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FaunaLapse 0.1.0-beta.1

FaunaLapse 0.1.0-beta.1 Pre-release
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@valentinitnelav valentinitnelav released this 12 Oct 13:15
v0.1.0-beta.1
d526817

First public version of FaunaLapse (beta: open to testers; please report problems).

FaunaLapse turns old or affordable Android phones (Android 7.0 or newer) into time-lapse cameras that watch one spot, for example insects visiting a flower. No AI, no internet access, no data sent anywhere.

What it does

  • Schedules: daily recording windows for several days, or one run of some hours.
  • Photo bursts (for example one photo every 2 s for 60 s, then a 5 min break) or short video clips at 5, 10 or 15 frames per second.
  • Saves only a square area that you choose on the aim screen (224 to 4096 px, 1280 by default), never enlarged.
  • Screen off and camera closed between bursts, to save battery and avoid heat; a pause when the phone is too warm, a clean stop on low battery or full storage.
  • Fixed focus where the phone allows it.
  • Field metadata per session (site, plant, setup, your own fields, GPS position on a tap, site photos, etc.).
  • A log of every photo with all metadata (session.jsonl) with the battery use (for R or Python processing).
  • One folder per session, named by phone ID and start time.
  • The Pack option turns a photo session into a zip file for fast copying to a computer.

Tested on

Indoor test sessions from minutes to about 1.5 hours, mostly with the screen off:

Phone Android Checked
Huawei P10 Lite (2017) 8.0 photos, video
Blackview A60 (2019) 8.1 (Go edition) photos, video
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S (2020) 12 photos, video, battery use
Samsung Galaxy M12 (2021) 13 photos, video, battery use
Xiaomi 11T Pro (2021) 14 photos
Emulator 16 screens, photos, video

Details per phone: docs/PHONES.md.

Known problems

  • Not yet tested outdoors in a full field day, and no run from a full to an empty battery yet.
  • Some phones stop apps in the background to save power (Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung and others). Allow FaunaLapse in the battery settings: see the (i) of 4 · Phone for the field card in the app. The Blackview A60 closes all apps shortly after the screen goes off.
  • On phones without fixed focus (often the oldest ones), the camera focuses automatically at the start of each burst or clip, but this can be risky and it is usually a slower process whenever the camera is awakened.
  • Photos from the newer camera interface (Camera2 API) can look about one step brighter than from the older one (Camera1 API); very bright parts may turn white.
  • On older phones (Camera1 API), video uses the preview stream, so a small square has fewer real pixels.

Install

Download faunalapse-v0.1.0-beta.1.apk file below and follow docs/INSTALL.md. With Obtainium, turn on Include prereleases.

Please report problems at https://github.com/valentinitnelav/fauna-lapse/issues (or with Report a problem in the app's Support card).

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