Cheapest Used Phone With Great Camera

[persistentone]

I want an Internet-connected camera with the best quality at the lowest price. I do NOT want to connect the camera to a mobile network. I will attach it to the Internet through a local WAN.

My actual use case for this will be doing time lapse photos of various parts of my yard, trying to understand how the sun hits particular seating areas throughout the day, at different times of year. I will put the phone on a tripod and let the time lapse do its thing.

Given that I do not need or want the expense of a monthly mobile phone network charge, what would be some of the best options in a used phone for this application?

 

[Windroid]

Probably E-Bay. But it'll be hard to recommend a specific model, because who knows which models are selling for which prices at the moment.

 

[AugieTN]

Are you dead set on a used phone? rather than something like a Blink camera on Amazon?

 

[persistentone]

Are you dead set on a used phone? rather than something like a Blink camera on Amazon?

I am dead set on "cheap". If Amazon has something new that has great quality at a low price, and it can run Android applications, then great.

 

[AugieTN]

Interesting project you have mentioned here!

I have a neighbor who's always talking about his Blink cameras being cheap and having a great picture. I looked into them and remember a couple of people doing time lapse with them. I had already started installing Nest Cameras, so I never added a Blink camera.

I take it the phone would have to be plugged in to do time lapse given battery limitations? correct?

 

[persistentone]

Interesting project you have mentioned here!

I have a neighbor who's always talking about his Blink cameras being cheap and having a great picture. I looked into them and remember a couple of people doing time lapse with them. I had already started installing Nest Cameras, so I never added a Blink camera.

I take it the phone would have to be plugged in to do time lapse given battery limitations? correct?

Battery is an unknown. Could a good timelapse application put the phone into a low energy mode and then just wake up every 15 minutes? I could supplement the phone battery with a plugged in external battery, and I hope that would give me 24 hours.

 

[Hadron]

Why is camera quality important just for seeing where the sun hits at different times of day/year?

 

[IOWA]

Why does it need to run Android applications? Just get a camera and record the footage to an sd card and make your timelapse on a pc with the footage.

 

[persistentone]

Why is camera quality important just for seeing where the sun hits at different times of day/year?

It doesn't but if I am going to bother to order a dedicated camera device, I might as well get the flexibility of other kinds of time lapse, some of which might require better quality cameras.