Haven, the surveillance app backed by Edward Snowden

It’s hard to avoid the name Edward Snowden, the person who opened Pandora’s box in the USA when he leaked thousands of top-secret government documents. To say he made a name for himself is putting it lightly, and recently this name has been linked with a security app available for Android. Haven: Keep Watch comes backed by the ex-employee of the CIA and in a way, it makes a lot of sense. It’s a security tool that aims to keep an eye on its surroundings using an Android device. 

Haven focuses its efforts in transforming your Android device into a sort of security camera. To do this, it uses all the characteristics that most smartphones already come equipped with: accelerometer, camera, microphone, light … basic elements that we use daily, but have more potential than we normally use. Thus, the objective of Haven is to turn your Android smartphone into a device capable of monitoring and alerting you if it detects anything out of the ordinary.

Although it all may sound complicated, in reality Haven doesn’t take more than a few minutes to set up. After confirming your telephone number in the app, you have to calibrate the different sensors for them to work correctly. Here you have to do a little test so that your Android can accurately discern sound and movement. That said, you need to have two Android devices for the app to work correctly. Once you’ve set up the device to be used as the camera, Haven will send free text messages instantly to a second device every time something happens around the camera.

Haven: Keep Watch is an app that’s worth considering if you need that extra bit of security. We don’t know if it actually works better than an actual security camera, but it’s certainly more discreet considering that no one is going to suspect anything from a phone. Especially if it’s an older device, giving you another alternative use for your old smartphone.

Haven: Keep Watch for Android on Uptodown [APK] | Download