Hotel Hidden Camera Check: 7 Steps Before You Unpack

How to check a hotel room for hidden cameras: these 7 steps are the difference

After checking into a hotel or Airbnb, run through these 7 steps in order and you can detect most common hidden cameras within 15 minutes: darken the room, flashlight sweep, infrared scan with the front camera, mirror test, close-up inspection of key objects, magnetic field scan, and a separate bathroom sweep. The LAPD paper published by Sriram Sami et al. at NUS in ACM SenSys 2021 used the same lens-reflection principle and achieved an 88.9% detection rate in real-world tests.

Most people stop after the first two steps. The remaining five are where you actually find things.

According to a 2024 IPX1031 survey, 64% of American travelers do not know how to detect hidden cameras, yet 75% already make it a habit to check their room after check-in. This checklist moves you from the 75% to the group that actually knows what they're doing.

Every step below explains the reason behind it.

Step 1: Set down your bag, close the curtains, kill the lights

The first thing you do when you enter the room is close the curtains and turn off all lights. Let your eyes adjust in the dark for 30 to 60 seconds. Most people skip this, then start sweeping before their pupils have dilated. Reflection points are easy to miss when they flash by in a bright environment.

Thirty seconds is enough. You don't need long.

Step 2: Flashlight sweep, starting from the wall directly facing the bed

Hidden cameras are almost always placed where they have a clear view of the bed. Start with the wall facing the bed, not the corners.

Set your phone flashlight to maximum brightness and hold it at eye level, not at chest or waist height. The light source needs to be close to your line of sight for the lens reflection to reach your eye. Move slowly, roughly 20 to 30 centimeters per second. You're looking for a small white or faintly blue circular bright spot that looks completely different from the surrounding surface texture.

Step 3: Switch to the front camera and sweep again for infrared

Open your selfie camera and slowly pan it around the room. Some hidden cameras use infrared night-vision LEDs that are invisible to the human eye but detectable by a phone's front camera, which will show them as bright white spots on the screen.

First confirm your front camera can do this: point it at a TV remote control and press a button. If you see a white flash on the screen, the camera can detect infrared.

Step 4: Mirror test, one motion

Press your fingertip flat against the mirror surface. On a standard mirror, there is a small visible gap between your fingertip and its reflection because the glass has physical thickness. If the fingertip and its reflection touch with no gap at all, the mirror warrants further inspection.

Also press your flashlight flat against the mirror surface. A normal mirror backing is opaque. Any light passing through to the other side is a red flag.

Step 5: Close-up inspection of high-risk objects

Walk up to each of these and look closely. A distant sweep is not enough:

• Smoke detectors: Best vantage point in the room from the ceiling. Check whether the unit faces the bed and look for any unusual holes in the casing.
• Alarm clocks and picture frames: Enough interior space for a module, with a battery already built in. No external power source required, and the exterior looks completely normal.
• Chargers and wall outlets: Spy chargers are commercially available off the shelf. Look for a small hole, 2 to 5 millimeters in diameter, on the side or top of any charger you did not bring yourself.
• Air conditioning vents: The space behind the louvers is large enough to conceal a module.

Step 6: Magnetic field scan to cover blind spots

The flashlight finds lenses. The magnetic field sensor finds electronic components. Hold your phone near any area you already swept but are still unsure about. If the magnetometer reading jumps suddenly, go back over that spot with the flashlight for a closer look.

The magnetic field scan is not meant to be used alone. Rooms have plenty of ordinary electronics that produce readings. Use it paired with the flashlight reflection check to confirm. SafeLens runs both detections simultaneously so you only need one tool.

Step 7: Handle the bathroom separately

Bathroom-specific spots: the base of the showerhead, ventilation grilles, and the underside of shelving. These are difficult to reach with a general sweep. Get close and shine your flashlight directly inside each one.

Bathroom lights are hard to fully block. Temporarily cover the fixture with a towel or piece of clothing to create enough darkness for an effective scan.