Python code for taking photos with webcam and Raspberry Pi, and uploading it to Flickr.
This code can be run on a Raspberry Pi to command it to take pictures using a webcam.
I used a USB webcam, the same webcam I normally use for video calls.
I wanted to check on my aquarium/potato plants while we're away traveling. With this code, the Raspberry Pi will take a photo once every hour and then upload the photos to my Flickr account.
The script itself will take a photo and upload the photo to Flickr. On the Raspberry Pi, I set up a cron job for running the script every hour.
Check the crontab.txt to see the cronjob setup.
More info about this project on my Mastodon thread:
https://fosstodon.org/@mariatta/110622646018088303
flickr Python API: https://stuvel.eu/software/flickrapi/
pip install -U flickrapi
Get API keys from Flickr. Store the API keys as environment variables
on the Raspberry Pi FLICKR_KEY and FLICKR_SECRET.
Get Access to Flickr API here
You may need to change the code and change the path of where you want the images to be saved.
First time you run it (on the Raspberry Pi), it will open a web browser for the OAuth web authentication flow. After that, the script should run without needing to re-auth.
I wanted to use Google Photos API because I'm on Android and already have pretty much all my photos on Google Photos. However they don't seem to have Python client library available, and after trying to access the API with little success, I decided to look into different solutions.
I've considered Flickr, or uploading as a file on GitHub.
Some other ideas:
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It was suggested to post the photos to Mastodon. I think it's a great idea. I won't do it on my personal account, so I need a different server that would allow bot accounts. Looks like botsin.space would work, but they have not approved my account.
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Instead of a cron job, I was thinking to set up web server and an API endpoint, something I could invoke anytime instead of having it run once every hour. Looking into it, it seems that I need a static IP and a domain address. Seems more complicated than what I have in mind, but perhaps that's my future project.
- Raspberry Pi 4 (8 GB)
- power supply
- Logitech USB webcam
- SD card
Additional hardware for development purpose:
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Monitor. I didn't buy a separate display for the Raspberry Pi, so I attached my own 49'' ultrawide monitor to it. My monitor is 49'' Samsung Odyssey. It has multiple inputs and has the ability to do split screen. So I could connect two different devices to the same monitor and it could display both. This monitor has 2 Display Port inputs, and 1 HDMI input. I attached the HDMI to the Raspberry Pi, and one of the Display Port to my laptop. See the setup here
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Mouse. Any USB mouse will work. I use Evoluent Vertical Mouse.
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Keyboard. Any USB keyboard will work. I use Apple Magic Keyboard.
Other than working on it directly, I've connected to it using my laptop using SSH and SCP.
SSH terminal session:
ssh mariatta@raspberrpy.local
SCP to copy files over:
scp mariatta@raspberrypy.local:/filename ./
https://www.flickr.com/photos/134275259@N03/
I took some photos of my aquarium at first. Seeing it successful, my husband then wants it to monitor the potato garden instead.
You could use it for anything, even as a security camera maybe?
Thanks for checking this out.
If you like it, please consider sponsoring me on GitHub.