MP camera firmware! Which MP camera firmware to use?

[Jibun-no-Kage]

MP camera MP firmware! Which MP camera firmware? :)

I have the ESP32-S3 Stick POE P CAM board...
https://www.tindie.com/products/allexok/esp32-stick-poe-p-camn16r8/

And looking at various solutions for MP camera support? For example...
https://github.com/cnadler86/micropython-camera-API/releases

Not sure which firmware image to use from above? My board does not (seem) to have PSRAM, i.e. when I load generic ESP32-S3, I see the following warning (well error)...

ESP-ROM:esp32s3-20210327
Build:Mar 27 2021
rst:0xc (RTC_SW_CPU_RST),boot:0x8 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
Saved PC:0x40383ce2
SPIWP:0xee
mode:DIO, clock div:1
load:0x3fce2820,len:0xe74
load:0x403c8700,len:0x4
load:0x403c8704,len:0xc20
load:0x403cb700,len:0x2f8c
entry 0x403c88ac
E (306) quad_psram: PSRAM ID read error: 0x00ffffff, PSRAM chip not found or not supported, or wrong PSRAM line mode
E (306) esp_psram: PSRAM enabled but initialization failed. Bailing out.

No clue if the ESP-ROM is old or new or whatever... but figure it cannot be replaced? But I digress.

Guess I cannot just add the 'camera' module to my project?

[davefes]

You should be able to do:

cam = Camera(pixel_format=PixelFormat.JPEG,
    frame_size=FrameSize.XGA,
    jpeg_quality=12,
    fb_count=1,
    grab_mode=GrabMode.WHEN_EMPTY)

without PSRAM.

[cnadler86]

Workout PRSAM the normal build should throw an error. Normally all boards that support a camera by HW have PRSAM (at least the actual models)

Btw: the quality of 12 would be 12%ä, what will be very poor quality. 🤪

[Jibun-no-Kage]

Thank you... for the example... I will need that reference in due course. But my original question was which firmware image should I install given the ESP32 board I have.

Rather than streaming, I plan to take a snap shot every few seconds... and compare current versus previous snap shots... if specific sections of the current snap shot have changed or have not changed, as the logic expects, I transmit a message/alert. The camera will be watching a remote TV screen, and if the screen appears to be frozen or completely black, i.e. may have failed, we want such status communicated. IMHO, this use case does not need robust A.I. recognition, or anything that complex. May add a simple web server to display the last camera image as well, would be a nice to have, to validate the message/alert.

[scruss]

I forget: is W5500 a stock part of ESP32-S3 MicroPython? If not, that's going to be a bigger problem for you.
Your board should have PSRAM, as the Tindie page says it does. Whether it's Octal SPI or the other kind, I can't tell

From Releases · cnadler86/micropython-camera-API , try the GENERIC_S3-SPIRAM_OCT one first. If it doesn't pick up the extra RAM, try GENERIC_S3

[cnadler86]

I forget: is W5500 a stock part of ESP32-S3 MicroPython? If not, that's going to be a bigger problem for you.

Your board should have PSRAM, as the Tindie page says it does. Whether it's Octal SPI or the other kind, I can't tell

From Releases · cnadler86/micropython-camera-API , try the GENERIC_S3-SPIRAM_OCT one first. If it doesn't pick up the extra RAM, try GENERIC_S3

Yes, the one with octal psram should work. In order to fully use your availability flash memory, you should use the latest release based on Micropython 1.26.0

[cnadler86]

I have just take a look at the pins and you should use the freenove fw.

[Jibun-no-Kage]

Yeah W5500 I found is in the base firmware image, I loaded ESP32-S3 1.26 and both network.WLAN and network.LAN support network.LAN supports W5500 once I got the pin assignments right.

Also, the default report says not PSRAM found in image 1.26... but when I added the following code... it reports PSRAM available...

   try:
        from esp32 import idf_heap_info, HEAP_DATA, HEAP_EXEC, mcu_temperature, ULP
    
        #
        print(f"Heap Data: {idf_heap_info(HEAP_DATA)}, Execute: {idf_heap_info(HEAP_EXEC)}")
        print(f"MCU Temperature {mcu_temperature()}'C")
        
        
        try:
            theStatic = 'Available' if ULP() is not None else 'Not Available'
        except:
            theStatic = 'No Detect?'
        
        #
        print(f"Pseudo Static Memory {theStatic}")
        
    except ImportError:
        print('No ESP32 Support?')

    finally:
        if 'esp32' in modules:
            del modules['esp32']

No sure the finally code is all that effective, until I call gc.collect() anyway. I found this ULP test code somewhere just never had a chance to use it until now.

[peterhinch]

I tested this on the ESP32 reference board running the latest firmware and it fails with ImportError. The easy way to check for PSRAM is

import gc
gc.collect()
print(f"Free RAM {gc.mem_free() // 1024}KiB")

On the reference board it reports 161KiB. On a board with 8MiB of PSRAM it will report >8000KiB (8125KiB here).

[Jibun-no-Kage]

So the code I found out on the net via Google is bogus for PSRAM test? Or just overly complex? But my original question still is pending. Such that I guess I have to learn how to compile my own firmware image to get camera support? Or I have to use upip method to add camera support? I did try to use the upip method, and it said 'camera' module not found, nor is there a 'camera' module that seems appropriate via thonny modules list. And to add more complexity to the situation, I see references to using OpenMV? I just want to have camera support via MP, and using the latest 1.26 version of MP.

[cnadler86]

as mentioned in the other thread: use the freenove fw. This should work. Please read also the documentation of the repo.