USB Camera in Hass.io

Installation Home Assistant OS
1

So I’m working on an addon to display an usb camera. It is a Playstation Eye Camera - which I mainly got because of the microphone array, but I thought using the camera would be also nice. Seems like the camera is some how recognized, but there is no /dev/video0 device.

What I see in the dmesg logs:
[ 2.284560] usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using dwc_otg
[ 2.387047] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=1415, idProduct=2000
[ 2.387069] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 2.387081] usb 1-1.2: Product: USB Camera-B4.09.24.1
[ 2.387094] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: OmniVision Technologies, Inc.

I think the docker container from my addon might have no access to the camera - I already tried to add “devices” to my config.json - but I’m not sure what exactly I have to define here.

Thanks for the help & Regards

2 Likes
2

I was thinking of buying one of those because of the mic capabilities, did you flash the firmware? Sorry I can’t help with the camera, I’m looking into the same thing myself.

3

No, I did not flash the firmware or anything. The mic was working out of the box. What would be the benefit of an alternative firmware?

4

From what I saw on amazon the ones they are selling now have to be flashed to be used because they don’t come with proper firmware, but I didn’t look that deep into it.

5

No problems with sound/video on Ubuntu with the stock firmware… Can you provide me a link to the firmware upgrade please? Then I’d just try it out!

6

I’m making progress… got the camera device in the container - but camera output is just a grey picture.

[1] cap.driver: “ov534”
[1] cap.card: “USB Camera-B4.09.24.1”
[1] cap.bus_info: “usb-3f980000.usb-1.2”
[1] cap.capabilities=0x85200001
[1] - VIDEO_CAPTURE
[1] - READWRITE
[1] - STREAMING
[1] Unable to query input -1 VIDIOC_ENUMINPUT: Invalid argument
[1] ioctl (VIDIOCGCAP): Not a tty

Anyone familiar with this error? I can publish my repository tomorrow!

7

Sorry I tried to find some details but seems that was specific to windows drivers not recognizing the default. The reviews I saw even clarified that it works with linux out of the box.

8

So, finally got it working. My addon repo can be found here:

But please note - still work in progress! I’ve noticed that sometimes the addon stops randomly…

1 Like
9

Woah sweet I’m going to have to try this out.

10

The problem is, the docker container (or motion itself) stops after about 24minutes. I have not yet figured out why… Also, the motion package in alpine linux is a bit outdated. I hope this will be fixed soon!

11

Other users were saying the same thing about the ffmpeg and onvif components. So far I haven’t had much luck at all getting cameras into my configuration across multiple platforms. I’ve got 3 NVR’s, 3 dlink cams, about 40 onvif cams, 2 foscams, 2 usb cams, and a cheap digoo cam. I’m not looking to view them all at once, that would be unreasonable, but the NVRs have these nice feeds that are multiple channels in a split view. I’ve given up on cameras at the moment until I see changes announced.

12

Amazing! I had been looking into this and whether it would be feasible as a docker container in hass.io but it was well beyond my capabilities.

Will it work with any plug and play usb camera a pi can recognize?

13

I’ve only tested with the Sony Eye Camera - But I think as long as it get’s recognized by the alpinelinux - it should work! Please try it and share your results!

14

Hello, need some help with this addon. It recognize camera but can’t create image. Here is log:

starting version 3.2.2
[Info] Show connected usb devices
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 093a:2468
crw-rw----    1 root     44         81,   0 Sep 18 18:21 /dev/video0
[0] Processing thread 0 - config file /etc/motion.conf
[0] Motion 3.2.12 Started
[0] Thread 1 is from /etc/motion.conf
[1] Thread 1 started
[1] cap.driver: "pac207" 
[1] cap.card: "CIF Single Chip     "
[1] cap.bus_info: "usb-3f980000.usb-1.5"
[1] cap.capabilities=0x85200001
[1] - VIDEO_CAPTURE
[1] - READWRITE
[1] - STREAMING
[1] Config palette index 8 (YU12) doesn't work.
[1] Supported palettes:
[1] 0: P207 (GSPCA PAC207)
[1] Unable to find a compatible palette format.
[1] ioctl (VIDIOCGCAP): Not a tty
[1] Could not fetch initial image from camera
[1] Motion continues using width and height from config file(s)
[1] Resizing pre_capture buffer to 1 items

I have some old USB camera which work with motion in hassbian, but i have to install libv2lconvert.so with

sudo apt-get install camorama

and modify motion initialization:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libv4l/v4l2convert.so motion

Anyone know how to ovecome this problem?

15

I’ve just created a (untested) feature branch with your request. Can you check it out and test it locally by just copying the files to /addons on your pi?

https://github.com/HerrHofrat/hassio-addons/tree/feature/v4l2convert/motion

16

Thanks for quick response.

I copy files to /addon and install motion, but it can’t find file v412convert.so…

starting version 3.2.2
[Info] Show connected usb devices 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 093a:2468
crw-rw----    1 root     44         81,   0 Sep 19 22:22 /dev/video0
/run.sh: line 39: /LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so: No such file or directory

I try to search on rpi3 for this file or libv4l directory but couldn’t find it…

17

If I correctly assume from dockerfile, v4l-utils-libs should be installed from alpinelinux?! I search in http://nl.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing but there is no such library. Is it possible to install that library from somewhere else?

18

According to https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=v4l-utils-libs&branch=&repo=&arch=&maintainer= it should be there - I’ll test it in the next couple of days!

Edit: Had some time - just remove the exec in the last line - please see my last commit. But now it fails with a Segmentation fault… Have to further debug that!

19

You were right, now camera show pictures, but save only two to three pictures then addon stops. Maybe my log can help you:

starting version 3.2.2
[Info] Show connected usb devices
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 093a:2468
crw-rw----    1 root     44         81,   0 Sep 20 23:15 /dev/video0
otal 64
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root          4096 Sep 20 22:51 .
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root          4096 Sep 20 22:51 ..
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         13468 Jun  1 10:18 ov511-decomp
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         17564 Jun  1 10:18 ov518-decomp
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          4096 Sep 20 22:51 plugins
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          5176 Jun  1 10:18 v4l1compat.so
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          5224 Jun  1 10:18 v4l2convert.so
[0] Processing thread 0 - config file /etc/motion.conf
[0] Motion 3.2.12 Started
[0] Thread 1 is from /etc/motion.conf
[1] Thread 1 started
[1] cap.driver: "pac207"
[1] cap.card: "CIF Single Chip     "
[1] cap.bus_info: "usb-3f980000.usb-1.4"
[1] cap.capabilities=0x85200001
[1] - VIDEO_CAPTURE
[1] - READWRITE
[1] - STREAMING
[1] Test palette YU12 (352x288)
[1] Using palette YU12 (352x288) bytesperlines 352 sizeimage 152064 colorspace 00000008
[1] found control 0x00980900, "Brightness", range 0,255 
[1] 	"Brightness", default 46, current 46
[1] found control 0x00980910, "Gamma", range 500,3000 
[1] 	"Gamma", default 1500, current 1500
[1] found control 0x00980911, "Exposure", range 3,90 
[1] 	"Exposure", default 5, current 32
[1] found control 0x00980912, "Gain, Automatic", range 0,1 
[1] 	"Gain, Automatic", default 1, current 1
[1] found control 0x00980913, "Gain", range 0,31 
[1] 	"Gain", default 7, current 24
[1] mmap information:
[1] frames=4
[1] 0 length=155648
[1] 1 length=155648
[1] 2 length=155648
[1] 3 length=155648
[1] Using V4L2
[1] Resizing pre_capture buffer to 1 items
libv4l2: error dequeuing buf: I/O error
[1] v4l2_next: VIDIOC_DQBUF: EIO (s->pframe 1): I/O error
[1] v4l2_next: VIDIOC_QBUF: Invalid argument
[1] Video device fatal error - Closing video device
[1] Closing video device /dev/video0
libv4l2: warning v4l2 mmap buffers still mapped on close()
[1] File of type 2 saved to: /share/motion/01-20170920231831-snapshot.jpg
[1] Retrying until successful connection with camera
[1] cap.driver: "pac207"
[1] cap.card: "CIF Single Chip     "
[1] cap.bus_info: "usb-3f980000.usb-1.4"
[1] cap.capabilities=0x85200001
[1] - VIDEO_CAPTURE
[1] - READWRITE
[1] - STREAMING
[1] Test palette YU12 (352x288)
[1] Using palette YU12 (352x288) bytesperlines 352 sizeimage 152064 colorspace 00000008
[1] found control 0x00980900, "Brightness", range 0,255 
[1] 	"Brightness", default 46, current 46
[1] found control 0x00980910, "Gamma", range 500,3000 
[1] 	"Gamma", default 1500, current 1500
[1] found control 0x00980911, "Exposure", range 3,90 
[1] 	"Exposure", default 5, current 38
[1] found control 0x00980912, "Gain, Automatic", range 0,1 
[1] 	"Gain, Automatic", default 1, current 1
[1] found control 0x00980913, "Gain", range 0,31 
[1] 	"Gain", default 7, current 22
[1] mmap information:
[1] frames=4
[1] 0 length=155648
[1] 1 length=155648
[1] 2 length=155648
[1] 3 length=155648
[1] Using V4L2
/run.sh: line 40:    38 Segmentation fault      (core dumped) LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so motion -c $CONFIG < /dev/null
20

I’ve added a new version - it uses debian:jessie as docker base image now.
Pro: seems to work stable now
Contra: the size of the docker image increased a lot