esp32-timelapse-webserver

ESP32-Cam with configurable time lapse option and web server.

Supports AI Thinker boards with OV2640 cameras.

To support other boards, you can take the pinouts from Arduino IDE sample projects or similar.

This project:

• initializes the OV2640 camera of your ESP32-Cam module
• connects to WiFi to receive the current date and time
• takes a picture every X seconds with the current time as filename
• saves the picture to SD
• offers the last taken picture under /latest.jpg
• contains a small file manager

Known issues / TODO:

• First picture after boot has a greenish tint, everything from the second picture is fine.
  • Take first picture, delete, wait a few seconds, take second picture, then continue with regular period?
• File manager crashes when displaying >~150 files.
  • Maybe too big output buffer?
• Add more cam options (size, quality, clock)
  • Cam config preview?
• Or a live stream
• automatic picture upload?
  • FTP, I don't yet care about cloud/SMB

Settings:

Change the values near the top of the file to match your requirements. All of these settings can be changed through the GUI later:

Access Point settings

• startAP - Start in Access Point mode
• AP_SSID - Access Point name
• AP_PASS - Access Point password
• Server_IP and Subnet_Mask - Change if you need to

Wireless client settings

• connectWifi - Connect to existing wireless network
• WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASS - Replace with your wireless network name and password
• WIFI_HOSTNAME - How the ESP32 will be named on the network

Cam settings

Since I am not that great a coder, I currently have a hard time including something like a live preview.

My recommendation: In Arduino IDE, open File -> Examples -> ESP32 -> Camera -> CameraWebServer. Flash that to your ESP32-Cam module.

Play around with the settings until you like the picture output, and write them down.

Now either edit esp32-timelapse-webserver.ino and insert your values near the top, or change them through the config UI.

Other settings

• myTimezone - Check https://github.com/nayarsystems/posix_tz_db/blob/master/zones.csv, find your region and paste the appropriate value.
• CAM120DEG - set to true to automatically enable aec2, vflip and hmirror.
• various camera values - Some is self-explanatory, some can be found in the ESP32 sources, among other places.
• period - Delay between pictures. period=1000; means one picture every second.

Requirements

Required Arduino IDE libraries:

• AsyncTCP by dvarrel
• ESP Async WebServer by Me-No-Dev
• SD by Arduino, Sparkfun
• Time by Michael Margolis

Install or update the ESP32 core by adding this URL to the Additional Boards Manager URLs section in the Arduino "Preferences".

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json

then go to the "Boards Manager" and install or update the "esp32" core.

If you have problems with the board being identified/found in Windows then you might need to install the USB to UART Bridge drivers.

Flashing

In Arduino IDE, make the following settings in the Tools menu:

• Board: esp32 -> AI Thinker ESP32-CAM
• CPU Frequency: 240 MHz (WiFi/BT)
• Core Debug Level: none
• Erase All Flash Before Sketch Upload: disabled, but may be useful to fix weird bugs
• Flash Frequency: 80 MHz
• Flash Mode: QIO
• Partition Scheme: Huge APP (3MB No OTA/1MB SPIFFS)

Internal pages

• admin.html - the main landing page for administration.
• index.html - if no index.html is found the server will generate a simple empty index.
• info.html - provides information about the esp board.
• upload.html - used to upload files to the esp board for the webserver.
• fileman.html - used to view / download / delete files on the installed MicroSD.
• config.html - used to configure WiFi settings.
• camconfig.html - used to configure camera settings.
• format.html - used to format the internal storage of the esp board.
• reboot.html - used to reboot the esp board.
• latest.jpg - show the last picture taken.

If you want to edit some of the internal pages, they can be found in Pages.h and are gzipped:

• Copy the numbers from any PROGMEM block and paste them into https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/.
• Use From Decimal (Comma) -> Gunzip to create HTML.
• Edit what you want.
• Copy the new HTML into the top box, then use Gzip (with filename) -> To Decimal (comma) to calculate numbers again.
• Paste these numbers back into the correct block in Pages.h.