The Raspberry Pi recognizes most USB webcam and you can use them right away! You just need to add a few applications to run in the background and then it will start right away!
Do you plan to use them as a surveillance camera? Although no the best option for security but it can become certainly handy in many cases. Click here to know to have remote access to the Rasbperry Pi. Since many cameras are located in remote locations, this tool is highly recommended.
Table of Contents
Installation
Before starting a new setup, be sure to make an update to the repositories in your Raspberry Pi.
sudo apt-get updateConnect the USB webcam and type this code in the terminal to make sure the Raspberry Pi has recognized it.
lsusb
As you can see in the first item, device 004, it was recognized and it is ready to use.
The software required for this tutorial is ‘Motion‘ (check their website!). Type the following code to install it. The -y in the end is just an auto-confirmation for the installation.
sudo apt-get install motion -y
Configuration
Type the following code to access the configuration of the software.
sudo nano /etc/motion/motion.conf
Search for the following lines and change the default value to the value specified below (just erase and write with the new values):
daemon on width 640 height 480 framerate 10 stream_localhost off webcontrol_localhost off
There is an explanation for every feature above each one. After you are done, press ‘Ctrl + X', ‘S' (or ‘Y', depending on the settings language) and ‘Enter' to exit, save and confirm respectively.
Under the “Live Stream Server” there is the ‘stream_port' which is the port that web are going to be using for this demostration. By default, the port is 8081; unless you need to change for any good reason, leave it as default.
Now type in the terminal the following command and change the ‘no‘ to ‘yes‘ in the “start_motion_daemon” option. Save the file and exit.
sudo nano /etc/default/motion
Testing the USB Webcam
Let's start that daemon! Type the following command in the Terminal:
sudo service motion start
You could also try these commands as well
sudo service motion restart sudo service motion stop
Now, let see what the USB Webcam sees! Open a new browser window and enter the address of your Raspberry Pi and the port after a colon ‘:‘.
RPi-IP-Address:8081
In my case, I wrote this:
http://192.168.1.32:8080/
Here is the result:
That's it! It works and I receive and image rom the webcam through this website. Open another webpage with the port 8080 instead to take a look to the webcontrol feature.
Although you can't see much during the night but this depends on the USB Webcam entirely. If you need to have night vision however, make sure you buy one USB Webcam with this feature.
Adding Authentication to the USB Webcam (Recommended!)
Unless you want give strangers access to your camera, it is a good idea to
Type the following command in the Terminal.
sudo nano /etc/motion/motion.conf
Scroll down until “stream_auth_method” and select an option (just erase 0 and replace by a number of the list); option “basic authentication” may suffice for many applications.
On the next option, select the username and password and don't forget to save the file!
You have reached this far!
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