Support.

SceneLatch is in development. This guide describes the current evaluation app; the supported hardware and detection conditions will be finalized before App Store release.

Start monitoring

1. Mount a physical iPhone running iOS 18 or later with a clear camera view. Choose portrait or landscape before starting.
2. Open Monitoring setup. Pick a road, indoor or temporary preset and choose the people or vehicles you want to detect.
3. Tap Start monitoring and allow camera access. Leave the phone steady during the three-second scene-learning period.
4. Keep SceneLatch open. Walk through the watch area, then review the resulting event under Activity to check your setup.

Adjust detection while watching

Open the detection controls on Monitor to enable or disable people, vehicles and motion, or pause detection. Use sensitivity for image changes and confidence for recognized objects. Changes apply during monitoring. The watch-area toolbar opens a precise editor; enabled live area handles also let you resize or move the area without leaving the camera.

Use Area tools to add or remove ignored motion areas and reset the draft. Apply commits precise edits; Cancel discards them. Ignored areas filter motion evidence and do not blur or remove parts of the saved video. Raising thresholds can reduce unwanted events and also miss brief or partially hidden subjects.

What starts a clip?

A confirmed new person or selected vehicle entering the watch area can start recording. Movement of an object already in the initial scene can also trigger an event. Leaves and branches are not selected object categories, but the detector can still make mistakes.

A higher confidence threshold can reduce unwanted events and also miss more activity. Use a smaller watch area to focus on a road or doorway. An object's center must enter that area; the saved clip still contains the full camera view.

Why did monitoring stop?

Locking the phone, leaving the app, rotating the interface or a camera interruption ends monitoring. Restart once the phone is steady. Monitoring also stops when the phone is critically warm, when free space falls below 500 MB or when clips reach approximately 1 GB. Storage checks are periodic, so the final clip can take usage slightly beyond the limit.

The app keeps the screen awake during monitoring. Long sessions consume power and can warm the phone. Detection runs less frequently when the system reports serious thermal pressure.

Find, export and delete recordings

Open Activity to play or share a saved event. Choose compact list, grid or preview with a list. Pinch a grid to change its density; pinch a playing clip to inspect details and pause to scrub. Select recordings individually, by day or before a date. Keep protects important entries from bulk cleanup. Delete a selection or review a cleanup to free space, then confirm. There is no automatic deletion. Clips are excluded from device backup; export footage you want to keep before removing the app.

A recovered event means the app found playable footage after an interrupted save. An interrupted recording marked unable to play is retained for explicit deletion; it may not be recoverable.

Missing or unwanted events

Check the selected classes, confidence threshold and watch area. Keep the phone still and the lens clear. Brief crossings, small distant objects, occlusion, reflections and poor lighting can affect detection. SceneLatch does not guarantee that every incident is captured.

Focus, exposure and lighting

Tap the live view to set focus and exposure, then use the nearby exposure gesture or controls to adjust brightness. Available lenses and optical or digital zoom depend on the phone. Automatic low-light assistance adapts when supported; it cannot guarantee recognition in darkness.

Nearby viewing and alerts

Connect camera and viewer to the same local network. Open Nearby, enable camera sharing, allow Local Network access and pair with the private link or QR flow. Keep the camera app open. Pairing links contain access secrets: share only with a trusted viewer and stop sharing to end the session. No cloud relay or internet viewer is provided.

Detection sounds can be customized or turned off. The monitoring-paused warning requires notification permission and follows system settings. Dimmed monitoring keeps the app in the foreground; it does not allow camera use with the phone locked. The Mac viewer remains under evaluation and has no announced public download.

Coverage or camera-pressure warnings

Tap the information icon in the status warning for its explanation and suggested action. Missed frames or camera pressure may reduce capture coverage. Close-ups can pause to protect the camera workload; this is separate from whether an event clip is being saved. Reduce optional debug/close-up/streaming work and let a warm phone cool before retesting.

Camera permission

If access was denied, open iPhone Settings and allow camera access for SceneLatch, then return to the app. The app does not need microphone, location or photo-library permission.

Contact

Email ahtimadhusanka@gmail.com. Include your iPhone model, iOS version, app version and what happened. Please do not send footage or personal information about people in the scene unless you choose to share it and have permission.

Support is provided by Ishan Madhusanka. See the SceneLatch privacy policy for local recordings and support communications.