ESP32-CAM WiFi + bluetooth Camera Module

Then, I found THIS one...  Looks more promising...  Any good?  More "How to use" anywhere?

The ESP32 is just an Arduino on steroids. You'll need to add the ESP repository to your preferences>additional board manger in the arduino IDE, then it will turn up in your boards listing. It has a few minor changes to arduino, but a bunch of examples will be added to your IDE menu to help with that. The ESP 32 is my dev platform of choice. It just blows the Ardiuno out of the water, built in wifi/Bluetooth/touch sensors/hall effect sensor, 4mb (expandable) and filesystem, 2-core 32 bit processor and ultralow power co-processor. The wemos D1 dev board is a good starting point for 8266 (a weaker version of the ESP32), and small and cheap enough to be used in final products. 
The products you show are meant for Expressifs ESP Who/ESP Eye AI image recognition (thought they probably don't have the 4Mb + required to do it well).

ESP 32 and 2866 repository strings (one per line in your prefs)
http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json
https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json  

@evile

WOW!

Is this module for an ESP board like an Arduino UNO or is it a standalone unit?

Would I have to get more ESP stuff to use this Module?

Thank you...  Sounds the ESP32 is very powerful...  and it can be programmed just like the Arduino?

It's a standalone unit that would replace your Arduino, and behaves in pretty much the same way, most code that runs on an Uno will run without modification*, in exactly the same manner on the ESP. It's pretty much like switching between an Uno and a Mega, change the board type/com port and you are good to go. 

Be aware that those camera modules will eat quite a few of the I/O pins. It might be an idea to take a look at the Wemos d1 mini, NodeMCU  (ESP2866) or  ESP32 WROOM (ESP32) development boards if you have no particular camera requirement (most of the available documentation is for those boards, but a lot of it can be applied to any ESP based board). 

* There are some minor changes to the pin assignments, but the ESP has I2C, SPI, analogue and all the other usual pins (I *think* all the ESP pins are software defined) and digital pins just like the Uno.

A good link to read up on the various ESP 32 dev boards:-
https://randomnerdtutorials.com/getting-started-with-esp32/

@evile

Thank you very much for the information...  It's a little more than I thought it would be...

@dronebot-workshop

Bill, in the ESP32-CAM tutorial video you state that the FTDI adapter should be connected to the 3.3V pin of the ESP32 module and that it, the FTDI adapter, needs to be setup to work with 3.3V and NOT 5V.

Then later in the video you are suggesting ways of getting around the 'brown out' scenarios.  If we are powering the ESP32-CAM module from 5V, is there changes that need to be made to the FTDI connection, or do they remain the same?

I got just a little confused (what's new about that, some would say!) about that setup,

Here is something I thought might work, but need to run it by you and others before giving it a try:

If VccOut reflects the power being applied to the module, could that pin be used as the Vcc connection to the FTDI module when using 5V into the ESP32-CAM, then the FTDI module could be jumpered for 5V operation, or am I missing something here.

@codecage I'm not Bill 🙂 but in the video he also points out that the 5 volts goes through a 3.3 volt regulator.  So it shouldn't change the way you use the FTDI.

@starnovice

Thanks Pat.  That's why I said I want to run this by Bill and others.

But I think he may have mentioned not using BOTH the 3.3V and the 5V inputs at the same time. So if the 3.3V pin on the ESP32-CAM module is only an input, and the 3.3V source is the FTDI device, should it be hooked up at the same time the 5V source is also hooked up?

@codecage

My understanding is, you use 5 volts on the ESP32, it converts it to 3.3v.  You power the FTDI with this 3.3v.  The FTDI does not power the ESP32.  The 3,3 volt jumper on the FTDI controls the voltage of the TX and RX pins so only 3.3v is sent to the ESP32. So, you are only using the 5v input on the ESP32.

@starnovice

But in his video Bill never connects anything to the 5V input on the module until he starts talking about resolving brown out resolution.  In the beginning only the FTDI device is connected to the ESP32-CAM, so it, the FTDI device, is what is supplying the 3.3V to the ESP32-CAM.  Again, I mention Bill's comment about not connecting both 5V and 3.3V inputs tp the ESP32-CAM module.

I think we continue to be on different pages of the same book. 🤣 

@codecage An FTDI has a power supply? I just found this on Sparkfun "One of the nice features of this board is a jumper on the back of the board that allows the board to be configured to either 3.3V or 5V (both power output and IO level). "  So I guess it does have a power output. Probably derived from the USB power input.

@starnovice

As I said we were in the same book just on different pages.  😀 

Without actually saying so, that was where I was coming from.  To program the ESP32-CAM through the FTDI board you would have the FTDI board plugged into an USB port on you computer, so that is where the voltage would come from.  So if you strapped the FTDI board for 3.3V you would be providing 3.3V to the ESP32_CAM module.  It is then, that I was concerned that maybe you should not be connecting 5V from a breadboard, like Bill was showing, to the 5V pin on the ESP32-CAM module.

I keep opening up cans and dumping out the worms!  🤣 

Good evening:

As per the video (Bill) instructions: In order to use the ESP32-CAM, or any ESP32, with the Arduino IDE you will need to use the Board Manager to add the ESP32 boards. This is accomplished by adding a JSON file link to your Arduino IDE Preferences “Additional Boards URL” text box.

Why can't I copy and paste -into the Additional Board Manager URL's field? 

1. Paste the following link into the text box – https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json

I am using Arduino 1.8.12 on a brand new Mac, bought it last night. I wrote it in instead and nothg happen. When I go to boards manager and enter esp32 nothing appears. I also attempted to copy from GitHub the line in Bill's instructions but it won't paste onto the preference page Additional Boards URL” text box

Thank you,

Anibal

Greetings. I'm wondering if anyone has experimented with modifying the camera web server sketch for ESP32 CAM. I'm thinking it would be fun to add a temperature/humidity sensor, and have that information displayed in the corner of the screen, on top of the video feed. As I understand it, you can use FreeRTOS commands with these units which would allow for multiple tasks to be running at the same time.

Another thing I was considering was adding a pan/tilt controlled by servos.