[Johan Kanflo] built a sweet little ESP8266-based wireless camera. It’s a beautiful little setup, and that it’s all open and comes with working demo code is gravy on the cake! Or icing on the potatoes. Or something.
[Johan]’s setup pairs an ESP8266-12 module with an Arducam, which looks like essentially an SPI breakout board for the ubiquitous small CMOS image sensors. The board naturally has a power supply and headers for programming the ESP module as well as connectors galore. Flash in some camera code, and you’ve got a custom WiFi webcam. Pretty slick.
But since [Johan] designed the ESP-8266 board with standard female headers connecting to the ESP, it could also be used as a general-purpose ESP dev board. [Johan] built a few daughterboards to go along with it, including a bed-of-nails ESP8266 tester (since you can never tell when you’re going to get a dud ESP unit) and WiFi-to-RFM69 radio bridge. That’s two awesome applications for a tidy little system, and a reminder to design for extensibility when you’re laying out your own projects.
We’ve previously covered [Johan]’s Skygrazer project, which tracks planes as they fly overhead and displays them on a gutted old Mac. Is it any surprise, then, that he’s also created an ADS-B-controlled moodlight? This guy is on fire!
Very, very cool!
Only one slight drawback here: An Arducam module costs as much as a complete (Chinese) WiFi webcam.
Didn’t believe it, but holy crap. 25 bucks direct from China is the cheapest on Ebay (after a quick glance). Still a neat project.
or use an old android cellphone and install an app to turn it into a wifi webcam
Some people here does not appreciate “not-a-hack” projects very much.
The advantage is that you can hook up more stuff and do more things! It’s not some closed source chinese camera. This thing is great!
That’s a very good point. Factor in documentation, libraries, software examples and its a pretty good deal.
Wanted to do the same thing. Then looked at the cameras without the FIFO on them…. Clock rate too fast for micros. Gave up and bough cheap TP Link camera.
Needs resetting every couple of days, it hangs.
But those cheapest ebay cameras stream over WiFi at only QVGA.
Working on that -12 bed of nails pogo pin jig myself for programming nice to see one realized
Wow that gif is annoying when reading. Please don’t do this!
Seconded. Great Project though!
No the gif does not enhance the article
Please HaD writers, don’t use animated gifs any more!
OK, then. Anyone who’s pro-animated-GIF in this instance speak up quick. Otherwise, I’m never making an animated GIF again.
I like the gif, it helps to show what the bed of nails does.
You have had some animated GIFs on here before that were good, this was not one of them.
I found it quite helpful to visualize what was being described. Keep using them!
i like the gifs
If you want to use an animated GIF, only animate the section that provides information. Do not move what does not need to be moved, and if it does not actually need to be animated DON’T ANIMATE IT! I would guess that the primary complaint that everyone has about that GIF is that the second frame rotates the _entire_ image.
No.
Just make it two images, thanks. But: don’t put too much into it, was just disturbed when reading.
Choosy nerd mothers choose animated gif’s!
On the pro side
Okay I agree should be framed better. Illustrates the point, I like
Where do you get the bed of nails thing? The nails, I mean? That’s excellent!
Greg
Look for pogo pins.
Thanks btw, nice little prongs!
I wonder what the frame rate would be? must be slow.
I was wondering that myself. I suspect we’re talking seconds per frame, not frames per second.
Still, cool project.
Was thinking that too. Probably depends on the resolution and image format. Regardless, the ESP’s baud rate isn’t too impressive but it gets the job done.
In terms of using it as a dev board, there are a few things that could be added;
– auto-reset and DTR circuit
– +/- serial to usb
– Vin pass-through
– SPI pin out
I’ve tried fitting such things in myself but am limited by single-sided fabrication technique (and having the SDA and SCL as well as Reset/GPIO16 on opposite sides of the modules make life sucky (also trying to avoid the contact areas where the on-module flash is broken out)
Ooh, thats pretty!.Throw in a servo and wiggle it baby
Really cool, I might need to install one to keep an eye on the stove. My wife never remembers if she turned it off or not :|