So, I got an ESP32-CAM recently (early 2023), and eventually decided to set it up as a sort of security camera. The outline of how the system works is below:
- ESP32-CAM (using Micropython), takes a picture every 60 seconds (though that interval is adjustable)
- After taking the picture, it sends it (as a bytes object which has been converted to a base64 text string) to a Google Cloud Function endpoint
- The Google Cloud Function 'wakes up', then (because it's a POST request), writes the text string (as well as the date and time) to Google Cloud Datastore
- When wanting to view the camera images, I navigate to a page (written in Node.js) which I've deployed on Google App Engine. The page is login-protected, so only certain people can access it.
- Upon loading, the page sends a GET request to the same Google Cloud Function endpoint mentioned above.
- Again, the Cloud Function wakes up, the (because it's a GET request), sends all the timestamps and associated base64 text strings (the images), to the front end
- The images are loaded into a 'slider' on the frontend, where they can be scrolled through.
- Put all the code from
backend (for GCP Cloud Functions)into a GCP cloud function, - Put all the code from
frontend (for GCP App Engine)into Google App Engine (Node.js), then - Put all the code from
camera files (to write to the ESP32 cam)onto your ESP32 cam (using Thonny, for example)
Again, the flow of this system is:
flowchart TD
A(Camera takes picture and converts the bytes into base64 text) --> B(text sent to Google Cloud Function) --> C(text saved in Google Cloud Datastore)
flowchart TD
A(Node.js sends GET request to Cloud Function) --> B(text stored in Google Datastore is sent to the frontend) --> C(text is used to recreate image in html)
It's a simple system that takes less than $20 USD to get up and running, and should have minimal overhead costs (as long as you don't perform millions of read-write functions to the database).
Thanks for reading!