📖 WildDetector Guide

WildDetector is an Android app that uses on-device AI to detect wildlife — by sound and by sight — in real time. It works completely offline: no data is sent to any server during detection. When you are signed in, your detections can optionally be saved to the cloud and shown on a shared map.

🐾 Species

When you open the app you choose which species to monitor. Each species has its own AI models and tuned settings.

🐝

Pollinators (binary)

Audio CNN + Motion detector

Detects pollinator presence by wing-beat frequency (~200–300 Hz). Binary: present or not. Works best 0.5–2 m from the hive or flowers.

🐸

Amphibians (multiclass)

Audio CNN

Identifies calls from multiple amphibian species. Multiclass: identifies the specific species detected. Works best at night near water sources.

🦜

Avian (binary)

Audio CNN + AI visual

Detects bird presence by song and visual. Binary: present or not. Can detect presence even without a visual.

🦎

Reptiles (binary)

AI visual

Visual detection of reptiles at 10–15 FPS. Binary: present or not. Point the camera at the subject.

🔍

General

Anomaly + Motion only

No species-specific model. Uses anomaly detection and motion tracking to catch any unusual activity. Ideal for unknown species or custom field setups.

🔬 How Detection Works

WildDetector fuses three independent detection sources. Each can trigger independently or be chained in a pipeline.

🎙️

Audio Classification

The microphone continuously captures audio. Every ~1 second, a CNN model classifies the sound and produces a probability score. When the score exceeds the threshold for several consecutive windows, a detection is fired.

📷

AI Visual Detection

The camera runs an on-device AI visual model on every frame. When the target species appears in multiple consecutive frames (configurable), a detection is triggered. Bounding boxes are drawn live on screen.

⚡

Anomaly Detection

An autoencoder model learns what 'normal' sounds and images look like during a calibration phase (~2 minutes). Once calibrated, anything outside the normal distribution triggers an anomaly alert — useful for catching rare events.

🟡

Motion Detection

A lightweight frame-differencing algorithm detects moving objects in the camera view. Motion is a trigger-only source — it wakes up other detectors but does not generate a standalone detection by itself.

🔗 Detection Pipeline

By default every source fires independently. The pipeline lets you chain sources so that a detection is only recorded when multiple sources confirm the event in sequence. This dramatically reduces false positives.

# Example: require motion then audio

Stage 1 → Motion detected

Stage 2 → Audio confirms within 10 s

→ Detection recorded ✓

You can configure the pipeline in Settings → Pipeline Editor. Each stage has a 10-second timeout — if the next stage does not fire in time, the pipeline resets.

⚙️ Settings

🎙️ Audio

Enable audio detection

Turns the audio CNN classifier on or off. Disable if you only need visual detection to save battery.

Audio device

Select the microphone to use. Useful if you connect an external USB microphone for better range.

Audio channel

Left, Right, or Mixed. Use Left or Right when using a stereo directional microphone.

Consecutive windows

How many consecutive high-probability windows are required before firing. Higher = fewer false positives. Default: 3.

📷 Camera / YOLO

Enable AI visual detection

Turns on the on-device AI visual model. Uses more CPU/GPU and battery.

Confidence threshold

Minimum confidence (0–1) for the AI visual model to consider a detection valid. Default: 0.4.

Consecutive frames

How many consecutive frames must contain the target before firing. Default: 3.

Burn bounding boxes

Saves an annotated JPEG snapshot with boxes drawn on it to your gallery each time the AI visual detector fires. Premium only.

⚡ Anomaly Detection

Enable audio anomaly

Trains an autoencoder on ambient sound during the first ~2 minutes, then alerts on anything unusual.

Enable video anomaly

Same as audio anomaly but for the camera feed. Useful in fixed-camera setups.

Thresholds

Automatically adapts based on your feedback (thumbs up / thumbs down on each anomaly card).

🟡 Motion

Sensitivity (1–10)

How easily motion is detected. High sensitivity picks up insects; low sensitivity ignores leaves and camera shake.

Max blob size (px)

Maximum size of a detected moving object. Set small to detect insects; large to detect mammals.

Min speed (px/frame)

Minimum speed a blob must travel to count as motion. Filters out slow camera drift.

Show trail

Draws the path of each moving object on screen for visual feedback.

🎬 Video Recording

Save video clips

Automatically records a video clip around each detection event. Premium only.

Pre-roll (seconds)

How many seconds before the detection to include in the clip. Default: 5 s.

Post-roll (seconds)

How many seconds after the detection to continue recording. Default: 5 s.

🔋 Battery & Screen

Keep screen on

Prevents the screen from turning off during a detection session. Recommended for field use.

Samsung: Never sleeping apps

On Samsung devices, add WildDetector to Settings → Battery → Never sleeping apps to ensure background detection keeps running with the screen off.

💾 Presets

Save preset

Saves all current settings under a name so you can switch between configurations quickly.

Load preset

Restores a previously saved configuration.

👤 Account & Premium

WildDetector has three access levels. You can start immediately as a Guest with no account required.

Guest

✓ No sign-in required
✓ General detector only
✓ 3-minute detection sessions
✓ GPS must be enabled
✓ Local session log
✓ Nothing saved to cloud

Free Account

✓ Sign in with Google
✓ All species detectors
✓ 3-minute detection sessions
✓ GPS location logged
✓ Detections on live public map
✓ My Detections history

Premium

✓ All species detectors
✓ Unlimited detection sessions
✓ Save video clips & photos
✓ GPS location logged
✓ Detections on live public map
✓ My Detections history
✓ $10 / month or $80 / year

Sign in with Google from the species selector screen (tap the account button at the bottom). Subscriptions are managed through Google Play and can be cancelled at any time. Premium status is cached for up to 35 days offline (monthly) or 370 days (annual).

📋 My Detections

Every detection made while signed in is saved to your personal history, organized by session.

SessionsEach time you press Start, a new session is created. All detections from that run are grouped under one session header showing the date, time, and count.

Deleting detectionsSwipe any detection left or right to delete it. It is removed from both the app and the cloud immediately.

Public vs PrivateFree users always share data publicly. Premium users can toggle sharing per-account in Settings → Account → Share detections publicly.

🗺️ Live Dashboard

The WildDetector dashboard shows real-time wildlife detections captured by the app. On the map you can see where bees, frogs, birds, reptiles, and other species have been reported. You also have a feed view with the detection history, and a devices view showing which phones are currently active.

Share Detections PubliclyIn the app, go to Settings → Account → Share detections publicly. When this is turned on, every detection you capture is uploaded to the public feed and becomes visible to everyone on the dashboard. When you turn it off, your detections are saved privately and only you can see them after signing in.

Free vs PremiumFree users always share their detections publicly — this is how the community map grows, and it is required to use the cloud features on the free tier. Premium users have full control: you can choose to contribute to the public map, or keep all your detections completely private. The toggle in settings gives you that choice at any time.

Private mode on the dashboardBy default the dashboard shows public detections from all users. If you sign in with your Google account and enable the Mine filter, the dashboard switches to private mode: you only see your own detections, including the ones you marked as private from the app. Nobody else can see those detections — they are protected at the server level.

FiltersYou can filter by species using the buttons at the top, and also filter by device if you have multiple phones registered. Each detection shows the species, confidence probability, detection method, and how long ago it was captured.

Open the dashboard at wild-dashboard.vercel.app

🌐 Community Presets

Presets let you save your current detection settings under a name and share them with other users. Free users can browse and apply public presets from the community.

Saving a presetIn Settings → Presets, tap Save preset, give it a name, and choose whether to make it public or keep it private.

Browsing community presetsTap Community presets in Settings → Presets to see public presets from other users for the current species. Tap any preset to apply it instantly.

Deleting your presetLong-press any of your own public presets in the community list to delete it.

💡 Tips & Tricks

→ Use an external USB microphone

A directional or parabolic microphone connected via USB OTG dramatically increases detection range. Select it in Settings → Audio device.

→ Set pipeline for fewer false positives

Chain Motion → Audio or Motion → AI visual so the app only records confirmed events, not background noise.

→ Calibrate anomaly detection first

Start a session and wait 2 minutes without the target species present. The anomaly detector learns the background and becomes much more accurate.

→ Use pre-roll to never miss the moment

Set a 10-second pre-roll so that when a detection fires, the video clip includes the approach, not just the aftermath.

→ Samsung users: add to Never Sleeping Apps

Without this, Samsung's aggressive battery manager kills the background service within minutes of the screen turning off.

→ GPS must be enabled

The app requires location access to tag detections with coordinates. Make sure GPS is on before starting a session.