Remote-controlled robot with camera?

Hardware
1

As my smart home has evolved, I’ve become curious about adding some tele-presence to the mix.

Looking at the easiest way to get something like this done, it seems there are some projects that have taken an RC car (or built one with LEGO Technic), strapped a Raspberry Pi and a battery pack to it and added a camera to the Pi. Ideally I would also like to have a robotic arm at some point added to such a contraption, but first things first :slight_smile:

The way I see it, there are at least 3 obvious difficulties with such a setup:

  1. A docking station for the car, so that it can “unplug” itself and so that I don’t need to remember to plug it in all the time

  2. An UI which would allow me to control the car

  3. A control method which could be integrated with Lovelace, so that I could have the camera stream above and the car control buttons below (via MQTT, maybe?)

Now, I know that strategically placed PTZ cameras could cover any room quite well, but this kind of setup would allow viewing of various nooks and crannies, which the cameras couldn’t cover.

Does anyone have such a setup?

2

I dont have anything like this but what about rooting a Xiaomi Vacuum cleaner? Apparently they run ubuntu :slight_smile:

3

They do, but I think the sensor from the vacuum cleaner itself is IR or smthn, not regular video…there would theoretically be the option to use it just as a vehicle and stick a camera & battery on top, but then there would still be the problem of charging the camera’s battery.

4

Hi! I am working on a very similar project, I have found all the components, the car body- esp8266 and motor shield, one espcam and wireless charging module, now I am looking for a way to integrate with esphome… did you find something about this? How to control the motors with esphome?

5

Unfortunately not, hardware modding is not my forte :frowning:

6

I do it something similar with espHome and Home Assistant

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