Frequently Asked Questions

Real View is a TV app that transforms your television into a living window to the world. We stream real, live camera feeds from stunning locations worldwide—from mountain peaks and ocean shores to city skylines and wildlife reserves. It's reality, unhurried and unscripted. Leave it on as your backdrop to life and experience those magical moments when a whale breaches, a polar bear wanders past, or the sun sets over the Mediterranean.

Yes! Real View offers a free tier so everyone can enjoy our live streams. For access to our full library of premium, custom-licensed original feeds, we offer a subscription option. Commercial users (cafes, offices, hotels, etc.) require a commercial license.

Real View is designed primarily as a TV app, optimized for large screens where you can truly appreciate the stunning views. We're launching on major smart TV platforms and streaming devices. Stay tuned for specific platform announcements as we approach launch.

Our curated collection includes breathtaking locations from around the globe: tranquil beaches, majestic mountain ranges, vibrant city skylines, serene countryside, wildlife habitats, and more. Whether you want the energy of Tokyo at night or the peace of the Swiss Alps at dawn, there's a view for every mood. Every stream is live and in high definition.

Real View is available now as a free app on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and LG webOS. Simply search for "Real View" in your TV's app store. The Samsung TV app is live in the US (search "Real View" in Samsung TV Apps) and in review for other countries, with Apple TV coming soon.

If you have access to an incredible view—whether it's a rooftop overlooking a city, a beachfront property, or a wildlife reserve—we'd love to hear from you. Visit our Creators page and fill out the contact form. We'll get in touch to discuss the possibilities and guide you through the setup process.

Very little. If you already stream a camera we can often use that feed. If not, we supply one or more Real View plug-and-play cameras — they arrive ready to go live, so you just provide power and an internet connection. We'll advise you on the ideal setup for your location.

Cameras typically upload at 2-3 Mbps for quality streaming. You'll need a stable, wired internet connection to the camera with at least this bandwidth available consistently. The key is reliability—the connection must be stable 24/7.

If you're already streaming and can give us an HLS link, listing your view on the TV app is free—the feed stays on your own server, so it costs us nothing to carry. If you'd like us to supply the camera, plans start at £99 a month and the camera is included: we ship it, we own it, we manage it remotely — there is nothing to buy. From then on the same feed reaches the TV app, YouTube, an ad-free live window on your own website, plus daily highlight clips, timelapses and ready-to-post social content. You can also lock a camera behind your own access code and charge your supporters directly—you set the price and keep every penny; we never take a cut.

Absolutely! Real View is perfect for hotels, restaurants, healthcare facilities, offices, wellness studios, and more. Transform waiting rooms, lobbies, patient rooms, or any space with calming live views that enhance the environment and reduce stress. Contact us for business licensing options.

Real View is a platform. In the same way that YouTube carries thousands of live streams from harbours, beaches, high streets and gardens across the UK without deciding where any of those cameras point, we carry your view. You choose the camera position, what it frames and whether it is live. That makes you the party in charge of the content of your stream and of any data protection obligations that come with it, exactly as it would be if you streamed the same view on YouTube or your own website. Real View is not a CCTV or security product and must not be used as one.

UK GDPR is concerned with personal data: information about a living person who can be identified from it. A wide view of a bay, a mountain, a harbour or a skyline, where any people are distant figures nobody could recognise, is generally not personal data at all, and that is how the great majority of scenic webcams in the UK operate. The picture changes if a camera is close enough, or zoomed enough, for individuals to be recognised, or if it is pointed at a place where people live or work. In that case the operator of the camera is processing personal data and the ICO’s video surveillance guidance applies to them. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice; if you are unsure, ask your own adviser or the ICO.

The aim of a Real View camera is the view, not the people in it, and a few simple choices at set-up keep it that way:

• Frame the scenery. Point at the water, the horizon, the hills or the skyline, not at entrances, pontoons, windows, terraces or anywhere people gather or live.
• Keep it wide and distant. A wide angle from height keeps any person a few pixels tall. Do not zoom in on people, and do not pan to follow them.
• Mask what you need to. Where part of the scene is sensitive, such as residential boats, balconies or a neighbour’s property, position the camera to exclude it, or ask us to set a privacy mask so that area is blacked out at the camera and never streamed.
• No audio. Keep it to pictures. Do not add a microphone.
• Tell people if it makes sense to. A camera that is plainly aimed at scenery rarely needs a sign, but a short notice on your website or at the site (“live scenic webcam, wide view only, no recording of individuals”) costs nothing and answers most questions before they are asked.
• Pause it when you want. You can stop the stream at any time from your dashboard, for an event, for privacy or for any reason.

If your camera would show identifiable people, treat it as the ICO would treat any camera: have a clear reason for it, tell people it is there, and ask whether a wider or more distant view would do the job just as well. In almost every case it will.

The camera streams live video of the view you have framed. Real View does not keep a rolling recording of your stream, and there is no surveillance archive that anyone can rewind. What we do keep on your behalf is the derived content the service produces for you: a still image every hour or so for the daily timelapse, and short clips of moments worth sharing. These are made automatically, sit in your dashboard for you to review, and are deleted when you remove them or when they age out. Nothing is ever posted anywhere without your approval.

Real View TV Ltd is a UK company. The live picture is delivered to viewers through a global streaming delivery network, which is how any live stream reaches televisions and browsers around the world without buffering; the timelapses and clips we create for you are stored on Real View’s own servers. A public view is, by design, public: that is the whole point of putting your harbour or beach in front of people. If you would rather restrict a camera, you can keep it private while you settle the framing, lock it behind an access code so only people you choose can watch, or keep it off the app altogether and use it only on your own website. Your stored clips and timelapses are visible only to you in your dashboard, and to Real View staff when you ask us for support.

A Real View plug-and-play camera only ever makes outbound connections to Real View, in the same way a laptop connects to a website. It opens no ports on your network, needs no port forwarding and cannot be browsed to from the internet. Every connection is encrypted, each camera has its own credentials, and software updates are digitally signed so the camera will only install updates that genuinely come from us. Your dashboard is protected by your own login, and our full Privacy Policy sets out how Real View handles account data and your rights under UK GDPR.