/bloomcatcher

Raspberry Pi-based timelapse camera for watching the garden grow

Primary LanguageTypeScript

Warning: This project is currenrly under active development and should not be used in its current unstable state unless you know what you're doing!

bloomcatcher

A collection of tools for building and operating a fleet of Raspberry Pi timelapse cameras.

Concept of Operations

This is a set of tools which allow you to set up a high quality remotely-operated timelapse camera (or multiple), using relatively inexpensive parts - namely a Raspberry Pi/Pi Zero W and a Raspberry Pi HQ Camera module. The general concept is as follows:

Setup

  • Buy a Wifi-capable Raspberry Pi, HQ camera, lens and USB battery/power bank (details in /hardware section)
  • Build or buy an enclosure for the components
  • Assemble the Pi, camera and lens inside its enclosure.
  • Set up the Pi by flashing a SD card with the normal Raspberry Pi OS,
  • Connect the Pi to Wifi and configure SSH access
  • Install Ansible on your computer, which is on the same Wifi network as your Pi
  • Use the included Ansible scripts to configure & install the timelapse software on your camera(s)

Shooting timelapse photos

  • Power your Pi camera with a USB power bank (battery) and place it in the location you want to photograph
  • The timelapse software will use the camera to automatically take a photo every minute