Overview#
A city is expanding its public safety camera network. An installer arrives at a new pole mount, scans the label on the camera, captures the position from the phone, checks which video protocols the camera answers on, and submits the install. A few seconds later the app confirms the camera is streaming. Later that week a supervisor walking the same district sees the nearest cameras on their phone, opens one that has gone quiet, and files a maintenance report from the street.
Mobile Camera Field Operations brings the installation, upkeep and incident follow-up of fixed surveillance cameras into the responder mobile app. It gives field crews and surveillance supervisors the same camera inventory and incident records used in the control room, without needing a laptop on site.
The surveillance area of the app is shown only to users who hold a surveillance role, such as a surveillance supervisor.
Last Reviewed: 2026-10-28 Last Updated: 2026-10-28
Key Features#
- Label Scan Install: The installer scans or pastes the camera label, either a structured payload or a simple serial, MAC address, model and IP address line, and the install form is filled in automatically. Only known fields of the expected type are accepted from the label, so a tampered label cannot inject unexpected values.
- GPS Capture at the Mount: The installer records the camera position from the phone with one tap, after granting location permission. Latitude and longitude are required before an install can be submitted.
- Protocol Discovery: Given the camera's IP address, the app probes RTSP, ONVIF and SUNAPI on the configured ports, optionally over TLS, reports which protocols the camera supports and selects the one to use. The installer can also set a protocol preference.
- Full Installation Record: Serial number, model, MAC address, zone, heading, mounting type, environment, coverage area, installation notes and stream paths for the primary, analytics and preview feeds are captured in one form, with AI processing switched on or off per camera.
- Onboard and Confirm Streaming: Submitting the install registers and provisions the camera, then checks its status for a short period and reports back as soon as the camera is streaming, so the installer knows the job is done before leaving the site.
- Nearby Cameras: Supervisors see the camera inventory sorted by distance from their current position, with a radius filter and search by camera ID or coverage area. Distance is shown where location is available.
- Camera Detail: Each camera shows its serial number, model, status, zone, coordinates and whether its live video input has been provisioned, with a direct link to file a maintenance report. Only cameras within the user's organisation can be opened.
- Maintenance Reports from the Field: Crews report issues such as an offline stream with a severity from critical to low, a description of the problem and remediation, and the current firmware version where relevant.
- Surveillance Incidents on the Move: Supervisors can browse camera incidents, filter by severity, search by incident, event type or camera, open an incident to see its status, detection time, confidence and summary, and acknowledge it from the field.
- Privacy by Default: Photos taken in the app have location and device metadata stripped before they leave the phone.
Use Cases#
New Camera Rollout#
A contractor installing dozens of cameras across a district completes each install from the phone: scan, capture position, probe, submit. Each camera is confirmed as streaming before the crew moves on, so missed configurations are caught on site rather than days later.
Street-Level Maintenance#
A supervisor responding to a report of a dark camera finds it in the nearby list, checks its status and provisioning, and files a high severity maintenance report with the firmware version, which reaches the maintenance team straight away.
Incident Follow-Up#
A surveillance supervisor away from the control room receives word of a camera incident, opens it on the phone, reviews the summary and confidence, and acknowledges it so the control room knows it is being handled.
Audiences#
- Camera installers and contractors commissioning new cameras.
- Surveillance supervisors overseeing a camera network in the field.
- Maintenance teams who need accurate, located fault reports.
Integration#
Cameras onboarded from the app join the same camera inventory, zones and incident records used by the rest of the surveillance platform. Health metrics for installed cameras are covered by Camera Telemetry, and camera incidents follow the Surveillance Incident Lifecycle. The workflow is part of the Mobile Responder Workspace and respects the same sign-in, roles and organisation scoping.
Open Standards#
- ONVIF: cameras are discovered and configured through the ONVIF device service where supported.
- RTSP (RFC 2326): primary, analytics and preview video streams are described by their RTSP paths.
- WGS 84 (EPSG:4326): camera positions are captured as decimal-degree latitude and longitude.
- TLS: protocol probes can be run over TLS.
- ISO 8601: incident detection times use a standard date-time representation.