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I have made a few EV3/Spike robots that can be controlled remotely. They are controlled by either a PS4 controller or using a dashboard I built on a website. I'm running Python on the LEGO. However, at the moment you have to be in the same room so you can see the robot. I want to add a camera to the robots and stream the video to a website. Anyone know of a camera that would do this?

Edit: I was hoping to connect the camera to the EV3/Spike brick. That way I can use Python to handle the stream and eventually make the robot drive autonomously.

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  • Not turning this into an answer, since I have no personal experience (someone with actual experience will probably get to that). But GoPro camera's are a common choice. Look for eg. "gopro lego mount" in your favorite search engine to find several solutions for mounting a GoPro camera onto a lego creation (some using custom lego bricks).
    – Sander De Dycker
    Jan 10, 2022 at 7:09
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    Oh, I don't think the spike hub has enough computing power to live stream video. It's a 100MHz CPU, and the ports are limited to a bit more than 100KiB/s; those are serious constraints. It's possible to find third-party EV3-compatible cameras, but those are meant for on-board artificial vision and video recording, not for FPV / live streaming.
    – IvanSanchez
    Jan 10, 2022 at 19:35

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You probably want to look into suppliers for copter drone parts - the kind that RC hobbyists attach to drones or RC cars to fly/drive from a first-person point of view. These are called FPV ("First Person View") cameras. They're already designed to be light, compact, and battery powered.

I don't want to be partial to any brand or model, so I suggest you search for RC FPV cameras and/or drone fpv cameras yourself. See also "What should I look for when choosing a FPV camera" in the drones.stackexchange.com site.

For the full setup you'll need:

  • A camera. These typically output analog composite video.
  • A video transmitter. These input composite video, and convert it into radio waves.
  • A battery, to power the camera and the transmitter.
  • A video receiver. These take the radio waves and output composite video.
  • A way to watch the composite video, either
    • An analog TV monitor with composite input, or
    • A computer with a composite video capture card (which can take the form of a PCI/PCIe card, or a USB dongle), or
    • A specialized unit (RC receiver, VR glasses)

The camera+transmitter and the receiver+capturer might be in the same package (read "inside the same plastic box", sold together as one unit), but you should be aware of all the system components. If your goal is to provide video in a website dashboard, you probably want the video capture card and the webserver in the same computer (I'd recommend motion for the software bit, since I've used it in some raspberry-pi projects).

I'm afraid any further detail would be off-topic for bricks.stackexchange.

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You could use a smartphone to do this. They are lightweight and have a camera and Wi-Fi all in one package.

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  • This might work, I did consider this. I need the video feed to go directly to a website feed. I could use Twitch or something, but the six second delay or so is too much. Is there any existing tool to stream an iPhone camera to a website feed?
    – Adam
    Feb 12, 2022 at 18:59

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