Camera Stream

GhostESP can serve a live camera stream over HTTP, viewable directly in a web browser at http://ghostesp.local/camera. The stream uses MJPEG multipart encoding for low-latency live video.

Supported Boards

• Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense (xiao_esp32s3_sense) — the only camera-enabled build currently available.
• Requires CONFIG_HAS_CAMERA and 8 MB PSRAM for best results.

Quality

Unlike the motion detector (which uses QQVGA grayscale at 160x120), the camera stream uses:

• JPEG pixel format (hardware-encoded by the OV2640 sensor)
• SVGA (800x600) default resolution
• Quality 80 JPEG compression
• 2 frame buffers in PSRAM for smooth double-buffered capture
• Sensor tuned with slight contrast and sharpness boost

Resolution and quality can be changed at runtime without restarting the stream.

Quick Start

From the web interface

Open a browser connected to the GhostESP access point and navigate to:

http://ghostesp.local/camera

The page will auto-start the stream when loaded. Use the controls at the bottom to adjust quality, resolution, FPS, and stop/start the stream.

From the CLI

camerastream start

Then open http://ghostesp.local/camera or connect directly to the raw MJPEG stream at http://ghostesp.local/camera/stream.

Stop the stream with:

camerastream stop

Web Controls

The camera page at /camera includes inline controls:

• Quality slider (10–100) — adjusts JPEG compression quality in real time
• Resolution dropdown — switch between QQVGA, QVGA, VGA, SVGA, XGA, SXGA, and UXGA
• FPS selector — set target framerate (5–30 fps)
• Stop / Start buttons — toggle the stream on and off

Controls send commands through the /api/command endpoint, so they work the same as typing CLI commands.

CLI Commands

• camerastream start — Initialize camera and enable streaming.
• camerastream stop — Stop streaming and release the camera.
• camerastream status — Show current state (running, quality, resolution, FPS, PSRAM, client count, frames served).
• camerastream quality <1-100> — Set JPEG quality.
• camerastream resolution <name> — Set resolution (see below).
• camerastream fps <1-30> — Set target framerate.

Available Resolutions

Higher resolutions produce larger frames and lower framerates. SVGA is a good default; UXGA works on the XIAO Sense with its 8 MB PSRAM but will be slower.

Interaction with Motion Detector

The camera stream and motion detector share the same camera hardware and cannot run simultaneously:

• Starting the camera stream will automatically stop the motion detector.
• Starting the motion detector will automatically stop the camera stream.
• Whichever feature was started last takes ownership of the camera.

Troubleshooting

• “Stream Unavailable” in browser — The stream hasn’t started yet. The page auto-starts it, but if it fails, try camerastream start from the CLI.
• “Stream busy — another client is connected” — Only one client can view the stream at a time. Close the other tab or browser.
• Camera init failed — Check the camera ribbon cable connection on the XIAO Sense.
• Low framerate at high resolutions — Drop to VGA or SVGA for smoother streaming. UXGA is bandwidth-heavy.
• Stream disconnects after a while — The HTTP server has send timeouts; the page will auto-reconnect after 3 seconds.