See, focus and shoot from across the yard or across town, on your computer or your phone. Leave it, and it films the wildlife by itself.
Free and open source. No account, no subscription, no tracking. Tested on the A7S III.
Watch
Right next to the camera, 400 feet away, on a phone hotspot with no Wi-Fi, and over the internet. Then the whole setup, start to finish, in 13 minutes.
Automatic recording
Tick Automatic recording and walk away. When something shows up, the app focuses on it and records. Once it's gone, it stops.
Record when it sees
A Steller's jay drops in by the tray. The app saw an animal (0.92 sure), boxed it and started recording.
Recorded from the app's own screen on Nov 4, at the moment each take started by itself. The green box is what it saw.
Runs on your own computer. No pictures leave it. The iPhone app runs its own, on the phone.
Knows birds, common mammals and people. Something it doesn't know may not set it off, like this squirrel. We filmed it by hand.
Learns to ignore a spot that keeps setting it off, like splashing water, for 10 minutes.
One window
A big live picture, with exposure, focus and Record beside it. Try it below.
Zebra level
Peaking strength
Peaking colour
A model in your browser, not a camera: a depth map of a frame from the A7S III decides what's sharp. Try the frame and the trees too, and a narrower iris to get more in focus.
See what's sharp
Click the bird and the camera focuses there. Turn on Peaking and the sharp edges light up. The camera's own focus boxes show what it's locked on, and the magnifier zooms in to check.
Lock on and follow
Set Tap does to Tracking and click. The camera's tracking box stays on the bird as it hops about, and you see it move in the live picture.
Saved setups
Save four setups for video and four for photos: frame rate, file format, exposure and focus. Click one and the camera changes to match.
Click a setup. It turns green while the camera matches it.
S&Q slow motion
Pick how fast the camera shoots and how fast it plays back. Save it to C4 and slow motion is right there.
S&Q shoots at
S&Q plays at
Up to 240fps in HD on the A7S III. The fastest rates need an HD file format.
Photo tab
Pick Single, Burst, Timer or Bracket. Only that mode's settings show.
Save to your card, your computer, or both. A full-size RAW takes 4 to 12 seconds to arrive over Wi-Fi, so for bursts use Both with Small JPEG.
Pick how often and how many. The app tells you how long it'll shoot and how long the clip will play.
One photo every 1 to 60 seconds, up to 9,999 photos, using the camera's own interval shooting.
Pick a length from 1 second to 8 minutes.
Tell it the ND filter on your lens and it suggests a length from the meter. Long exposures need the camera in M.
Run it from anywhere
Pick how far away you'll be.
Same Wi-Fi
0.20sabout 8 pictures a second
400 ft of Ethernet
≈0.33sabout 9 pictures a second
iPhone hotspot + Tailscale
≈0.25sa smaller picture, 1 to 8 a second
How long the live picture takes to arrive, timed with a clock in the shot. The camera always records at full quality.
Put the camera on your iPhone's hotspot and run it from a computer anywhere. Download Tailscale on each device, log in with the same account, and it's automatic. Your devices find each other, with nothing to type.
Over mobile data the computer gets a 640-pixel picture once a second, about 100 MB an hour. Pick 3 or 8 a second on the phone for a smoother one. The iPhone app has to stay open.
When on your computer is running the camera, the iPhone and iPad find it and join in, with nothing to type.
Or turn it round: in the iPhone app, turn on Let my other devices join, and an iPad or a computer runs the camera through the phone.
Tick Allow phone control in Setup and open the address it shows on your phone. You get the live picture, record, tap to focus, the focus ring and the camera's settings, at home or over Tailscale.
Protected by an access code. The computer stays on with the app open. On an iPhone, Share › Add to Home Screen makes it a full-screen app.
Two rules behind it all: the camera is on one network at a time, and one device runs it while the others join in.
iPhone & iPad · beta on TestFlight
for iPhone and iPad runs the camera on its own, out where there's no Wi-Fi. It's in beta on TestFlight, Apple's free app for trying apps before they reach the App Store, so tell us what breaks.
iOS and iPadOS 16 or newer. Photos and video stay on the camera's card. It only works while the app is open on screen, so keep the phone plugged in for long sessions. Close the app on your computer first: the camera takes one remote at a time.
Download · version
Windows 11, x64
Download for WindowsmacOS 14.1 or newer
Download for Mac Older Intel Mac? Use this one.Not sure which Mac? Apple menu › About This Mac. Chip: Apple uses the main download, Processor: Intel the Intel one.
iOS and iPadOS 16 or newer · beta
iPhone and iPad (beta)Apple's free app for trying apps before they reach the App Store. Open the link on your iPhone or iPad: it sends you to TestFlight first, then tap Install. One app works on both.
Not supported, sorry.
Every version and its notes are on GitHub releases. The app looks once at launch for a newer version and shows a button; it never installs anything by itself.
Which cameras work?
It's tested on the A7S III. Sony says its remote software can control the cameras below over Wi-Fi, so they should work too, but nobody has tried most of them yet.
Update your camera to its latest firmware first. Some features, such as click to focus, may behave differently on your camera. Cameras not listed at all, such as the A7 III or a6400, aren't supported by Sony's software. Have one that works? Tell us on GitHub.
Set it up in 3 steps
You'll need a supported camera, Wi-Fi where you're shooting, and a Windows 11 PC or a Mac on macOS 14.1 or newer.
Download it above and open it. The first time, you'll see a short note about Sony's terms: click OK or I agree.
Close Sony's Monitor & Control app first. On the camera, press MENU, then tick these off. These are the A7S III's menus; most newer Sony cameras are very similar.
Menu names can differ on older firmware. Tested on the A7S III with firmware 5.01.
With your computer and camera on the same Wi-Fi, click Connect camera…, pick your camera, and type the user and password from your photo. If your computer asks about network access, say yes.
That's it. Your picture appears, and from then on it reconnects by itself whenever you open it.
Have an AI assistant?
Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude or another assistant.
Check the camera is on, on the same Wi-Fi as your computer (not a guest network), and has Remote Shooting on. Still missing? Find its address under Network › Wi-Fi › Display Wi-Fi Info. and type that IP address into the box in the app. On a Mac, check System Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network.
Use the exact user and password from Access Authen. Info. Capitals matter, and the user often isn't admin.
Close Sony's phone app. The camera only takes one remote at a time, and that goes for the computer and the iPhone app too.
The camera's Wi-Fi signal is weak. Move your router or a mesh point closer to the camera. Recording carries on in the camera even if the link drops.
In Setup, under Something not working?, click Send log to the developer. You'll get a short reference, like K7Q2MX, to quote when you get in touch. Nothing is sent until you click, and it holds no passwords, photos or video. It's kept for 90 days.
The full guide is in the README on GitHub.
Free, private, open
No subscription or in-app purchases. MIT licensed: read the code on GitHub.
Nothing to sign up for. No analytics in the app or on this page.
Kept in Windows Credential Manager or your Mac's Keychain.
Send log in Setup sends what went wrong when you press it. No passwords, photos or video.