Gift Cam

DIY Surveillance Camera

DIY Surveillance Camera

Materials:

• ESP8266 microcontroller: $5

• Power bank or wall adapter: free

• Arducam OV2640 2MP camera: $30

• Female-female jumper wires: $2

• Box: free

• Micro USB cable: free

Software needed:

• Arduino IDE

Files needed:

• Zipped folder with code file and required libraries

Instructions:

1. Connecting the ESP8266 and Arducam

2. Installing the Arduino IDE

3. Installing the ESP8266 board files

• In Arduino IDE, go to File > Preferences.

• In Additional Boards Manager URLs, enter “http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json”.

• In Arduino IDE, go to Tools > Board > Boards Manager.

• In Boards Manager, search for “esp8266” and install the package.

4. Installing the required libraries

• In Arduino IDE, go to Sketch > Include Library > Add .ZIP Library.

• Select the downloaded zipped folder, and click “Open”.

• In Arduino IDE, go to Sketch > Include Library, and select “ArduCAM”, “UTFT4ArduCAM_SPI”, and “ESP8266-Websocket”.

5. Opening the code

• In Arduino IDE, go to File > Open.

• Select the code file from the downloaded zipped folder and click “Open”.

6. Editing the WiFi credentials

• In the code file, find the ssid and password arrays.

• Replace the default values with your own WiFi credentials.

7. Uploading the code

• In Arduino IDE, go to Tools > Board and select “NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E Module)”.

• In Arduino IDE, go to Tools > Port and select the port to which the ESP8266 is connected.

• In Arduino IDE, click the Upload button.

8. Connecting the power source

• Connect the ESP8266 to a power source using a micro USB cable.

9. Accessing the camera

• Connect to the same WiFi network as the ESP8266.

• Access the camera’s video stream at **http://192.168.23.12/video**.

• Access the camera’s photo capture at **http://192.168.23.12/capture**.

Additional notes:

• The camera’s video stream and photo capture can only be accessed within the same WiFi network as the ESP8266.

• The ESP8266 can be powered by a power bank or a wall adapter.

• The code file can be modified to add more WiFi credentials or to change the static IP of the camera.

• The code file can be found in the downloaded zipped folder, inside the “src” folder.

• The required libraries can be found in the downloaded zipped folder, inside the “libraries” folder.

• The Arduino libraries folder is usually located in Documents/Arduino/libraries. If you have trouble installing the libraries, you can copy the “ArduCAM”, “UTFT4ArduCAM_SPI”, and “ESP8266-Websocket” folders from the downloaded “libraries” folder into the Arduino libraries folder.