ESP32 Camera Project advice

[Dreamless]

Hello ESP32 Community,

I am completely new to IoT Devices / Embedded Programming scene but I am planning on getting into it and in order to have an actual use case I thought about a project I would like to realize. I have some question at the end of this thread and I would be really thankful if someone could poke me into the right direction.

I want to build an Outdoor Trail Camera based on a ESP32 Camera Module. For now I got the following board to play around with "XTVTX ESP32-CAM WiFi Bluetooth Board ESP32-CAM-MB Micro USB"

My goal is to build a Trail Camera that also supports activation on movement detection so after some research I saw that I will need a PIR Sensor. I checked out a few and most of them have a maximum range around 3-7 meters.

The next feature would be night vision which I am currently not sure about if I can realize this with only 1 Cam Module and an IR Cut Filter Switcher? I also will need a IR Led to improve the night time image quality I assume.

The third major feature would be to utilize the Bluetooth support of the board. The goal here is to let the camera store the images on a SD card. I want to write a app that allows me to connect to the camera and list / view / download / delete all the pictures made by the camera. (I have multiple years of programming experience.)

What do you guys think about this project? Am I missing something here? If you have any suggestions regarding parts I would highly appreciate your opinions.

I would design and print a waterproof case for this project once I got a working prototype. I am planning on a 50-60 Euro budget for this projects hardware.

My 3 questions regarding this project are:

1. Do you guys see any bottlenecks / problems that would make this project impossible from the beginning ?
2. Does anyone know if there is a PIR Sensor that has a bigger range than 3-7 meters (for example 10-15m)
3. Is it possible to have a single cam for Daytime and Nightime pictures utilizing a IR Cut Filter Switcher?

Any feedback / advice / comments are highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Best regards
Dreamless

[jgustavoam]

I think this site could be useful.

https://randomnerdtutorials.com/projects-esp32-cam/