Link to the original blog post with a nice text/pictures layout.
The problem:
- I want to see what’s happening around the house, especially if the dog is naught and digging holes.
- Actually, there is no problem. I just like to tinker.
The solution:
HW parts:
- esp32 cam (I ordered the variant with USB hat and external antenna)
- 3Dprinted enclosure
- USB cable and power supply
SW:
The process:
The camera comes with internal and external antenna. To use the external antenna, a resistor must be resoldered (instructions).
- I re-soldered a tiny resistor near the antenna connector to switch the antenna from internal to external. It would be great if the board producer used some kind of jumper instead. I know, the costs.
It took me quite some time and burned fingers to solder a resistor. It’s probably the size of 0603 (metric). Here’s the photo under a magnifying glass, red circle:
2. Then I searched for the appropriate case on Printables. I liked this 3dmodel, because it has a stand and a hole for the antenna. I used some remaining filaments of various colours:
I had to enlarge (using a special technique involving a hot drill) the bottom-right hole because the onboard LED on my board was slightly shifted:
4. I flashed the board with ESPHome firmware (actually I did it before the assembly). I used an online flasher. I had some issues – I still don’t know which button to hold during the start of the board (left or right). Anyways, after some retries flashing succeded.
ESPHome configuration
Then I searched for various pieces of code on the ESPHome community forums and blogs (1, 2, 3) and came up with this:
ESP32-Cam exposes the following entities:
- a camera
- a switch (for the white LED)
- a switch (for the red status LED)
- a slider (for the white LED brightness)
- a switch (for restarting a board)
- a binary sensor (for the status of the board).
+ it is accessible as a web server on port 8080 (stream) and 8081 (still pictures).
The ESPHome yaml code to achieve above functionalities:
... skipping the first part, wifi connectivity, substitutions etc.esp32_camera: id: espcam name: esp-cam external_clock: pin: GPIO0 frequency: 20MHz i2c_pins: sda: GPIO26 scl: GPIO27 data_pins: [GPIO5, GPIO18, GPIO19, GPIO21, GPIO36, GPIO39, GPIO34, GPIO35] vsync_pin: GPIO25 href_pin: GPIO23 pixel_clock_pin: GPIO22 power_down_pin: GPIO32 resolution: 1280x1024 jpeg_quality: 10 # max. 63 max_framerate: 10.0fps idle_framerate: 0.1fps vertical_flip: False horizontal_mirror: false brightness: 2 # -2 to 2 contrast: 1 # -2 to 2 special_effect: none # exposure settings aec_mode: auto aec2: false ae_level: 0 aec_value: 300 # gain settings agc_mode: auto agc_gain_ceiling: 2x agc_value: 0 # white balance setting wb_mode: autoesp32_camera_web_server: - port: 8080 mode: stream - port: 8081 mode: snapshotoutput:# white LED - platform: ledc channel: 2 pin: GPIO4 id: espCamLED# red status light - platform: gpio pin: number: GPIO33 inverted: True id: gpio_33light: - platform: monochromatic output: espCamLED name: esp-cam light - platform: binary output: gpio_33 name: esp-cam ledswitch: - platform: restart name: esp-cam restartbinary_sensor: - platform: status name: esp-cam status #slider for lednumber: - platform: template name: Camera Led Slider optimistic: true min_value: 0 max_value: 100 step: 1 mode: slider on_value: then: lambda: 'id(espCamLED).set_level(x/150);'
Home Assistant
I’ve set up a simple dashboard in Home Assistant that shows idle preview (0.1 fps), uptime, switches for white LED and status led and a slider for adjusting white LED.
The image below shows various statuses related to the ESP32 board, like restart switch, firmware, connection status, IP, firmware version and WIFI signal (the code above does not include these entities).
Conclusions/Key takeaways
Except the soldering, this DIY camera is not too difficult to build.
The image quality is ok-ish (1600×1200).
The framerate is okay-ish for special purposes (e. g. door camera, environment camera). I get about 3-5fps in my case (different floor than the wifi router).
TODO
What still remains is:
- I’d like to adjust the brightness etc. on the fly (without recompiling the firmware), but I didn’t find the appropriate .yaml code for it.
- integration in MotionEye (for recording the videos and motion detection) or Frigate (for object detection). I tried to integrated it to MotionEye, but it is very slow or the stream is mostly broken.
Disclaimer
The links to the products are not affiliate links and I don’t receive any compensation for linking.
The code and the ideas are mostly from HomeAssistant and ESPHome community forums.
Hashtags: #esphome #esp32cam #homeassistant #diy
https://blog.rozman.info/homemade-esp32-webcam/
Live image, LED lighting, temperature, humidity and air pressure readings all from one cheap tiny board 