- This looks kinda suspicious.
I don't see a lens on it, though.
What's this?
Oh!
Camera, found it!
That, that was a good one.
Can't get past me, though.
All right.
Hey, guys, this is Austin.
When you're traveling there is a lot to consider.
Is your flight on time?
How are you getting around once you arrive?
What's the time zone difference?
What you shouldn't have to worry about
is whether or not,
soon as you get to your hotel or perhaps your Airbnb,
that you are being secretly recorded.
A story started doing the rounds back in April
of a family who found hidden cameras inside their Airbnb.
Now there's certainly reasons why you might wanna
legitimately have a camera.
For example, the security camera outside.
What's never okay is when these hidden cameras
are so stealthy and in places like, say,
the bedroom or bathroom,
that obviously no one would be comfortable with.
- [Ken] I'm comfortable with it.
- Okay, Ken, well not everyone's you.
So we decided to stage a little experiment.
How easy is it really to spy on someone?
Then we tried to keep this as simple as possible.
We purchased a series of cameras
straight from Amazon with Prime shipping
and all of them were reasonably affordable.
I mean, we're talkin' between like 40 to 100 dollars
per camera, which is very much what you could make
by renting your place on Airbnb for a night or two.
So Ken and our producer, Matt, have hidden a series of
hidden cameras all throughout Matt's apartment,
which I have never visited
so not only do I not know the layout,
I don't know which cameras they're using
and where they're placed.
And I have exactly 10 minutes to find as many of them
as possible and hopefully,
I'll be able to give some good tips
on what you should look for as you go enter
your hotel or your Airbnb
or your sketchy friend Matt's apartment.
Actually, I don't know why you're sketchy.
You're not sketchy at all.
You're like the opposite of sketchy.
- I'm just touched that you called me a friend.
(Austin laughs)
(dramatic music)
- (yawns) Well this is creepy.
Okay, well, I immediately see a camera
right underneath the hat.
(quiet music)
Hello.
All right, well that was not particularly well hidden.
Okay, so that's definitely the Yi, that doesn't count.
I know they specifically told me that
that one was here.
Something I would actually normally say
is that I'm going to use my flashlight on my phone
and essentially If I see any kind of weird reflections
I'm gonna try to rely on that.
Maybe I can notice a lens or something.
This would be a lot easier to spot though
if it was dark.
So, I'm just gonna get it dark in here.
So, the problem is, he's got so many legos
it's easy to hide things.
Hi.
Okay is this thing suspicious?
This looks kinda suspicious.
If this is a hidden camera, it's pretty...
Oh, what the what?
Hello, what's this?
Oh, camera, found it!
That was a good one.
Can't get passed me, though.
All right.
- So I was actually surprised that he found that one.
I thought he was gonna find the one next to it
before he found that one.
- [Ken] Right, our decoy.
- [Matt] Actually, you can even see it's got the infrared.
(laughter)
- This looks suspicious, but is it though?
Actually , is this a real camera?
I think this is a real camera.
All right, what else?
What else?
That clock looks suspicious.
All right, I'm just gonna...
I'm just gonna pull it down.
This is definitely a camera right?
There's a camera in here somewhere?
Oh, the back is warm.
No, no, no, this is a camera.
Although, I've gotta say, it looks really convincing.
If this is a camera, I don't see...
Oh, there's right there, it's inside the ten.
Got it.
I got it. I got it.
Nice try, you can't pull one over on me.
Okay, think.
I'm laying in bed.
What's gonna notice me while I'm laying in bed?
Oh, hi.
Oh what's up?
Oh, an RF Detector.
Okay, so, if you're a hardcore nerd,
then you might wanna pick up something like this,
which in theory, I've never used it before,
will let me know...
(beeping) Oh, okay, we found RF.
So if I put it next to the GoPro
(rapid beeping)
Okay, there's RF everywhere.
This is not very helpful.
So let's see if this is helpful.
I mean obviously, router, that makes sense.
TV, yeah makes sense.
I wonder, I know this is a camera.
(Beeping) Oh yeah, yep.
(beeping)
Yep, okay, so this actually does work.
- [Matt] Three minutes.
- Three minutes? That's it?
Oh, no. Okay.
What else, what else, what else?
I feel like I'm still being spied on.
- You're getting colder.
(laughter)
- You don't have to taunt me.
Is there something like a vent?
Is there like a...
Oh, oh, that.
That.
This is not a real smoke detector.
This looks too fake.
Yeah, that's not a smoke detector.
Suck it.
(laughter)
- [Ken] So, we'd like to point out
that the camera actually died on us
- [Matt] Yeah it froze, yeah.
- I feel like I'm still missing, still missing something.
I am kind of near the wifi though.
(beeps)
The Chromecast, no. (beeps)
(groans)
All right, I'll call it gentlemen.
- So, I'll be honest.
- Yeah.
You didn't do great.
- How many did I miss?
- A lot.
The one that we called,
which ya didn't, you never fail to disappoint,
that you were gonna find this one right away,
get all cocky about it...
- [Austin] That is what happened, that is what happened.
- [Matt] That's exactly what happened.
- [Ken] Yeah that's actually not functional at all.
- This is... - [Austin] Oh.
- [Ken] That's a completely fake one.
- This guy here is one of my favorites.
This was up in the ceiling.
- I'm lounging here, I'm looking up, like,
why is that beeping at me?
- I'm impressed with the craftsmanship of this.
- It looks good.
- Even while you were holding it,
the only thing that gave it away was the heat
of the back of it.
This guy here is a lovely, terrible Bluetooth speaker
that has a camera right there.
- Oh man, this is sketchy dude.
We went into this video like,
oh it's gonna be this fun thing.
Let's go see if we can find a couple cameras.
You guys went all out, for real.
This is like super sketchy.
Is that one below the router?
(groans) (laughter)
- Say hi.
One of the points we were gonna make
with the RF detector is it's not foolproof.
- It's not very good actually. - At all.
- It works really well, but in a room like this...
That's a smart bulb, that's a smart bulb.
You got a camera up there that's transmitting.
You got a router right here.
There's signals everywhere.
If we continue on the tour...
- There are more?
- [Ken] Yes, there are more.
- No, not the pen.
Dude, that's pretty good.
- And then there's one that I knew that you would never find
no matter how much you tried.
- Oh no.
- Your dead giveaway should have been the pilot.
- The pilot's out?
Oh yeah like I would know that the pilot belongs in there.
I went into this feeling pretty confident.
I was like, okay, you know what?
I've got my skills, I've got my knowledge,
I know what I'm looking for.
But this is me, knowing that I'm in a room full of cameras
and that's the best I could do.
I could...what did I find half of them, maybe?
Not even?
So that was totally crazy.
So, something I'm curious about,
you have a mixture of cameras here.
Some of these record to SD cards,
but some of them actually stream to an app, right?
- [Matt] Yeah, most of these streamed.
They didn't stream very well, to be honest,
but they did all through a single app.
So, the clock, the Bluetooth speaker, the smoke detector,
and the alarm clock were all capable of streaming.
- Also this is a real battery bank, right?
- Yeah, so all of these devices actually do something.
They actually function, minus the smoke detector.
- [Austin, on speaker] This is our brand new office setup.
- You know what really tripped me up is the pen.
This looks like a real pen.
I mean, you can actually take it off and you'll see,
It's essentially like a fountain pen, right?
And in fact, you were trying to show me earlier
that actually you can put a...
- Yeah, there's a little ink cartridge, it will write.
- This, when you put it in,
say, a little thing full of pens,
you're never, ever, ever going to notice it.
The only reason, even when you point it out,
that I was able to spot it,
was the fact that it was warm, right?
That's one of the things that is a giveaway
with all of these things.
- A lot of these, yeah.
- They're warm right?
A normal clock is not warm,
a normal alarm clock or battery bank,
they don't ever get warm.
But because they're constantly recording,
they do tend to heat up a little bit.
So I guess if we were going to do this again,
I would probably wanna employ a thermal camera
because you would be able to see a little bit more,
like, hey, why is that thing warm?
But you're getting into really paranoid territory
if you're walking around with one of these things
and a thermal camera,
and you're flashing lights and stuff.
- So this here really didn't work at all for us.
The RF detection really doesn't work anymore.
It used to work when there were no smart devices.
But what we were hoping that would work
is the laser detection.
So if you look through here,
what you were doing with your flashlight,
this red light should have shined these lenses,
but it really didn't.
We tried it ourselves
and the only one it really worked on was...
The Yi. - The actual camera,
which is meant to be seen.
But it's the thing where technology's come so far, right?
I mean the fact that you've got cameras which are this small
or that's this small that can be easily hidden
in these items means that it's pretty much open game.
And especially given that this stuff
is not hard to find, right?
I mean, it's one Amazon search away
and, you know, one day Prime shipping.
And you have a whole host of super sketchy things.
It's easy to be paranoid.
It's easy to look at this stuff and be like,
oh, everyone's gonna be recording you all the time.
But I mean, if you're even slightly suspicious,
there's a lot of things that you can do.
I would say walk around,
really thoroughly check things out.
I mean, a lot of this stuff
is very, very concealed.
And the thing is, a lot of these things work, right?
These are proper spy, this is like proper spy gear
in that this is a real wireless charger.
This is a real battery bank.
And yet they do have that camera and it is recording,
and especially when you look at the app stuff, right?
It's one thing if someone has to break into your apartment
to plant a battery bank or something
or try to get the SD card back,
but it's a completely other thing
when there's a wireless camera there
which is constantly streaming video.
- [Matt] There is some consolation,
is that most of these failed on us during recording.
There's a lot of them that just straight up didn't work,
the stream stopped.
I mean, I have great internet
so that's not the issue, they just...
- [Austin] They're cheap. - [Matt] They're cheaply made.
- You spend a little more money
and I'm sure you're getting stuff which is of higher quality
and even more dangerous.
- Right.
- So, sleep easy at night, friends
because big brother is certainly watching.
And if not, Ken will be.
- [Ken] Yeah, I will.
- [Matt] Yikes.