ml of distilled water. I was thinking whether I should buy some coolant water to top up instead. Any one has any suggestion? Thanks.

I went to the petrol kiosk and bought one liter of radiator coolant. I hope this will temporarily keep my engine cool and prolong its life till next year March. I was choosing between a Japanese brand and this local brand. Well, as long as it does not cause any problem to the radiator, it is ok. I will let post here whether I will encounter problem in the near future. 

Rad Kool Prediluted Longlife Coolant

Apple iOS 9.0.1 software update

Apple iOS 9.0.1 software update is available now. I have not even upgraded to iOS 9 yet but I think this iOS 9.0.1 update has fixed the privacy vulnerability bug. According to the computerworld.com, Apple iOS 9.0 has a nasty lock screen bug as it allows anyone to see your photos and contacts. Well, I can't verify this yet because I have not even updated to iOS 9. 

Apple iOS 9.0.1 software update

You can refer to the Apple site on the bug fixes or the below:

iOS 9.0.1 : This update contains bug fixes including:

• Fixes an issue where some users could not complete setup assistant after updating
• Fixes an issue where sometimes alarms and timers could fail to play
• Fixes an issue in Safari and Photos where pausing video could cause the paused frame to appear distorted
• Fixes an issue where some users with a custom APN setup via a profile would lose cellular data

I wouldn't recommend anyone to update to iOS 9 yet until there are enough users to feedback all bugs to Apple. It may take a while say one month or two. Apple will release more updates to the iOS 9 and hopefully can iron out all the bug issues. In the meantime, for those who have updated the software, please update to the latest to see whether the bugs have been fixed. If not, continue to wait or feedback to Apple. Hopefully someone in Apple can fix them.

The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus have been launched yesterday 25 Sep 2015. My colleagues have already bought them and we will test the phones out. For those who have bought them, congratulations! You will not regret buying one.

Apple iPhone 6S

Apple iOS 9 software update

Apple has rolled out the iOS 9 software update in anticipation of the release of the iPhone 6S and 6S plus on 25 Sep 2015. I have not updated my iOS 8.4.1 yet because I know that based on history of iOS 7 to iOS 8, there were many major bugs that needed to iron out before it was safe to upgrade.

Apple iOS 9 software update

If you search through the internet now, you will start to know what kinds of bugs or issues the end users are suffering now. For examples:

(1) Apps crashing frequently
(2) Slow performance and lagging
(3) Messages such as Software Update Failed, Slide to Upgrade.

The Haze is back in Singapore with PSI in unhealthy range

Well, the haze is back and this time, it seems to last longer. Life in Singapore is good when the air is fresh. Right now, it is very miserable and people are starting to put on their masks. Everyone is talking about the PSI which is Pollutant Standards Index. You can track the air quality over Singapore in the NEA Haze website.


PSI index category

You can tell the air quality is bad not just by the smell but when you can see the sun with your naked eyes. The haze has blocked most of the sun rays and the sun looks liked a dull egg yolk.



Photo taken at 7.15am in Singapore

 

Without the sunlight, the plants or vegetation will not grow well and will probably wither away. Without the plants and trees, there will be no photosynthesis to remove the carbon dioxide and introduce fresh oxygen for us to breathe. The high carbon dioxide level will create a green-house effect and cause the heat to be trapped and eventually the global temperature will raise and cause the ice caps to melt and sea level to rise. More land mass will be covered by sea water.

You just wish that everywhere you go has air-conditioning and fresh air. Most schools in Singapore are still not air-conditioned and it is bad for the students to study in unhealthy air situation. They will need to install air purifier in the classroom to remove the harmful particles. I hope the schools have business continuity plan in place to react to this type of emergency. Looking at the website for the Ministry of Education, they have some Haze Management Measures in place. When the PSI is greater than 300 (Hazardous), the schools will scale down lessons. All student will be spread out in enclosed indoor spaces (classrooms) to allow for better thermal comfort and ventilation. Students and staff who are unwell will be temporarily accommodated in an air-conditioned room with an air purifier, before they are taken to seek medical attention. Parents of these students will be notified.

The occasional downpours did not reduce the PSI much. The harmful particles are smaller than 2.5um and the rain will be get rid of those.

Singapore has experienced this type of emergency before a few years back and they have already stocked up enough masks for the whole population. But I was wondering the stocks can last for how long. If the haze persists for a few months, then it will be very detrimental to the health of the people as well as the economy. Firstly, the tourism will be affected. The Singapore Grand Prix will be held on 18 to 20 September at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. The haze situation may affect the turnout at this annual event and hopefully the drivers will be not affected by the air quality.

I think in most people have a common wish - we wish that the wind direction will change and divert the haze to a place or the sea where there are not people there.