How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Home
by Mirikkah Alvarado
It’s important to know how to find hidden cameras in your home.
Because more and more people are using them for their personal interests.
They maybe anyone around you from your creepy relatives, your suspicious partners to your nosy employer.
The most effective ways to detect hidden cameras and listening devices in hotel rooms or your house is to use mobile phone app (iPhone, Android phone), hidden camera detectors.
Let’s go deeper.
Learn more:
Where to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Home
Before embarking on the mission of detecting the hidden cameras, you should know where to find them in home and what do hidden cameras look like.
- 1In your bathroom: Well, there are tiny hidden cams disguised as shower gels which can easily be placed in your bathrooms.
- 2Near power outlets: There are cams which are embedded into a regular power adapter installed in your television or AC adapter. Not scary enough? Well they can as well be present within your power outlets.
- 3Tissue paper boxes: Living rooms and dining rooms are often equipped with attractive tissue paper boxes. You would seldom suspect that they are equipped with a miniscule camera to keep an eye on you.
- 4Toilet brushes: When speaking of unsusceptible spots, your toilet brush can also be equipped with a cam.
- 5Smoke Detectors: You are less likely to doubt the smoke detectors which are primarily installed for your safety. Then again, people might use your trust against you by installing spy cam embedded detectors instead.
- 6Digital equipment: Whether it is a digital alarm clock or a radio clock, everything can come equipped with a camera. It can be at your bedside or living room table.
- 7Cellphone Chargers: no wonder if you are shocked to know that spy cameras can be hid within your cellphone chargers too. They charge your phone while they spy on you.
- 8Sports shoes or sneakers probably the places where you weren’t probably even planning to look. Then again, there is no overlooking them now.
- 9USB Drives: No matter how unpredictable it sounds, the USB Drive your ill-meaning friend gave you can spy on you too.
- Looking for more other type of hidden camera, check our best spy cams
Check Specific Places in Your Home Manually
#1 What parts of disguised cameras to look for
Well, if an expert has installed the camera, wires are less-likely to be visible. Then again, for a hidden cam to serve its purpose, the lens has to be visible. So, search for the shining lens to detect the hidden cam.
#2 Physical Search in Room
Apart from the above spots, you should also go through a random physical search of your home. Look for wires that lead to nowhere, abnormal flower arrangements, or pictures placed at less-likely places.
While at it, do not miss out on looking under the shelves, table tops, and couch cushions. Flower pots, lamps, and stuffed toy make an ideal spot for hiding microphones.
#3 How to spot if your Hotel room or Air BNB rental has hidden cameras
#4 How to detect hidden camera in mirror
Do the fingernail test.
Step 1: put your finger on the surface of the mirror.
Step 2: lookout for the gap between the mirror image and the fingernail. If there is a gap between the two, it is a real mirror. If not, you’re standing in front of a mirror with a spy cam.
#5 How can you detect a spy cam in smoke detectors?
The best way to tell if your smoke detector is a hidden cam is to:
Step 1: Visually examining the detector can help you identify the camera lenses.
Step 2: If not satisfied, remove the device completely for a full inspection.
Step 3: If you do not find anything suspicious, you’re safe.
Step 4: You can replace the smoke detector for peace of mind.
As smoke detectors use a low amount of electricity, they are mostly operated via battery and boast Wi-Fi capabilities. However, if there are wires running through the device, it is probably the camera wire.
#6 How to find a hidden camera on TVs
Usually, set-top boxes and television sets don’t have any hidden cameras as the manufacturers really don’t care to spy on you.
However, if there were a cam, it would be placed in small openings with camera lenses. So try to locate the lenses.
- Learn more how to install hidden camera in TV could help you find the ways to search for hidden camera.
Find Hidden Cameras Using Mobile Phones
These days, mobile phone applications can not only help you find your way, but also detect if a spy camera or listening device is present in your vicinity. Here are some apps to detect recording devices for iPhone and Android (both paid and free download) :
Using Front Camera of your smartphone
Use Front Camera of your smartphone to detect any recording devices in your home. With this method, you can easily detect the infrared lights.
Step 1: check if your smartphone cam detects infrared lights. This you can do by pointing the remote control and pressing a button. If the flash reflects in the camera, you are good to go.
Step 2: turn off all the lights in the room. Then, turn on the front camera of your smartphone and rotate around the room with the screen facing you. If you are able to spot a flash in the room, it is possibly a hidden camera’s infrared light.
Finding hidden cameras with iPhone app
Download a trusted app such as “Hidden Camera Detector”. It's a paid app will help you by scanning wifi networks for hidden cameras.
The application will sends you a notification on the iPhone if it detects a wireless spy camera near you. This app easily installs and rates the proximity of the spy cams around you.
Glint Finder
Glint Finder is the best free hidden cam detector Android App to discover if there is a camera concealed in your home. With the retro-detection technology, the app alarms you as soon as the app senses the shiny lens of the cam.
RF Detector Apps
You can also install some RF Detector Apps in your smartphones to detect the electromagnetic fields around you.
Some popular RF detector Apps are:
- 1Electromagnetic Detector: EMF Scanner – free app available on iOS
- 2Ultimate EMF Detector – free app available on Android
- 3EMF Analyzer - free app available on Android
- 4Entity Sensor Pro - available on Android
Your mobile phone itself
Not just the apps, your mobile phone itself is one gadget which can help you realize if the changing room you are using is rigged. All you have to so is, try and calling a relative. If there’s disturbance, then you need to take some action.
- Know how do hidden cameras work can help you find hidden camera more easy.
Detect Spy Camera Using The Detector
Radio Frequency Detector
It works by scanning the premise looking for devices emitting radio waves.
Step 1: Turn on the device and sweep it across the room.
Step 2: Once it detects the radio frequency, it alerts the user with a beep sound. The beep sound will continue up until the secret camera is located. RF detectors can easily detect radio frequencies between 10Hz to 24Hz.
Camera Lens Detector
A RF detector device can only locate wireless hidden cams. The stand-alone devices can store information to a SD card. To tackle this situation, you will need a camera lens detector.
Step 1: Turn the cam on in a suspected location and swipe it across the spots. The camera lens detector when comes in contact to a hidden cam, its lens will illuminate or sparkle.
Step 2: This will allow you to determine where the camera lens is hidden. This is a handy tool if you are suspicious that someone is keeping a close tab on you.
Though the RF detectors are effective, they might miss out on cams which fall out of their frequency range.
FAQ
#1 What to do if you find a hidden camera?
If your device or app signals you that you are under an illicit surveillance, then here are the steps you should follow:
Step 1: Switch off all the lights and put blinds on windows to have a pitch darkness in the room.
Step 2: Check for a beam of light or a shining surface. This could be the lens of the cam.
Step 3: Once you know where the cam is, don’t touch or move it.
Step 4: Take yourself and all your belongings out of the view of the cam.
Step 5: Take photographs of the cam as evidences.
Step 6: Call the police as soon as possible. The police can further take over for investigation.
#2 Why should you use your gut feeling that you’re being watched?
If you can feel that someone is keeping an eye on you, it is possibly true. That’s because of human brain is capable to detect when someone is looking at us.
Now, it is only a prudent decision to not waste another minute. Start looking for a hidden cam physically at all possible spots.
If you are unable to find it with naked eye, and you are still not satisfied, call for a professional service. Their experts will help you when it comes to hidden cam detection.
#3 How Do Hidden Cameras Detectors Work?
The working of the detectors can be manual. That is, you can check for the infrared lights with the use of your smartphone. Secondly, you can use an infrared light to detect the lens.
RF detectors beep when they sense the presence of an unknown device in their frequency.