M5Stack PoECam ESP32 board support?

ESPHome
1

I’ve picked myself up the M5Stack PoE Camera w/o WiFi (OV2640) which seems to use the W5500 network controller. I was hoping to use it instead of getting the Olimex ESP32-PoE-ISO for two reasons:
1/ It comes with a case already so I don’t have to worry about 3D printing them, but most importantly
2/ It has support for the Grove connector out of the box which would make my life a whole lot easier instead of having to solder a bunch of things

Ideally I’d be able to hook up a CO2 sensor such as the SCD41 to this, as my primary goal is not to use the camera (I don’t even care if it never works again) but rather additional sensors and having them work over PoE and not WiFi. I plan to have a couple of hundred, so WiFi is less than ideal for this.

I’ve got it on the network, it just pulls an IP from DHCP, network interface comes up:
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And if I go to /stream then I can see the camera (which actually works suprisingly well and has lower latency than most of my other security cameras). However I’m unable to find a way to flash it OTA, or, find a way to pull it in to ESPHome. I’ve had a look in M5Burner but no mention of ESPHome there either.

I ignorantly presumed it would come with a USB-C like the Atom Lite does, that was a mistake, so now I’ve ordered one of their “ESP32 Downloader Kits” just in case that’s what I’m missing.

Any further guidance though on how I can get this into ESPHome would be appreciated.

2

The w5500 doesn’t seem to be supported by esphome.

3

Correct however it appears it may be through additional libraries:

From what I see the main stopping point to be around flashing an ESPHome or similar customized firmware onto it which I can then continue to update OTA

4

The advertising claims it is ‘programmable’, but I suspect you need the downloader kit.

5

Downloader kit arrived.

Anybody buying a PoESP32 will be needing one, as well as for the PoECam ESP32.

Unscrew the 1.5mm Hex on the PoESP32 then flick the clips out, or on the PoECam simply attaching the unit to the USB Downloader Kit, taking care that the 3v3 / G1 / G3 is backwards compared to what’s on the board.

Simply choosing the generic M5Stack ESP32 and then adding the following to your ESPHome device config:

ethernet:
  type: IP101
  mdc_pin: GPIO23
  mdio_pin: GPIO18
  clk_mode: GPIO0_IN
  phy_addr: 1
  power_pin: GPIO5

It can then be flashed happily as-per normal, for example with ESPFlasher:

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Anyway the short answer is with a little more massaging these W5500 camera models should also work, just requested a bit more feedback from spali/esphome-components and hopefully we’ll be good to go!

6

Didn’t know if this required a new post but has anyone tried using the PoECAM-W (model with wifi) with home assistant? I would prefer to not have to flash it and where I need to put it I could just power it with Poe and use Wi-Fi for communications between home assistant and the Wi-Fi POE camera. Thanks in advance.

7

If you can power it with poe, just use ethernet to communicate with ha.

8

The network adapter in the Poe camera doesn’t work in ESPHome unless you get a downloader kit (1 post above my original post) and I would prefer not to have to go that route but I may have to anyways.

Both the wifi and non wifi models use the same adapter so I figured if I could just power it via POE then use Wi-Fi for ESPHome I could avoid the entire extra step of buying very specific hardware that I would probably use once and then never use it again.

Where does one even order one of the downloader kits anyways?

EDIT: well, did t know you could order them from M5stack directly for 5 bucks although they are EOL so better decide if I want to go that route before they sell out.

EDIT 2: well they are sold out actually and not going to be making anymore so I would have to find a third party to purchase one.

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9

If you don’t want to flash it then why are you worried about whether it will work with esphome?

10

Nah you want one of these, it’s a whole kit now:

And yes you can power over PoE and just use WiFi to connect to ESPHome. The only reason the ethernet-only one doesn’t work is because of the W5500 chipset not being supported. The ESP32s WiFi on that board is support though to my knowledge, where it has it, despite using a different ethernet chipset.

The PoESP32 with IP101 works fine.

11

But… the ethernet chipset (as above) isn’t supported. Hence their question if WiFi can be used for comms, while powering it with PoE.

12

But he doesn’t want to flash it, so he isn’t going to use esphome is he?

See, doesn’t want to flash ,so the fact the ethernet chip is incompatible with esphome is irrelevant.

Unless I completely misunderstood him!

13

I’m not going to try and gatekeep and stop someone from wanting to use the camera with HA just because they don’t also want to flash ESPHome to an ESP32… IF they want to use it without flashing, why would you not want to let them? :man_shrugging:

14

I don’t think that was suggested.

15

I am going to use it with ESPHome. It was more about spending money on something I would use once and never use again as the downloader kit is still available for10.bucks from mouser which also makes shipping much faster because they are located in the US…Just the downloader itself is sold out and m5stack isn’t making anymore so WiFi would have been my only option at that point

I just really didn’t want to spend money on something to use once as network connectivity is just going to be used to transfer photos occasionally and not video so I’m not concerned about latency or interference with other wifi devices. For some strange reason the m5stack POE camera is the same price for the model without wifi and the one with wifi so I’m unsure why they even have 2 versions. Regardless if I use wifi or Ethernet I get the same end result.

With that said, I was also looking into the m5stack MQTT POE adapter which uses the same network chip so I may end up ordering the kit anyway. I may not because of the 4 topic limitation and it would be something to just “play” around with as it’s obviously not really needed. That device would require Ethernet connectivity though due to the incompatible Ethernet adapter.and no wifi so the downloader kit would be needed. It was more about the extra ten bucks when I could get the same functionality without it. Even if I do get the downloader kit and flash it I would still get the wifi version even if I never use wifi because of more options/functionality at the same price. I am not really sure where I have the impression that I wouldn’t be using the camera with ESPHome as my initial question was about being able to add it to ESPHome with wifi instead of Ethernet. Why would anyone want to add it to ESPHome and not use the camera?

Regardless thanks to the poster for confirming that it will work with ESPHome over wifi so I know it will work regardless if I get the downloader kit or not. Since wifi is on the ESP32 chip that makes perfect since now that I think about it.The main reason I want it is due to placement and POE being way more convenient to power it for an automation that would transfer one photo a day at most triggered when the mail is delivered.

EDIT: I apologize if I came off condescending, It’s been a bad day and sometimes it feels good to take your frustration out on a keyboard so don’t take any of the above personally.

16

No problem at all. You’ll have to flash it once via serial to get esphome on it anyway. So you’ll need a serial interface, but it probably doesn’t need to be a m5 branded serial interface.

Esp32 has wifi on board built in, so having an esp32 without wifi makes no sense, unless someone is trying to save money by omitting the antenna from the PCB .

17

I’m speculating that m5stack disabled wifi because of the Ethernet port and there was a demand for ESPHome so they made the Downloader as the description for the Downloader is literally about adding support for ESPHome. It appears that is the only purpose of it so they just enabled WiFi on all future versions made and once the non wifi versions sell out only the WiFi version will be available. That’s why the downloader is discontinued as they probably didn’t want to make it in the first place but demand can force a company’s hand which is why they are discontinuing the Downloader. That would explain the same price because it had wifi ability all along, it was simply disabled but that’s just me speculating but it makes sense. No hardware was changed outside maybe an antenna.

I have a serial adapter and have no issues flashing devices, I’ve done it many times before. I’m going to be flashing a Sonoff NSPanel later today actually. It was more about having to buy the Downloader. At first I didn’t care for 5 dollars but the kit just comes with extra cables I already own and doubles the price. Maybe I can find just the downloader somewhere else. I really only looked at mouser as they carry a lot of m5stack and Seeed products along with many other ESP32 variant devices and shipping 8s super fast compared to ordering directly from M5stack.

18

You have a serial adapter, do you need anything else?

19

It’s not, it’s now just bundled as part of a larger “kit” for a couple extra bucks. I linked you it above, you can still purchase it from them and have it DHL’d to your doorstep in a couple of days. They even make it to NZ in 3-4 days most of the time for me.

20

Just a heads up:
I could flash the PoESP32 with just any “regular” Serial to USB Converter. Just had to bridge G0 to ground and the ESPHome Web-Flasher did work instantly (powered by the converter not PoE).