ESP32-CAM Video Streaming over HTTP and Face Detection

Today I had some experience with ESP32 camera module. I was really surprised that it can stream camera over HTTP quite well with a very cheap price. I had an ESP32 CAM board + a USB programmer from my friend to upload program onto the chip and I decided to write this note to introduce this board to you.

This is my ESP32 and the programer board (CP2102):

My ESP32

My wiring

You can buy a pretty cheap ESP32 module with a convenient programer with only 113k VND ($4.9) here.

After having all the items, you can use the instruction here or here to setup our ESP32 as a WIFI camera. This tutorial will help you setup a WIFI hotspot (access point) on your ESP32 and stream camera through HTTP connection.

Streaming camera with resolution 800x600

Face detection test

Think about the applications

We can think about a lot of applications we can do with this camera board:

• Surveillance camera/robot.
• Face detection and recognition for door lock (or how about a treasure box?).
• A mini self-driving car with processing threads on your laptop.

Maybe I will revisit this board again and do some projects in the future.

References

• A very good resource for DIY projects with ESP32 board: https://randomnerdtutorials.com/.