Network cameras
Lists the devices that answer on the Wi-Fi this device is joined to, with what each one says about itself (its name, its open ports, what it announces). The laptop tool also matches each one's hardware address against known camera makers; a phone is not allowed to read those.
What it finds
- An IP camera on the same Wi-Fi network as this phone
- A camera whose hardware address belongs to a known camera maker (laptop tool only)
- A device answering on a streaming port such as RTSP
What it cannot find
- A camera on a different network, including one on its own hidden Wi-Fi
- A camera on a mobile data connection, which never touches this network
- An analogue or wired camera, which is not a network device at all
- A camera that records to a memory card and never connects to anything
- Anything at all if this device is not joined to the network being swept
- Devices that are silent: a device that answers nothing is not in the list
- A camera that streams only to its maker's cloud and listens to nothing locally
- What a device on the Tuya platform is: many low-cost Wi-Fi cameras use it, and the network cannot tell a plug from a camera
- A Tuya-platform device whose announcements this device never hears, for example because a firewall blocks incoming broadcasts: Windows did that on the studio's desktop while macOS and Linux heard the same device
- On a phone, any device's maker when the device did not say it: Android does not let apps read hardware addresses