Pictures/Video From RPi to Dev Kit to Ebox to Aqualink

[clarak]

Hi all!

I’m currently working on a Spotter Buoy and Dev Kit to be deployed this June and I have some questions regarding how to get data from a Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 (starting with pictures, but preferably videos) stored on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W SD card (that will be wired to the Dev Kit board or Mote) to the Spotter Ebox to be sent via satellite or cellular to an Aqualink data platfrom (Monitoring Athenian School Pool | Aqualink Dashboard). Many Aqualink sites include livestream video specifically, and I was wondering if that would be possible through possibly using the Ebox’s satellite or cellular connectivity to stream video feed from the RPi cam directly to a youtube livestream that can later be embedded into the Aqualink site.

Please let me know if a livestream would even be possible. I’m happy to try to answer any questions and talk more about what I’ve been doing. I would really appreciate any advice!

[vsowa12]

Hi @clarak! That is an awesome Idea, but here are a few challenges that will prevent video for now. Images on the other hand are totally do-able and there are already several example projects on the forum! Here are the links for them:

Subsea Imaging Solution!

Hello everyone! So me and my Capstone team at UC Santa Barbara were given the amazing opportunity to work with Bristlemouth and Sofar on their Pioneer Program this past year, in collaboration with our school’s Marine Science Institute. The original goal was to use this system to establish a subsea livestream to learn more about the marine ecosystems off Arroyo Quemada Beach, but we quickly realized that we would have to scale down this goal a bit to just involve snapping some pictures and propa…

Camera payload goals and sending images over cellular

HI! I’m back with updates from the UCSB capstone team. To recap for anyone else this might help, the project goal given to us by our sponsors was to add a camera as a payload on the Bristlemouth system and establish a video livestream to be viewed onshore. We pretty quickly realized that’s not a realistic goal, so as of now our tentative goals are (roughly in order of what we think is most doable): Saving photo and/or video data to the spotter’s SD card, and sending an alert over cellular whe…

Underwater RPi Camera Build

[image] Hi there, I’m working on an underwater camera that can be powered by a smart mooring. Eventually, I’d love to see this project evolve into a small low cost waterproof Bristlemouth powered camera that could be used for real-time object detection and send alerts through the smart mooring + spotter API. I’m a mechanical engineer with minimal experience in embedded hardware, so I’m using this project to learn about firmware and software development (yikes!). The motivation for this projec…

With regards to video streaming, right now the Spotter buoy is designed for lower data rates via both cellular and satellite than what can support a video stream. Because of this, streaming video is currently not possible. However, if you wanted to go above and beyond you could build your own intermediate node that could perhaps live inside the spotter buoy and connect to wifi (if you are just going to have this in the pool), or another higher bandwidth telemetry option.

Hope this helps and perhaps inspires some ideas! Happy to answer any other questions!

[clarak]

Hi @vsowa12 thanks for the advice! I think I’m still interested in pursuing video streaming. Currently, I’m working on getting a cellular connection for the RPi Zero 2W to its own network/connection. I’m thinking of using this HAT: https://sixfab.com/product/raspberry-pi-base-hat-3g-4g-lte-minipcie-cards/?aelia_cs_currency=USD&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Performance+Max+|+US&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=6308888758&hsa_cam=15788293172&hsa_grp=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt=&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1

and this PCIe: https://sixfab.com/product/quectel-ec25-mini-pcie-4g-lte-module/ (the global one).

I’ll also need a Palau SIM card (this buoy & camera will eventually be deployed in Palau) for this build.

The camera will be about 5m underwater, and I was wondering if you, or anyone else reading this, thought this might be possible or see any holes. The idea is to have the RPi and camera at this 5m depth, but tether the HAT to the pi through long cables that will be wound against the buoy cable. At this point, the plan is no longer to go through any cellular/satellite connection capabilities that the spotter has, but rather to create a separate connection for the pi.

I’m also using this platform called ZeroTier, which appears to be able to do what I need and link devices across different networks as if they were in the same area. This way, I was thinking I could reach the pi camera’s livestream (I can livestream from the pi to my computer using CamUI: GitHub - monkeymademe/CamUI: CamUI is a WebUI for the Picamera2 Library for the Raspberry Pi · GitHub, but they have to be on the same network) as if both devices are on the same network, when they are actually over 1000 miles apart.

I’m curious to see what anyone thinks of this idea, if there’s been something done like it before, or if it would even be possible.

Thanks!