ESP32-CAM Motion sensor and sending the file over ethernet or wifi

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi all, i'm rather new to the whole scene. I make my own home surveillance system and i'm trying to do a real budget one using the ESP32-CAM.

So I know there are ways to enable motion sense on the ESP32-CAM in order to capture picture and save them to the SD card. This is great. Now I wonder if it's possible to either attach some addional module to the ESP32-CAM and send those pictures to an FTP server or similar?

It's kind of a hassle to always have to remove the SD card and insert into my computer in order to view the photos.

2

Seljino92:
Now I wonder if it's possible to either attach some addional module to the ESP32-CAM and send those pictures to an FTP server or similar?

You don't need any extra module, the ESP32 has WiFi as standard.

...R

3

Robin2:
You don't need any extra module, the ESP32 has WiFi as standard.

...R

Oh, I must have missed that :slight_smile: Well that's great! Is it possible to use this Wifi to send file(img or video) that are stored on the SD card to another computer or upload them to a FTP server? Or do i need something extra? When i searched online I only came accross video streaming via the webb which is not what I want.

In fact the ideal situation would be if it were possible to have the motition sensor go off. record for 5 minutes. save to SD card. upload to my computer(which is not on the local network)

Do you think this would be possible?

4

Seljino92:
Do you think this would be possible?

Certainly.

But that does not mean I have done it myself so I am not going to offer to explain how.

You may find useful advice or examples on the ESP8266 Forum.

I reckon it is much easier to learn about web programming on a PC because there are hundreds or thousands of online tutorials and examples. The w3schools website is good.

When you know how do do it with a PC you should not have much trouble transferring your knowledge to the ESP32 and if you get stuck you will at least be familiar with the jargon which makes searching for help much more productive.

The Python Bottle web framework allows you to get a small web server running on a PC in a few minutes. You can also use Python to create a separate web client program that could access that server.

...R

5

Have a look here as this covers most of what you want to do. The only extra bit is to add to or replace the save to SD card with FTP upload. Maybe start here for that.

6

library needed esp32 ethernet and sketch needed

//library

#include "ESP32_FTPClient.h"

//declarations

char ftp_server[] = " ";
char ftp_user[] = " ";
char ftp_pass[] = " ";

ESP32_FTPClient ftp (ftp_server, ftp_user, ftp_pass);

running code

fb = esp_camera_fb_get();

ftp.OpenConnection();
//Create a file and write the image data to it;
ftp.InitFile("Type I");
ftp.ChangeWorkDir("/public_html/"); // change it to reflect your directory
ftp.NewFile("home.jpg"); //file name
ftp.WriteData(fb->buf, fb->len);
ftp.CloseFile();

7

I include this subrotine FTP in my sketch but the line (#include "ESP32_FTPClient.h") generate a error message:
" Error compilation to board ESP32 Wrover Module".
Whats is ?
Memmory ? Version ??

Thanks all .

8

Don't be too disapointed with the quality of the camera, they are not great, even in good lighting, but the rnd tutorials above work and are great to get started quickly.

9

harshit1989:
library needed esp32 ethernet and sketch needed

//library

#include "ESP32_FTPClient.h"

//declarations

char ftp_server[] = " ";
char ftp_user[] = " ";
char ftp_pass[] = " ";

ESP32_FTPClient ftp (ftp_server, ftp_user, ftp_pass);

running code

fb = esp_camera_fb_get();

ftp.OpenConnection();
//Create a file and write the image data to it;
ftp.InitFile("Type I");
ftp.ChangeWorkDir("/public_html/"); // change it to reflect your directory
ftp.NewFile("home.jpg"); //file name
ftp.WriteData(fb->buf, fb->len);
ftp.CloseFile();

That's a good ideal

10

harshit1989:
ftp.NewFile("home.jpg"); //file name

How can I put a string instead of a const char ????

SOLVED:

       const char *nombre = path.c_str();
      ftp.NewFile(nombre); //file name
11

Seljino92:
Hi all, i'm rather new to the whole scene. I make my own home surveillance system and i'm trying to do a real budget one using the ESP32-CAM.

So I know there are ways to enable motion sense on the ESP32-CAM in order to capture picture and save them to the SD card. This is great. Now I wonder if it's possible to either attach some addional module to the ESP32-CAM and send those pictures to an FTP server or similar?

It's kind of a hassle to always have to remove the SD card and insert into my computer in order to view the photos.

Hi, have you solved it with this?

harshit1989:
library needed esp32 ethernet and sketch needed

//library

#include "ESP32_FTPClient.h"

//declarations

char ftp_server[] = " ";
char ftp_user[] = " ";
char ftp_pass[] = " ";

ESP32_FTPClient ftp (ftp_server, ftp_user, ftp_pass);

running code

fb = esp_camera_fb_get();

ftp.OpenConnection();
//Create a file and write the image data to it;
ftp.InitFile("Type I");
ftp.ChangeWorkDir("/public_html/"); // change it to reflect your directory
ftp.NewFile("home.jpg"); //file name
ftp.WriteData(fb->buf, fb->len);
ftp.CloseFile();

My problem is that when uploading via FTP, you no longer use the sensor, it does so every 30 seconds. But if I change the code lines to microSD, it works perfectly.

Can you share your code? If it works.