Tell me – Many hotel guests are concerned that their rooms may have hidden cameras to spy on them, and fortunately, a smartphone can be used to detect these cameras.
If a camera wants to capture motion or take pictures in low-light or dark rooms, it usually uses infrared (IR) light, which the human eye cannot detect. However, even if you can’t see the infrared light emitted by the camera, the sensor in your smartphone camera should be able to.
In some phones, only the front camera can capture infrared light, and in others, like the Pixel 6, this works with both the front and rear cameras.
To search for cameras using your phone:
Turn on your phone’s camera and point it at the remote control.
Turn on the remote control and look for a small light, either steady or flashing.
If you’ve tried it with the back camera and don’t see the little light, try it with the front camera.
All you need to do now to check for an infrared-equipped camera is to make the room as dark as possible (so that if there is a camera, the infrared will be on), then slowly scan the room with your phone. If there is an active camera that lights up in infrared, you should be able to find it.
And if you are wondering if there is an active camera in your room and the infrared trick is not working (either because there is no camera or the camera is not equipped with infrared), there is another way you can find an active device to check what is connected to the local network.
There are a number of network analyzer applications that can find devices connected to your local network. You could try Fing (it’s available for both Android and iOS), but there are many more useful tools available. These apps can find and list all the devices on your network. These apps can also let you confirm which devices they recognize so that you can more easily find any that aren’t supposed to be there.
Of course, neither of these methods is foolproof, and they are just possible methods that you can try. And if you’re really worried, you can buy a radio frequency (RF) detector, which should pick up any signals coming from hidden microphones or cameras, according to The Verge.
