Home Automation Domotica Forum Europe, Bwired Forum

Hi guys,

I am so impressed with these home automation projects like bwired.nl, that I decided to try some of it myself. To be more precise, I want to make a webcam server that takes pictures everytime a certain action is done (e.g. opening a door). These pictures should then be able to be shown on a website. So basically exactly like in bwired.nl xD

But being a student I do not have the money to buy any of those expensive camera's which have all those integrated services.

So my question is the following: Do you think it is possible to replicate what Pieter has done in bwired.nl, but with a simple webcam instead of an expensive sony one?

I'm planning to create the application in java, although I do not really know if there are any API's to control the webcam and stuff. So any tips regarding how to begin with all this would be very welcome.

Thanks in advance & a good day to all of you reading this post :p

If you are into Linux, have a look at ZoneMinder (http://www.zondeminder.com).

If offers a lot of options, including motion detection and event-based triggers.

And most important: It's free!

Zoneminder supports very expensive IP camera's, but also the very cheap USB webcams that are available from your local computershop (provided Linux recognizes them).

Yes , a simple webcam is good to! but did you think about night recording? All your videos and pictures will be simply unuseful because of lack of IR-leds. cheers, lorenzo

Knowing what your budget is would be a good start. There are cameras in every price range and different approaches possible.

The simplest would be to buy an network camera which has a motion detection option integrated. Door opens=motion, person walks by=motion. Some of these cameras can automatically upload an image to a webserver via FTP. So if you have a website and have the camera FTP an image everytime something happens and make a webpage with that image in it, you'll be able to see what is happening. From there you could have the image be reloaded automatically every X seconds via JAVA for example. This could be done for under 200 eur.

The same setup could be done with a cheap camera network server and a camera with an analog connection. the advantage of this is that you can usually connect up to four cheap cameras to it making it cheaper to add a camera.

If you have a computer that's always on you could do an even simpler setup with just a usb webcam connected to it and some freeware webcam software that detects motion and can upload an image somewhere.

Good luck,
Esteban