Now I have installed XBMC with some Chinese repositories on it. It's amazing I can stream Chinese live TV like CCTV. What fascinated me most is the RPi is equipped with two USB ports so I can plug in add-on's. Today I am posting some short instructions on a cheap surveillance camera using Motion.
What you need:
(A) a Raspberry Pi connected to the network (either via wifi or cable);
(B) a USB WebCam in the RPi verified list;
(C) a keyboard, another computer(optional).
Since WebCam consumes a lot of power, I suggest you either buy a powered USB-hub or control your RPi using another computer via SSH. The WebCam is not necessarily in the verified list. I am using a Logitech C260 and it works.
0. Setup SSH (Optional)
Connect you RPi to the internet and boot it. Then find you IP address usingsudo ifconfig
Download Putty if you are on windows, or use SSH directly if you are on Ubuntu. Putty is an excellent SSH software in windows which can control your RPi remotely, so that you don't even have to connect your RPi to a keyboard or a monitor. Putty is easy to set up. Just type in the IP address of your RPi and click Enter, then you will go to the login page of your RPi.
1. Download Software
You should always update your RPi system before you download any software. Type insudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Beware the upgrade command may take a long time (15-30 minutes) if you have not done so recently. When it's done, you can download a software called motion. It enables you to get access to the WebCam remotely in a web browser. There are other software but motion is very lite on the CPU of RPi. Type in
sudo apt-get install motion
You need to configure motion a little bit. Configuring under Linux is not like under Windows. You have to open the .conf file manually and edit it.
sudo nano /etc/motion/motion.conf
We are using nano to open and edit the file called motion.conf in the directory /etc/motion/. Notice that Linux is case sensitive. Directory /MOtion and /motion are different. To search a keyword in the file, you can use ctrl+W. You need to change
Daemon = OFF to ON
webcam_localhost = ON to OFF
You can also change the frame rates and pixel width/height, but I suggest you use the default value since higher configuration consumes more power. It may cause instability of the RPi. Too much current drain from the USB port may also cause failure of the webcam. After these modification, save the file using ctrl+O and exit using ctrl+X.
Then we modify another file
sudo nano /etc/default/motion
change
start_motion_daemon=no to yes
Now the configuration of the software is ready.
2. Plug in WebCam
Reboot your RPi and plug in USB WebCam. From this step, I suggest you use SSH to control your RPi, since WebCam consumes a lot of power. Plugging in or out of the keyboard may result in a current shock and an automatic reboot.Check your WebCam first, type in
lsusb
Usually the WebCam shows up in the last line. Start motion service or the motion program itself using commands
sudo motion
or
sudo service motion start
After about half a minute, you should be able to find the image of the webcam in a web browser with address 192.(your).(ip).(address):8081. Of course you should replace (your).(ip).(address) with the actual one, e.g. mine is 139.78.126.3:8081.
3. Change port (optional)
You can change the web interface port from 8081 to 80, so that you don't have to type in :80 in the web browser each time. You can change it usingsudo nano /etc/motion/motion.conf
and change
webcam_port 8081 to 80
The webcam image is only accessible from the same local network (under the same router). If you want to supervise your webcam from anywhere else in the world, you need to Port Forwarding the port 80. Go to your router configuration interface (usually at 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 or .254). Find the Port Forwarding tab and configure the corresponding port and ip address.
