ESP32 CAM

Everything worked straight out of the box. The image quality is surprisingly good and certainly good enough for keeping an eye on the goings-on in my hen-house! The only limitation is that if you want to use other capabilities of the ESP32, such as GPIO pins, then it is difficult to get access to the pins.

Very good value for money. As to be expected with the platform, the image quality isn't exactly HD but serviceable for low-res tasks such as monitoring a 3D printer in my case. Works nicely with ESPHome and Home Assistant with the settings as per Fletcher's comment. As an extra tip, you can set the idle FPS to 0 in ESPHome to effectively turn off the camera when it's not being viewed.The white LED is on pin 4 and is very bright (also gets very hot!) - I have this set up with an ESPHome automation to turn on when the stream starts and off when it stops, so it doesn't waste energy when not needed.The ESP32's onboard status LED is on the inside face of the main board. The red LED on the power board is connected directly to the power but can be disabled by cutting the traces just above the LED.The only downside is that you don't get any exposed pins from the ESP32 so it can't (at least not easily) do double duty e.g. with a PIR sensor, but for a tenner each you can't really grumble.

EDIT 3rd April 2023: the seller offered a full refund, I might got bad units.As mentioned by reviewer "Avid reader" it doesn't work with latest version of Arduino IDE (2.0.4), but it's working with Arduino IDE 1.8.18

Only came with one camera module. The other was missing from inside the esp32 packaging.

It's not a bad kit at all, you get almost everything you need to get started out of the bag. The ESP board, antenna cable with a antenna, a camera lens (don't forget to remove the sticker off the front), the ESP Camera mounting board. It's worth noting though, that there is a leaflet included that you should look at. It looks like a generic manufacturing leaflet for conformity, but it's actually links to the manual on how to use it all, along with a really good guide. You can scan the QR code or visit the PDF links they provide.Sadly, you're going to need a Micro USB cable, one isn't provided and if you're like myself have moved over to almost everything being USB-C now I had to go hunting until I found one. I did have a USB-C to micro USB cable but you will need a way to connect it to your PC for programming it.In use it's pretty easy to put together, it's all just plug and play with the antenna being the hardest thing to get to click on and in place.If you follow the included guide in the PDF it works great. However would suggest you make a backup of the PDF if you plan on using them at another point in the future as well just for reference. The hosting is just an IP address for a website... the PDF file does include all the pinouts etc that you might need if you want to explore expanding the project.For a pack of two it's a great way to sit down with a child and explore it together, or just pretty good value in general.

As I said, I'd like to think that I received two faulty devices. No matter what settings (AI Thinker, ESP32 WROOVER, M5 Stack with or without psram) I used or cables (of 10 micro USB cables I strongly doubt that all of them are faulty) or programmer or power source or GPIO settings, the error was the same on both devices: Failed to ream flash, 1000 and camera error 2004. Wasted two days to find a workaround without success. A complete waste of time.

They do work well with arduino framework example.

You get 2 ESP32 development boards with bluetooth/wifi/serial USB built in, 2 2640 CAM boards with the default lens and 2 external antennas if you need them. Great for those IoT projects.I tested one of them by programming them with the Arduino IDE and installing the example esp32 camerawebserver and had it up and running in no time. The picture and video quality from the camera is good in well lit situations.The current price of under £25 for 2 is good value.