Your cameras.
Watched at home.
The cameras you already own, without the cloud they came with. HearthWatch shows every camera in one live grid on your PC, records them, and quietly watches for people and vehicles, with nothing ever leaving your home.
Coming to the Microsoft StoreThe counts HearthWatch shows are an honest estimate, not a promise: camera quality, lighting, frame rate and angle all limit what any detector can see, and the app says so instead of pretending. Enhance sharpens and denoises what the sensor really captured; it recovers detail, it does not invent pixels the camera never saw. Your cameras came with a cloud app that watches your home from someone else's server. HearthWatch watches it from your own PC, and nowhere else.
Everything your cameras can do, on your own PC.
A live view of all your cameras at once, each in its own tile, on a self-healing stream that reconnects on its own when a camera drops. Click any tile to open it full-screen.
Person and vehicle detection runs on your PC, not a server. Draw a zone and HearthWatch only alerts on what happens inside it, so a swaying tree or passing headlights stop crying wolf.
Continuous and motion-triggered recording to seekable files, an events log with thumbnails, and a recordings viewer with a scrub bar, export and delete. Everything stays on your disk.
Hear what your camera hears, and speak through it. Two-way audio on the cameras that support it, straight from the app, with no phone and no cloud in the middle.
Digital zoom on any tile, plus a real sharpen-and-denoise enhance for a closer, cleaner look at a plate or a face, honestly, from the pixels the camera actually captured.
No account, no analytics, no cloud. Your cameras talk only to your PC. Pay once and own it, with no monthly fee to watch your own front door.
The app your camera should have come with.
Most cheap IP cameras push you to a cloud app just to watch your own home. HearthWatch speaks your cameras' own protocols directly on your network, the XM / ICSee "dvrip" protocol, ONVIF, and plain RTSP, so you get live view, recordings from the SD card, motion alerts, two-way audio and PTZ without an account, a subscription, or your footage sitting on someone else's server. It auto-detects H.265 cameras, handles multi-lens models, and even ships a library of public live cameras to explore.
Questions people ask
What is HearthWatch?
HearthWatch is a Windows app that shows, records and watches the IP security cameras you already own, all from your own PC. It puts every camera in one live grid, records them continuously or on motion, detects people and vehicles on-device, and lets you listen, talk back and control PTZ, with nothing sent to a cloud.
Which cameras does it work with?
Cameras that speak the XiongMai / ICSee "dvrip" protocol (the huge family of affordable cameras sold under many brand names), any ONVIF camera, and plain RTSP streams. For XM cameras HearthWatch uses their native protocol, which stays connected where RTSP tends to drop.
Is my video sent to a cloud?
No. HearthWatch is 100% local. Your cameras stream only to your PC, recordings stay on your disk, and there is no account, no analytics and no cloud. Your footage is nobody's business but yours.
Is it a subscription, or do I pay once?
You pay once and own it forever. HearthWatch is a one-time purchase, with no subscription and no recurring fees, unlike the cloud plans many camera apps push you toward.
Does the AI detection run in the cloud?
No. Person and vehicle detection runs on your own PC. You can draw a zone so it only alerts on what happens inside it, and the counts are shown honestly as an estimate, since camera quality, lighting and angle limit what any detector can see.
Can it record continuously and on motion?
Both. HearthWatch records continuously and on motion to seekable files, keeps an events log with thumbnails, and gives you a recordings viewer with a scrub bar, export and delete. It can start recording automatically when the app launches.
Can I listen and talk through my camera?
Yes, on cameras that support it. You can hear your camera's audio and speak back through it, two-way, straight from the app.
Does it support PTZ and optical zoom?
Pan and tilt work on cameras that expose them over ONVIF. Every camera gets digital zoom plus a real enhance for a closer look. Some cameras lock their optical zoom behind the manufacturer's own app; where a camera exposes it over a standard protocol HearthWatch drives it, and where it does not, digital zoom and enhance give you a closer, sharper view, honestly.
Does it handle H.265 and multi-lens cameras?
Yes. HearthWatch detects an H.265 camera from its stream and switches automatically, and it shows each lens of a multi-lens camera as its own tile with its own view, detection and recording.
Which version of Windows do I need?
HearthWatch runs on Windows 10 and Windows 11.
HearthVault quietly backs up your home PCs to each other, no cloud, so your footage survives a dead drive. From the same family.