I want to create an ESPHome device that has a camera on it and takes an image of a scene and compares that “current” image with a baseline/reference image (like a difference or something) and then sets the state of a binary_sensor based on the difference, above or below a threshold “amount of difference”.
Is this possible somehow? I see that there’s and on_image automation key in ESPHome’s esp32_camera: ESP32 Camera Component — ESPHome so, seems possible to trigger on a fresh image from a camera source but I don’t know if ESPHome can even do an image difference type of operation…
No, nothing that complex. I know handling images for comparison can get very complicated very quickly. I’m just thinking about a very controlled environment taking a “known good and empty” reference image and then subsequently comparing that to future images and setting a threshold for “acceptable difference”. Like taking an image every 10 minutes or every hour and look for “changes”.
The use case, is for something like dog food. First, take a picture of the empty bowl. Then you fill the bowl with food, as the dog eats the food, eventually, it becomes empty again and that sets a binary_sensor with automations to alert or whatever. I know it’s complicated and there are probably other ways to do this but I like the idea of trying to do it visually.
