CamRelay 1.0.5: Ready for Android 17, and Now in Vietnamese

CamRelay 1.0.5 is now available on Google Play. Its most important job is making sure CamRelay keeps working on phones with Android 17. It also brings CamRelay to Vietnamese speakers, translates the parts of the app that were still in English, and fixes the web File Manager for everyone using CamRelay in French or Italian.

Android 17 introduces a new privacy permission that every app must have before it can talk to other devices on your Wi-Fi or wired network. CamRelay is a camera server: your NVR, VLC, your browser and your ONVIF apps all connect to the phone. Without this permission, Android silently blocks all of them. Version 1.0.5 asks for the permission, explains clearly what it is for, and gives you an easy way to turn it on later if you skip it.

Is your phone on Android 16 or older? Then the Android 17 changes do not affect you. There is no new prompt, and CamRelay works exactly as before. The translation improvements and the File Manager fix apply to every phone.

What changed in Android 17

Until now, any Android app with internet access could also reach devices in your home network: your printer, your TV, your smart speakers. Android 17 closes that gap. Apps now need a separate permission, local network access, before they can send anything to, or accept anything from, another device on the same network. Android lists it under Nearby devices, next to Bluetooth.

This is a good change for your privacy. It stops apps from quietly scanning your home network and building a picture of the devices you own. But it also affects apps whose whole purpose is to be reached from your network, like CamRelay.

What happens without it

If CamRelay runs on Android 17 without local network access:

• NVRs and VLC cannot connect to the RTSP stream. Usually they simply wait and then report a timeout or "connection failed".
• The web interface does not load in your browser, and the live view stays empty.
• ONVIF discovery finds nothing. Apps and recorders that search for cameras on your network do not see the phone.
• Two-way talk and remote control from the web interface stop working, because they use the same connection.

What keeps working: recording to the phone's own storage. The camera keeps recording; the problem is only that nothing on your network can reach it.

Because the connections are blocked silently, it can look as if the phone, the Wi-Fi or the NVR is broken. If you have seen any of the above on an Android 17 phone, this update is the fix.

What you will see in 1.0.5

When you set up CamRelay

The Permissions screen has a new Local Network card. When you tap Request Permissions, Android asks for camera, microphone, notifications and local network access together. Local network access is optional: if you choose Don't allow, you can still continue to the main screen and use the app.

On the main screen

If local network access is missing, CamRelay shows a short explanation, once, before it asks about battery optimization. It tells you what the permission is used for, what stops working without it, and what CamRelay does not do with it. Tap Allow to see Android's permission dialog again, or Not Now to decide later.

In Settings

As long as local network access is off, a banner at the very top of Settings reads Local network access is off, with an Allow access button. It disappears as soon as the permission is granted.

If Android stops asking

Android only shows a permission dialog a limited number of times. After you decline it twice, the system stops asking. That is a protection built into Android, not something an app can override.

In that case, the Allow access button in Settings takes you straight to CamRelay's App info page instead, with a short hint. There:

1. Open Permissions.
2. Tap Nearby devices.
3. Choose Allow.

The names of these menus can differ slightly between phone brands. When you return to CamRelay, the app notices the change by itself and the banner disappears.

Using CamRelay as an always-on camera?

Many of you run CamRelay on a spare phone that starts streaming by itself after a reboot, with Auto-start on Device Boot enabled, often in a place where nobody touches the screen. Android can only show a permission dialog while someone is looking at the app, never in the background after a reboot.

So if that phone is on Android 17: after updating to 1.0.5, open CamRelay once and allow local network access. Otherwise the camera will start and record after the next reboot, but your NVR will not be able to connect to it.

What CamRelay does and does not do with this permission

We know a permission called "Nearby devices" can sound more intrusive than it is, so here is exactly what CamRelay uses it for:

• It does: answer the devices that connect to it, such as your NVR, VLC, your browser and your ONVIF apps, and reply when an ONVIF app searches the network for cameras.
• It does not: scan your network, look for other devices, connect to your other devices on its own, or collect any information about them.

CamRelay still works entirely inside your own network. There is no cloud and no account, and the video goes straight from the phone to the devices you choose.

Still cannot connect after allowing it?

If local network access is on and a device still cannot connect, check the usual suspects:

• The phone and the viewing device are on the same Wi-Fi network. Guest networks often block devices from seeing each other.
• Some routers have a setting called client isolation or AP isolation that blocks devices on the same Wi-Fi from talking to each other. It needs to be off.
• A VPN on the phone or on the viewing device can route the traffic somewhere else.
• The address and port you entered match the ones shown on CamRelay's main screen.

The user guide covers connecting VLC, NVRs and ONVIF apps step by step.

CamRelay now speaks Vietnamese

CamRelay is now fully available in Vietnamese: the app on your phone, the Settings screens, and the web interface you open in your browser. That brings the number of languages to 15:

English, Arabic, Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Vietnamese.

You do not need to change anything. CamRelay follows your phone's language. The web interface follows the phone too, so whoever opens it in a browser sees the same language as the app.

More of CamRelay in your language

Until now, some parts of CamRelay stayed in English even when the rest of the app was translated. Most of them were names and options that come from the camera and streaming settings. In 1.0.5 they follow your language too:

• Camera names, such as Rear and Front, both on the main screen and in Settings, including the camera ID and field of view shown next to them.
• Settings options: camera orientation, mirror mode, the descriptions of the video codecs (H.264, H.265, AV1) and audio codecs (Opus, AAC, G.711), the two-way talk audio mode, the temperature unit, the location provider and the automatic flashlight modes.
• The main screen: the start and stop button as read by screen readers like TalkBack, and the title of the message shown when streaming fails.
• The web interface: the same option lists on the settings page in your browser, including mirror mode, which was always shown in English.

We also polished a few translations along the way. In Swedish, for example, the camera preview setting now uses a clearer, more natural wording.

Fixed: the File Manager in French and Italian

If you use CamRelay in French or Italian, you may have noticed that the File Manager in the web interface never finished loading. It stayed on Loading recordings…, so you could not browse, play, download or delete your recordings from the browser.

The cause was small but annoying: some French and Italian messages contain an apostrophe, as in n'a été or l'azione, and that apostrophe broke the page. CamRelay 1.0.5 handles these characters correctly in every language, so the File Manager loads normally again. Your recordings were never affected; they were on the phone the whole time, and you can now reach them from the browser again.

Get the update

CamRelay 1.0.5 is rolling out on Google Play now. If you do not see it yet, it should arrive within a few days. Even if your phone is not on Android 17 yet, updating now means you are ready the day it arrives, and you get the translation improvements and the File Manager fix right away.

Get CamRelay on Google Play

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