M5Stack's Unit Cam 5 Is a Wi-Fi Camera Built Around an ESP32-WROOM-32E
M5Stack has released a low-cost Wi-Fi camera designed for various wireless applications.
Espressif recently announced the new ESP32-WROOM-DA, which is not only pin-compatible but also a drop-in replacement for the existing ESP32-WROOM-32E module. However, with the tested ESP32-WROOM-32E module, there has been a number of boards to hit market including some from the DIY community. Continuing on with the ESP32-WROOM-32E experience, M5Stack has released a Unit Cam M5 — a cost-efficient Wi-Fi camera designed for various wireless camera applications.
As mentioned earlier, the module is built around an ESP32-WROOM-32E control core along with OmniVision’s OV2640-based 2MP image sensor. The hardware has a very simple design with no extra peripherals other than UART communication. The Unit Cam has a default picture transfer rate of 12fps but can support up to 60fps for CIF resolution.
“The factory software integrates image transmission firmware, provides image data acquisition, image parameter (white balance, exposure, gain, size and other attributes) adjustment interface, users can directly acquire image data through UART or Wi-Fi, and interact with the camera,” the M5Stack team explains.
If you purchase the module, you can use ESP-IDF, Arduino, or UIFlow to play with the hardware. The company has provided a sample code for Camera UART to Core using the Arduino. As expected, the image transmission is done via IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi wireless connectivity. The hardware has 4MB of flash memory, which can serve the purpose of the device.
The Unit Cam will be coming soon to the Pimoroni shop, priced at £6.90. You can sign up now on the product page to get notified when the hardware is available. You can also take a closer look at the specs and find more information on M5Stack's documentation page.