Adafruit’s Marc-Olivier Schwartz has designed a DIY wireless security camera built around an Atmel-based Arduino Yún (ATmega32u4), USB webcam, microSD card and a PIR motion detector.
“The first application [of the Yún-powered security camera] will be a modern version of standard tasks that you want for a security camera: taking pictures when some motion is detected. The project will store pictures taken by the USB camera on an SD card inserted into the Yún, but that’s not all,” Schwartz explained.
“Because we are in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), we also want these pictures to be automatically uploaded on a secure location. And that’s exactly what we are going to do by uploading the pictures to Dropbox at the same time.”
As expected, the Yún-powered security camera is also capable of streaming video directly to YouTube.
Schwartz recommends kicking off the project by inserting the SD card into the Yún, connecting the camera to the USB port and linking the motion sensor (VCC pin to the Yun 5V pin, GND to GND, SIG pin to the Yun pin number 8).
After connecting to a PC via the microUSB port, Makers should configure their Temboo and Dropbox accounts. Subsequently, additional software needs to be install on the Atmel-based Yún, including UVC drivers, python-openssl package, fswebcam utility and the mjpg streaming library.
In terms of streaming videos to YouTube, Schwartz first creates a local stream which is then transmitted to a PC via Wirecast and finally, to a YouTube live event.
“Of course, there are several ways to build other cool applications using this project. You can drop the motion detection part and build a camera that take snapshots at regular intervals and upload these on Dropbox,” Schwartz added.
“You can [also] easily create time-lapse videos with this kind of project: just collect the pictures from your Dropbox account, paste them into a time-lapse software. You can also extend this project by adding more Yún + camera modules, to have a complete video monitoring system in your home.”
Interested in learning more? Schwartz’s detailed tutorial is available on Adafruit’s learning system here.
Readers may also want to check out other Yún-based Maker projects including an electricity monitor, mesh extender platform, Foursquare soap bubble machine, a Gmail (alert) lamp, water heater regulator and the high-five camera.
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