Logging webcams for RaspiOS

I would imagine that a RaspberryPi camera is sensitive enough to IR that using an IR LED for light would be sufficient. I don't have any IR LEDs or I would try it. Then you could use some software for the motion detection.

knute...

I'm looking for a standalone camera; the Pi will simply be used to control the camera and look at the video clips recorded.

Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska

Looks like you may not want another DIY project which I can understand, so this is probably not helpful. Also without some clever customisations raspi cams need a lot of attention to keep going, in my experience. But ...

You could put a RasPi NoIR (no-infrared filter, also noir=black, get it, har har... argh) camera on a RasPi Zero, attach a PIR sensor and some infrared LEDs, record to SD card or to network, download files to your computer and view them locally. The camera is not really cheap, though, for a hobby project.

On the other hand, I think off the shelf surveillance or webcam solutions now almost always use cloud storage with subscriptions, which is *definitely* not right for a hobby project.

Our Foscam FI8910W cameras can see in the dark using built-in IR LEDs. The resolution is only 640x480 which is poor by modern standards. I've run the camera from a large USB battery, via a lead that I made up with a USB-A plug on one end and a cylindrical plug for the camera end. The camera communicates by either Ethernet or wifi (2.4 GHz only) and it produces an MJPEG interface: you can set camera-monitoring software to poll URL http:///videostream.cgi?user=&pwd= (substituting for IP address, username and password).

I've used it with iSpy on Windows, and I'm about to investigate equivalent software for RasPi. Some solutions (eg MotionEyeOS) require a special distro of Linux, rather than just being add-on packages installed on top of RasPiOS, which is a shame if you already have a Pi set up for running other software.

I would imagine a lot of IP cameras can be used in this way: all they need to present is a URL with MJPEG protocol (or something equivalent).

The Foscam FI8910W would be a decent start. For live viewing a browser will work. I'll still need some sort of logger, since the vermin are most active when I'm asleep. That particular product is out of stock on Amazon, but a version with optical zoom is offered as substitute. It's unclear just what sort of software is required for control. There is a note from the seller that it doesn't support "MJ stream", but I'm not sure if that's significant.

If you find something useful please post. If I have to buy a more costly camera to get standalone (no cloud) operation so be it.

Is MJPEG the same as MJ stream? if so the Foscam Z2 1080P FHD won't help.

Thanks for posting!

bob prohaska

Somewhere around the office, we have a pile of Geovision (?) IP cameras that I was able to get working by pointing VLC at a port that hosted streaming video. They were wired cameras powered by PoE (if you have to run a cable to it for power, you might as well put data on it too). No motion detection, but wouldn't something like Zoneminder have that?

I was able to find documentation for our cameras so I could get them to do that. Lack of documentation is a problem for most IP cams; they'll want by default to send everything back to the "mothership," and corralling them into doing your bidding is tricky.

If you don't mind putting something together from parts, you might look into the ESP32-CAM. They're dirt-cheap, include WiFi, and you can connect a PIR motion sensor to trigger it.

They have a "NoIR" camera specifically for low-light use that lacks the usual IR filter. I used to have one on my 3D printer (happened to be the camera type I had on hand); when I was using a halogen light bulb as a light source instead of LEDs, what it did to colors was...interesting. :)

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Although it can be a steep learning curve the package "Motion" runs well for me on raspbian / rasp OS.

apt install motion

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Motion installed without visible difficulty. The man page suggests that network cameras are supported, but didn't list any particular cameras. The key seems to be RTSP or RTMP compatibility, terms I've never seen before. It'll take some searching to locate a suitable camera.

Thanks very much for posting!

bob prohaska

IIRC VLC supports RTSP

It's fairly common with e.g. TV dongles etc.

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