What device? Can Internet make this work?

Okay, first of all I know this may be the wrong forum to be posting in, and if so please move it to the appropriate spot!

In a nutshell, I would like to have a backup camera on my wheelchair. I could go to Walmart and get a vehicle add-on, but that would mean mounting an additional screen to the front of my chair, and I don't have the room or range of motion to do that. Plus it would just be ugly.

This is my dream: One or more small cameras (depending on tilt/pan abilities). USB powered would be my first choice, as I have a 4-port hub connected to my chair's batteries. (Yes, I am popular at airports!) Now here's the kicker: I want live, zero-or-as-close-to-it lag video on my iPhone 6 (which is the single screen I use for everything). Ie, I don't want the video bouncing up to the cloud and back, as one of the primary purposes of this setup would literally be to back up without another person having to direct me.

It's my understanding that the Dropcam Pro will send video directly to the iPhone over either ad-hoc WiFi or that fancy new Bluetooth. But that is $200 hardware with a whole slew of features I don't need. Nevertheless it is the best way I've found yet to meet my needs.

So: small-profile video camera, USB powered, that can send live video to my iPhone. I 'm looking for both hardware and software solutions obviously, and if the software could somehow be Indigo (which I already have set up as my adaptive tech dashboard) that would be the best. (My understanding of how the server /client stuff works is limited, though, and because I would be using this in places where I couldn't depend on any connection to the outside world -- either rural areas or baseball games etc) I'm not sure if that would be a stumbling block, or something a plugin addresses.

Go!

[jay (support)]

[MODERATOR NOTE] since this isn't a specific question about a device Indigo supports, I've moved the post to a more general discussion forum.

Unfortunately, I really have zero experience with cameras - I have none of my own so I'll leave this to those with experience.

Does your range of movement allow you to use the iPhone 6's front-view camera, held aloft to view over your shoulder in some way?

Does your range of movement allow you to use the iPhone 6's front-view camera, held aloft to view over your shoulder in some way?

Unfortunately, no (for range of motion or strength required to hold the phone or lift my arm). Basically... its hard to describe, so bear with me... put your elbow on the arm of the chair you are sitting in. Then, without lifting/sliding your elbow, and only using your index finger and thumb, control your environment, movement, etc. Thats my situation. So the iPhone is mounted within reach, as well as the joystick & switches for controlling my wheelchair. Everything that can't be done by one or the other requires someone else to help me. And since I cannot turn my head, backing into tight spaces, or onto my ramp for my van, requires someone to direct me... which seems like a small thing, but I'm surrounded by people who can't tell their right from their left!

Anyway it's also a safety issue... I don't like not knowing if someone is walking too close behind etc (and wheelchair motors drown out a certain amount of sound).

So: USB-powered (or hacked to same) camera with direct communication to the phone, preferably Indigo. Anyone?

So: USB-powered (or hacked to same) camera with direct communication to the phone, preferably Indigo. Anyone?

Honestly, I think that is going to be a hard sell, so to speak -- anything talking directly to the phone isn't going to be easy to interface to Indigo, and anything talking with Indigo will require data connection as well as a round-trip to the server. Since the camera is mobile on the chair, Indigo server wouldn't be able to connect the vast majority of the time...

SO, perhaps your best bet here is to find a USB-powered (hopefully) camera that is WiFi or bluetooth enabled to talk to your phone. The on your Indigo control pages on the phone you create a link that will open the camera's software. Would that be acceptable as I think it would be more likely to be able to generate some suggestions... ?

Adam

Adam got me thinking.

I recently returned an IP Cam I bought for church as it didn't do what I wanted - but it does have an iPhone app that connects over wifi.

If it happened to expose that as an image feed/stream, you could probably display on control pages either as refreshing URL, or security spy.

It was POE powered so should be small enough to be hacked to USB somehow.

I'll have a look at their other options and report back.

Adam got me thinking.

I recently returned an IP Cam I bought for church as it didn't do what I wanted - but it does have an iPhone app that connects over wifi.

If it happened to expose that as an image feed/stream, you could probably display on control pages either as refreshing URL, or security spy.

It was POE powered so should be small enough to be hacked to USB somehow.

I'll have a look at their other options and report back.

Interesting thought! (I love the creativity of this community!) What camera was it that you tried?

Even just having a button to open the camera's app wasn't something that I had considered. I have a control page that's open basically whenever I'm not in another app, so that would be a step towards streamlining/integrating the whole thing.

Hey,

There are loads of cameras to choose from on the Internet, however you get what you pay for in the end and this will depends on image quality (hd) and processing speed.

The camera you choose will need to support RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol), not all of them do. Ideally you might want to go for a wired camera solution on your chair, by this I mean that you would need a wireless AP with Ethernet hub (gigabit). All your cameras would connect to the hub via Cat6 cable and this would then allow access to the feed via wireless into Indigo (maybe via SecuritySpy plugin). You would need to then have it present the images all at once which you could then select at will (adding in some geek factor, you could hook up an ultrasonic range finder to the rear of your chair and have it auto switch to the rear camera if someone comes too close, or you're reversing! Lol)

Unfortunately PoE is not a good option via USB as its 48volts. Most cameras have an Ethernet port and a 12vdc power requirement which might be able to be supplied by your USB hub.

Also you might want to think about a camera with and IR led array for low light situations

Hope this gives you some ideas

Vangelis