webcam control

If anybody has any advice or guidance with this I'd be most appreciative.

I'm wondering if it's possible to use a streaming webcam to control the way a something is maintained?

Very simply, have a webcam streaming to a site, when someone visits the site and watches the streaming video, the plant is watered for instance. Would an arduino board even be the right thing to use?

Does this sound feasible??
Thanks for your time.

Well, the webcame doesn't need to do anything in that case... what you can do is just stream the live video, then run a script on your website that checks for a visitor's presence, and once someone is on your page with the video, the script will "send" a message to your arduino that would control some servo or a valve which would, at last, enable the watering of your plants.

I have not done any work with web-based arduino-ing, but I know it is a popular topic here.

Thanks Jezuz, that's really helpful! :slight_smile:

I don't know much anything about the 'servo' you mentioned. If anybody has any good information or links for beginners on the subject of servos, in relation to the idea of mine, I would be most appreciative.

Thank you.

if you mean you don't know what a servo is then it is basically a geared motor controlled by a potentiometer. It is good because you can control its angle using very simple code and the servo library found here Servo - Arduino Reference

an example of a servo and arduino can be found here How-To Tuesday: Arduino 101 potentiometers and servos - YouTube

I would probably go with a water system and a solenoid - which is basically an electrically controlled switch, or "gate" for the water... this way, controlling whether the water is on or off would be much easier than having a servo turn something (not really software wise, neither solution is tough, but hardware wise, its easier to set up a solenoid than a servo in your case)