Everybody loves their webcams (though the surveillance aspects of some are to be worried about.)
What about a way to make them cheap and easy to put in cool places. Combine a webcam with a solar panel, 802.11 link and small bettery. The webcam charges the battery off the panel, and when there is enough charge to take a picture, it takes one and spits it out the wireless link. You don't need much of a battery or much of a solar panel, because the amount of power simply controls how often it can take a picture.
When the sunlight is bright, it's taking pictures frequently. When it's cloudy, they are less frequent. When it's dark, it's not taking them at all. (Though a unit with larger battery could do even this.)
These devices could easily be stuck on mountaintops, antenna towers, roofs etc. The only issue -- keeping the lens clean. Possibly a wiper (fired when blur is detected or manually) or occasional service. A little protection from the rain and wind for the lens of course.
And now that megapixel sensors are so cheap, why not produce a 1280x720 HDTV image, which people can stick on their new plasma screens on the walls, sampling images of the world?
Brad,
I want to install a wireless solar web cam to monitor a wildlife area in Griffith Park (Los Angeles), and stream the data to the internet. Can you help me with the configuration?
How does the system you describe attach to the internet??
Thanks for you help.
bird feeder cam
i have a iBook G4 and want to view my feeder on the internet. what do i need?
willldlife observation
brad, I'm looking for a system, wireless, solar powered,range camera to computer +/- 400 feet, camera and solar panel mounted on a pole over the watera
wht would you recomend
thank you
solar powered wireless networking/camera solution
A company called Lumin can solve this problem for you. www.LuminIP.com
They have a solar power management product with SNMP and built in UPS that you can set up as a permanent, mobile or temporarily deployed networking solution anywhere you have a power constraint or just like the economic benefit of a solar energy source.
The info on their website is outdated but fill out the contact page and get in touch with them if you have not found a solution.
Hello Brad Templeton,
The solar web cam sounds wild yet doable. But is it really (doable) I do some programming and 360 photography myself. I tried the monster on your home page because it was so freaking big and a challenge. It aint no virtual tour... only 586 kb...it's tight.... If you want me to lose it just say the word but I think it's cool. What do you think?
http://pacificsun1.bravepages.com/Templeton.html
Robert@iprimus.com
check out this solar powered wireless web cam:
http://www.whistlerlivewebcams.com/Sproatt/
Good idea
I'm about to put up a purple martin condo - there's a huge central air vent. If I had thought about it hard enough, it would have been cool to put a wireless/solar security cam into the airvent and made clear walls to all of the compartments. I've just been looking around for something small that I could stick into each compartment instead. Cost and power options make this prohibitive. Ah, well next time.
So to the list of features, need the ability to swivel and focus - as well as wireless and solar. Size is an issue. (My "huge" air vent is 8"x8"x16"ish.)
Wireless wildlife camera out of the box
Brad,
They have a commercial version of a wireless wildlife cam you described above. I think they call it a wireless digital deer camera. Even though it was designed for hunting I beleive it would work great for your application. Basically you can set up a fully enclosed wireless camera complete with infared flash and solar trickle charger and it transmits the images taken via high gain antennas up to 10 miles back to your pc or base unit. I think they even have the software to upload the images to a web page. The site I found the info on is http://www.hunting-cams.com.
If nothing else it is worth a look maybe you will get some ideas for your own design.
Good luck. I enjoyed reading your site.
Regards,
Jon Ballard
Solar webcam
I looked into building a solar network camera sometime ago, and came up with a simple solution. I have several Heath-Zenith SL-7001 solar-powered outdoor security lights, which have a rechargeable 6VDC battery inside. The Linksys WVC54GC wireless-g network video camera I purchased requires 5VDC to operate. Wire the camera into the security light battery, and viola - you've got a solar-powered wireless network security camera with a motion activated light for night time surveillance. I haven't tried it just yet, but it should work. Unless the camera drains the battery too fast. The battery is rated at 6Ah, the bulb is 20watts, and the camera is 10watts. I'm not sure how long the battery would last at night with the camera connected.
Even more compelling argument
What no one is saying (and everybody knows) is, if I can get 120VAC to the “Wireless†web-cam then I can get a 100bT connection to it as well. So, how can they say it is wireless? It is not, until the power line is cut.
WebCamInTheWoods
Solar powered web cam
Can a wireless edmini webcam be powered by a small solar panel and be access via WiFi?
jim
wireless webcam
I am looking for a wireless webcam so I can watch my purple martins. I would like to have one that I can mount on the lid of a supergourd. I would like live high resolution color and sound video. Do you have any suggestions? If so, I would appreciate any help you could give. Thanks, Lillian
Here is a solution
Check this out http://digitalxtractions.net/faces/Page1.jsp It is a little pricey and there is a monthly fee but it would work anywhere there is cell coverage.
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