I've started playing around with the RPi Cam Web Interface. Specifically, I've built a web cam using a Pi Zero, a wifi adapter, and the Pi Camera all packaged into a cute 3D printed case along with this software. All the parts cost and the 3D printed case costs about $70USD plus the cost of the SD card. That's comparable to what you'd buy in the store, but you get a full Linux computer and you can program the camera to do what you want. Given all the flexibility you get, I think this is a good deal. I've ordered all the parts so I can build a second one.
The installation for the software is surprisingly (disturbingly?) easy. After you clone the software from github, you run the installer. It installs missing packages, adds at least one additional user account, configures the software to start on bootup. For me, the install was flawless.
The software is surprisingly feature filled. Through a web browser, you are able to get a live stream from the camera. So wherever you are in the house, you can see what's going on. You have to be on the same wifi network as the camera to access the web interface. You could turn on port forwarding on your router so you could access it remotely. I would highly recommend not doing this as it represents a significant security risk.
The feature I like the most is the ability for the camera to start recording video when it sees motion. The software comes with several motion detection algorithms. It took some experimenting to find one that worked well for me, but I did find it. Depending on how much background motion you have, you might need to tweak the sensitivity settings. For example, the first day I had it deployed was quite windy, so it was seeing a lot of motion just from tree swaying and shadows moving around. It appears that you can also have a separate script run whenever motion is detected. Using this with something like wget means that you can integrate it with other IOT components in your house, or have the Pi report out directly when it starts seeing motion. Motion detection can also be put on a schedule of several types, including continuously on, different settings by time of day, or night/dawn/day/dusk settings where the specific times are computed based on your latitude and longitude. The camera can also take still photos.
There is also a time lapse setting where it takes a still photo on a regular basis. I left it on the default of one photo every three seconds and let it run for a day. Needless to say, that was a lot of pictures! The web interface seems to have some way for you to wrap these all up into a time lapse video, but I haven't been able to get it to work properly yet.
All photos and videos can be downloaded. The videos can also be played in-line on a web browser. This worked both on a regular desktop version of Chrome as well as a smartphone browser. You will want a reasonably large SD card for storing the videos and photos. There is a setting for auto-deleting older videos to make room for new ones.
There are also quite a few setting that can be tweaked for the quality of the photos taken and ways for accounting for light level, etc.
All these settings are accessible through a web browser. I haven't explored them all or tweaked the system fully for my needs. But so far I've been impressed.
The installation for the software is surprisingly (disturbingly?) easy. After you clone the software from github, you run the installer. It installs missing packages, adds at least one additional user account, configures the software to start on bootup. For me, the install was flawless.
The software is surprisingly feature filled. Through a web browser, you are able to get a live stream from the camera. So wherever you are in the house, you can see what's going on. You have to be on the same wifi network as the camera to access the web interface. You could turn on port forwarding on your router so you could access it remotely. I would highly recommend not doing this as it represents a significant security risk.
The feature I like the most is the ability for the camera to start recording video when it sees motion. The software comes with several motion detection algorithms. It took some experimenting to find one that worked well for me, but I did find it. Depending on how much background motion you have, you might need to tweak the sensitivity settings. For example, the first day I had it deployed was quite windy, so it was seeing a lot of motion just from tree swaying and shadows moving around. It appears that you can also have a separate script run whenever motion is detected. Using this with something like wget means that you can integrate it with other IOT components in your house, or have the Pi report out directly when it starts seeing motion. Motion detection can also be put on a schedule of several types, including continuously on, different settings by time of day, or night/dawn/day/dusk settings where the specific times are computed based on your latitude and longitude. The camera can also take still photos.
There is also a time lapse setting where it takes a still photo on a regular basis. I left it on the default of one photo every three seconds and let it run for a day. Needless to say, that was a lot of pictures! The web interface seems to have some way for you to wrap these all up into a time lapse video, but I haven't been able to get it to work properly yet.
All photos and videos can be downloaded. The videos can also be played in-line on a web browser. This worked both on a regular desktop version of Chrome as well as a smartphone browser. You will want a reasonably large SD card for storing the videos and photos. There is a setting for auto-deleting older videos to make room for new ones.
There are also quite a few setting that can be tweaked for the quality of the photos taken and ways for accounting for light level, etc.
All these settings are accessible through a web browser. I haven't explored them all or tweaked the system fully for my needs. But so far I've been impressed.
Comments
Post a Comment