Skip to content

ESPHome camera stream

esp32-wrover-dev

With esphome camera stream we can use the ffmpeg to fetch the image from the camera stream. It requires a bit more computing power from esp device and the host that runs the image processing.

Warning

Notice that this is not recommended way due to the amount of consumed resources on the esp32 and the host which processes the video to extract the image.

With esp32 ensure to attach camera to the heat radiator or to the esp32 metal package to help it dissipate heat.

Prepare esphome device

Configure esphome device:

  • install esphome camera on the device and add esp32_camera and esp32_camera_web_server with stream modules:
esp32_camera:
... (skipped due to the fact there are different modules)

esp32_camera_web_server:
  - port: 8080
    mode: stream

Flash the device and wait until it boots and is available.

Create config for script

  • copy esphome-stream.dist as .env
  • in copied file .env replace token-change-me with the value of the token you copied
  • in copied file .env replace fingerprint-change-me with some random value, which is alphanumeric and has at least 16 chars (and max of 40 chars), for example set it to fingerprint-myprinter3-camera-3
  • in copied file .env replace your esphome device address and port in CAMERA_COMMAND_EXTRA_PARAMS
  • notice that -update 1 may not be needed in certain ffmpeg versions
  • save edited file .env

Next, test config.

Real world example

The same ESP device with stream, notice different port (8080).

PRINTER_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1
PRUSA_CONNECT_CAMERA_TOKEN=token-change-me
PRUSA_CONNECT_CAMERA_FINGERPRINT=f68336b-8dab-42cd-8729-6abd8855ff63
CAMERA_DEVICE=/dev/null
CAMERA_COMMAND=ffmpeg
CAMERA_COMMAND_EXTRA_PARAMS="-y -i 'http://esp32-wrover-0461c8.local:8080/' -vframes 1 -q:v 1 -f image2 -update 1 "