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@enobacon@urbanists.socialWho are the open-source action camera nerds on here? Am I looking for dashcam or FPV drone stuff? I'm trying to come up with a license plate / 311 rig for 3-5 different cargo/e-bikes with a variety of locking/anti-theft needs. Is there some kind of setup where I could leave the wiring & quickly removable cameras/head unit but locking/tools-required mounts? Maybe a removable card/usb to easily pull the data to sync or for security when parked. Also loop, checkpoint, & auto-record at power-on
So far, I've tried a motley assortment of gopro knockoffs, waterproof/crash boxes are bulky and sound/video quality varies, not all of them support loop or auto-on (and the crash box is not able to be wired but usb cabling could do power-on signal and also sync.) It's also obvious and bulky/hassle to remove and carry the thing and your fifteen battery-powered lights etc.) They don't cost that much, I could put a clamp/hex screw in it, but the data card is inside the crash box...
I've also had a couple motorcycle camera units, which have a fairly small lens on a wire, less conspicuous but the head unit is plugged into five wires, easily stolen but not easily removable (and popping the microSD card out I might drop it in a puddle), plus I've never seen one that could sync on USB even if they'll take power that way (and come with a 12V to 5V power buck, which may be required to support auto-off without losing a file unless you get one with a battery/capacitor for that.)
One of the motorcycle units I got comes with a wired microphone + lock button that takes a snapshot from both cameras (did I mentioned synchronized timestamps on front + back video is another bonus with this setup.) That picture, or a crop of it, is often enough to report some maintenance-needed pothole / broken glass / clogged storm drain thing without review (automatic GPS with that would be nice.) That microphone also works okay for narration but the video quality is not great. #BikeTooter
The gopro knockoffs have a slightly better picture quality but every single one has different options in the menu, some don't support record-on-power, others have wifi but maybe via stupid app, maybe a remote button, 30 clamps and a crashbox in the kit, two dinky batteries, maybe a charger, and you can never buy the same kit twice, but at $35 you can get 4-5 of them for what you would spend on a dual-camera motorcycle unit.
@enobacon How often do you want to pull the data off — every ride, or just in case of an incident?
@aarbrk ideally it would be docked in the garage and I could just have a server automatically pull it when it gets plugged in. There are some wifi options that I might also be able to make work though I have to plug the bike in and could probably tape some cords together to make a usb + 52V thingy (and not have some flaky wifi issue.)
"Incident" might be some issue with a driver but I would more frequently use the checkpoint data to report potholes and broken glass in a bike lane ( 
GPS... )
@enobacon Great project, I hope you figure it out. I could barely get my phone to send new photos to my NAS from time to time.
I do not know your set-up/diy gear comfort, but a #RpiZero2W camera build with portable power supply is not super geeky. It can be set up to use bt or wifi to auto dump to a pocket spy (cellphone) or a networked shared drive; even use a portable hot-spot to sync to nextcloud or other 'cloud' data.
But I am betting retail devices would be more convenient, more performant, and likely cheaper.
@Amgine I would solder more if I had a relatively straightforward guide to follow and ended up with a fully/mostly open-source stack instead of some phone-home app / whatever. The budget is partly limited by not wanting someone else to perceive ~$500 of worth-stealing value, so functional yet extremely ugly and hazardous looking or just discretely and firmly attached, IDK. And that I don't really want to build 5 x $500 to setup 5 bikes and ride just one at a time. Not driving ~ $10-12k/yr 
pishop dot us:
rpi zero 2W: $18
camera module v3: $25
camera module v3 wide-angle: $35
case: ~$10 (prefered case is out of stock)
piZ-Up Time 2.0 UPS: $42 (not sure if it will fit in any of the cases.)
lithium AA battery (unknown)
128GB SD card: $17
BUT: you gotta put it together, none of the cases I looked at are actually weather-proof, gods only know if it will survive the vibration and shocks of riding, and so on. And you will need to mess around with shell scripting.
The standard RaspiOS has a *lot* of proprietary blobs, primarily to work with the Broadcom modules. I have not checked how open the Armbian OS firmware is. There are other platforms which are 'more open', but usually less-mature/less capable firmware.
The software running atop the RPi is fully open. And there are some other camera softwares as well.
Aiui, the most-encumbered part of the OS is those dealing with wireless - wifi or bluetooth.
Stepping into multistream in my opinion requires a different model - using USB cameras as you mention. This actually makes the solution simpler: an RPi5 or RPi4 with large, fast storage, and a powered USB dock or other multi-USB-port solution. Mobile power supplied by a jump-start battery with USB-C PD port can likely run the full set up for several days/weeks.
Let me take a quick look for parts again…
(NB: neither the Zero nor this RPi5 build requires soldering.)
RPi5 8GB $80
PCIe To M.2 w/fan $15 — https://www.pishop.us/product/pcie-to-m-2-adapter-board-e-for-raspberry-pi-5-pwm-cooling-fan-nvme-protocol-m-2-ssd/
M.2 SSD (unknown)
Ran into trouble sourcing the weather proof case - most are air-tight/waterproof, which may over-heat.
My suggestion: A mounting 'board' which can quick-swap to other bikes with:
* secure attachment for battery
* venting case
* mounted with vibration-absorbing rubber feet
* a water-resistant fabric 'rain hood' (or the whole unit could be inside a bag of some kind securely mounted to bike.)
The jump start batteries have a very wide range of price, but generally $100-200. The key feature is the USB-C PD 5V out
@Amgine battery will be the 500Wh eBike pack in most uses.
I'm not sure it needs an SSD vs ~256GB sd card, for a few hours recording, are the embedded recorders using optimized chips for compression, or does the pi have hardware for accelerating that? That's where I'm wondering if something besides Linux on rpi is needed to reduce power use and size
It probably doesn't need an SSD. I specc'd it with simply to allow for local storage and processing of 4k. An SSD also improves device performance. (This can be improved more using ZRam.)
The RPi5 has some hardware acceleration; this is not something I am expert in, but a couple years ago I read it did not yet have the full capability of its hardware due proprietary licensing, but it was progressing rapidly.
1/
I would personally not use RPi; I think I do not have the knowledgebase required to do it as well as a commercial product focused on this particular use.
I *would* plan whatever will be used around my media storage system - whether that is a home automation set up or a NAS or whatever.
So, it should be contextual to what you are already using.
@Amgine Thanks, this is good info. I'm not sure I need to go 4k, though maybe that's required to get the license plate clarity I want. Figuring out what hardware is available with open software stacks seems to be the issue, with some need for reduced weight and power use vs a car, is why I thought maybe FPV drone hardware. Pulling video over USB thru a node in the garage and from there to the server storage over ethernet would be my preferred setup, since all that could be automated from udev
@enobacon @skinnylatte May I suggest editing the post to add hashtags that will make the post easier to find for people who might be able to help you? Such as #OpenSource #camera #MakerSpace