Turn Your Mac Into a Surveillance Camera

FaceTime can automatically answer incoming calls from contacts you specify. Another use for this trick is to dial into a Mac at any time, anywhere, from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, thus creating a simple surveillance camera setup. Because FaceTime will automatically start upon receiving a call and then auto-answer the call, you’ll instantly see what’s happening in front of your Mac.

Setting Up a Mac as a Surveillance Camera

Here are the steps required. Some of them are concise because it’s assumed you already know the basic procedures referenced, such as how to create a new user account.

1. Create a new account using the Users & Groups element of System Preferences (Apple menu→System Preferences). It doesn’t matter what you call the new account, but for safety reasons you might want to make it a Standard account type (i.e., limited). This will stop anybody who might physically access the computer in your absence doing any damage. 

2. Then create a new Apple ID at the following site: https://appleid.apple.com. You’ll need a spare email address to assign the account to, which will be used to confirm it as well.

3. Switch to the new user account on the Mac acting as the surveillance camera. As soon as you access the account, you’ll be prompted to enter your new Apple ID details as part of the setup procedure, so do so.

4. When you get to the desktop, open FaceTime and log in using the new Apple ID you created.

5. Now to enable Auto-answer on FaceTime follow  the steps:

Here are the steps required to enable automatic answering of calls on Face- Time:

a. Start by opening FaceTime if it isn’t already open, and log in. Then look for the contact details of the individual(s) you’d like to enable auto- answering for. This will be listed in your Contacts or Favorites list and will probably be an email address. Write the details down, and then quit FaceTime.

b. Open a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Applications list, and then in the list of applications double-click Terminal within the Utilities folder), and type the following line:

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvites -bool TRUE

c. Then type the following line, and at the end type the FaceBook ID of the individual or device you want to auto-answer when they call. For example, if the contact FaceTime ID is keir@example.com, you’d type the following: 

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add keir@keirthomas.com

If the FaceTime ID is a cell phone number, you need to type it after the command without any spaces. For example, if the FaceTime ID was the cell phone number +15551231234, you’d type the following: 

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom -array-add +15551231234

Restart FaceTime, and you should find calls from the FaceTime IDs you added are automatically answered!

You can repeat step 3 and add more FaceTime IDs to the list.

Finally, test your new setup by dialing in from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or other Mac and ensuring that the Mac auto-answers and then displays what will essentially be surveillance camera footage of what’s in front of it. Bear in mind you’ll need to alter the power saving settings of your Mac so that it doesn’t enter sleep mode, although it’s OK for the screen to be turned off. Also, remember that FaceTime doesn’t need to be running all the time and will automatically start itself whenever you call into the Apple ID you entered during setup.

Deactivating the Security Camera

To permanently deactivate the security camera, simply delete the account you created for it within the Users & Groups element of System Preferences.