A Test of 5 Methods/Tools To Locate Hidden Spy Cameras

This article is about the tiny spy cameras with pin-hole sized lenses that can be discretely hidden. The primary concern for most people would be the presence of such a camera (or more) in a hotel room or Airbnb. Sometimes these cameras are connected to a WiFi connection to broadcast the video to a remote computer; other can save the video to an SD card. 

    In any event, CNBC tested various methods/tools to locate such hidden cameras and reported the results in this piece: "How to find hidden cameras in hotels and house rentals: We tested five ways — and one’s the clear winner." There were 27 cameras hidden in a home but they were only able to find 17 cameras between all of the tested methods/tools. The methods/tools used were: 

1. Using the naked eye. They found only 1 camera hidden inside a clock--discovered because the clock was wrong).
2. Using a mobile phone app (Fing) designed to detect such cameras by scanning WiFi networks for cameras (it didn't detect any cameras).
3. Using a flashlight. Although the article counts this as part of method 2--using a cell phone because after the failure of Fing the tester turned to using the phone's flashlight mode--I have split it out.  They found 3 cameras with this technique.
4. Next was radio frequency detector. It had so many false alerts that they weren't able to use it locate a single camera. The article notes that it probably wouldn't be able to detect cameras that saved the data to an SD card anyway.
5. A basic (inexpensive) lens detector, which emits an infra-red light and detects the reflection from the lens. This device was able to find 2 cameras.
6. A more sophisticated (expensive) lens detector. Using this device, they found 11 cameras.