YardCam
PiCamera for my backyard
I have a backyard. I have a window. I have a RaspberryPi Zero. Add a ZeroView Pi mount and PiCamera.
Requirements:
Python 3.4 or higher, Requests, Arrow, PiCamera.
config.ini Update with your latitude and longitude and a free Wunderground.com API key. Altitude is not required. Adding your Wunderground timezone will reduce API calls but is not required.
Installation
Create a new directory.
A fresh python env is highly recommended.
git clone https://github.com/gnfrazier/YardCam.git
Update config.ini with api key and location information.
- Get your Wunderground API key
- Free tier allows 500 calls per day, YardCam uses 2-4 calls per day.
- Latitude and Longitude provide most accurate results
- Postcode (zip code) uses the primary weather station from Wunderground
From command prompt in the directory you created type:
python3 yardcam.py
For best results use a cron job to start at reboot.
Program Flow
Capture.py uses delay.py to calculate the current local sunrise and sunset times retrieved from wunderground.com. A preset offset time begins capture before or after sunrise/set. Capture.py waits until the time then takes the number of photos noted in the capture loop. Photos will be named with the date and time of day.