Dash Camera with Raspberry Pi Zero W

The small form factor of Raspberry Pi Zero W along with its official cases makes it ideal for many camera based applications, so I thought why not make a dash camera with it for fun.

Project home page is at https://ravikiranb.com/projects/rpizw-dash-cam/

Hardware Requirements

• Raspberry Pi Zero W board along with its official cases, especially the camera case.
• Raspberry Pi Camera Module V1 or V2 version.
• High Endurance micro SD card - This is critical if you intend to record continuously or recording at FULL HD format.
• WiFi access point (AP) source for syncing time from internet as there is no RTC/battery on RPi Zero W.
  Instructions on how to configure WiFi from command line is here.

Software Requirements

• OS - Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) Lite or with desktop.
  You can check the version already installed by reading os-release file.

  $ cat /etc/os-release

  If you intend to go with desktop version of Raspbian then please change boot preference to command line in raspi-config tool to reduce memory consumption and startup time.
  Instructions on how to install OS image is here.

• Enable remote access with SSH, this is optional but useful as you won't need another keyboard and display to connect to RPi.
  Instructions on how to enable SSH is here.

• Python version 3.5 or more, if not already installed:

  $ sudo apt install python3

• Python3 picamera module, if not already installed:

  $ sudo apt install python3-picamera

  Instructions on how to enable the camera is here.

• FFmpeg, if not already installed:

  $ sudo apt install ffmpeg

• Git, if not already installed:

  $ sudo apt install git

• Controlling the Dash Camera with smart phone on bluetooth (BLE) interface will require:

  • BlueZ stack version 5.50:
    You might have to manually compile and install it if its not available with apt
    Please refer to its Readme and Install file in source code.

  • Modify BlueZ daemon configuration file /etc/dbus-1/system.d/bluetooth.conf:
    Add the following bluetooth group policy in the configuration file to avoid running the program as sudo/root, and add your user account to group bluetooth:

    <policy group="bluetooth">
        <allow own="org.bluez"/>
        <allow send_destination="org.bluez"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.bluez.Agent1"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.bluez.Profile1"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.bluez.GattService1"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.bluez.GattCharacteristic1"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.bluez.GattDescriptor1"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.bluez.LEAdvertisement1"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager"/>
        <allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties"/>
    </policy>
    

  • Python dbus module to access bluez D-Bus APIs:
    $ sudo apt install python3-dbus python3-gi

Install

Ensure that RPi is connected to WiFi and Internet.

Get Source Code

$ git clone https://github.com/rkprojects/rpizw-dash-cam.git
$ cd rpizw-dash-cam
$ ./install.sh
$ ./run.sh

Access Web Interface

Open web browser on your computer and access http://raspberrypi.local:8080/

Access Bluetooth Interface on Smartphone

The Dash Camera application starts a GATT server in peripheral mode and starts advertisement by default for 180 seconds. For now there is no security/authentication anyone can connect and control.

On Android install Nordic semiconductor's nRF Connect for Mobile app, you can use any app that can scan and explore BLE GATT services.

Dash Camera will appear as RPi DashCam device after scanning. Connect to it and explore its custom service, read out all the characteristics and/or enable notifications.
Each characteristic has a Characteristic User Description Descriptor to describe its purpose.

License

Copyright (C) 2019 Ravikiran Bukkasagara, [email protected]

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Please refer to the file COPYING for complete GNU General Public License text.