A few days ago I received a very interesting new board. It is the ESP32 Cam board which is very inexpensive, it costs less than $10.
The reason I am very interested in this board is that it is an extremely capable little board. This board features an extremely capable processor, a tiny camera, a LED flash, a micro SD card slot, Bluetooth and WiFi and it costs less than $10. This is really amazing. I board like this would be science fiction a few years ago, but now it is available to all makers out there.
ESP32 Cam board
Where to buy the ESP32 Cam
First of all, let’s see where to buy it. I bought my ESP32 cam board from Banggood.com for $6.99. I have posted some links below where you can buy this board. Prices fluctuate from time to time but it should be less than $10.
US$11.99 Geekcreit® ESP32-CAM WiFi + bluetooth Camera Module Development Board ESP32 With Camera Module OV2640  Module Board For Arduino from Electronics on banggood.com
banggood.com
US$5.57 Geekcreit® FT232RL FTDI USB To TTL Serial Converter Adapter Module For Arduino Module Board For Arduino from Electronics on banggood.com
The board does not feature a USB connector. So, in order to program this board, you are going to need an FTDI programmer. If you are a long time viewer of my YouTube channel I am certain you already own one since it is very useful. If not, do not worry, you buy one from the links I will share below.
ESP32 Cam Features
Now let’s see in detail, what this board has to offer:
A Dual Core 32Bit processor which operates at 160Mhz
WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity
520KB of SRAM
Supports UART, SPI, I2C, PWM, ADC, DAC
An OV2640 camera
TF card support
Support Image WiFi upload
An extremely low power mode
Over the Air Updates
Supports FreeRTOS
It can be programmed using our familiar Arduino IDE.
What to do with it
As you can see, the ESP32 Cam is an extremely capable board. What are some of the things we can build with this board?
- We can easily build a simple camera with this board and save the photos in an SD card using the embedded SD card slot the board offers.
- We can then modify this project to detect humans and save an image when one is detected.
- We can recognize human faces and act accordingly
- We can build a surveillance camera with the ESP32 Cam board.
- We can also stream video using this board
Last but not least, we can run small Machine Vision programs on this tiny board. Yes, this $9 board is capable of running AI programs. Impressive stuff. I can’t wait to give it try.
I would love to read your thoughts on the ESP32 cam board. Also, I would love to see what kind of project you are going to build with this board. Please post your comments below. I will see you soon.
How difficult would it be to have an ESP32 cam with a battery record to an SD card? I need a very lightweight and small video camera. A GoPro is too large (and expensive).
I subscribed to your YouTube channel – it looks great.
Thanks
Doug
Hi I am fairly new to esp32 and I have one of these I would like to add a bme280 sensor to and and have the camera feed and on board led available for my 3dprinter box, to view prints and monitor enclosure Temps.
Would this be hard to accomplish.
Same as your web server version just with a added frame in the html for video streaming?