Automated time lapse videos with Home Assistant

Set up an automation to capture images for a time lapse video using a $5 camera and Home Assistant.
Here's a link to the accompanying blog entry where I outline all the steps for this project, and the code can be found:
ryddlergamingt...
Here's the link to the github repository for the camera (and other esp32 code) from Espressif:
github.com/esp...
Here's the 3d model for the case I designed to fit this camera:
www.thingivers...

[@joyinstituteoftechnology5060]

Thank you very much for sharing the wonderful idea. It helps us a lot. We will use this technique to show how our chicken sleep during night.

[@ryddlergamingandtech]

Glad it was helpful!

[@juanrivera4938]

great work!!

[@ryddlergamingandtech]

Thank you, I hope you found it useful!

[@AeleosGFX]

For anyone with the issue of ffmpeg not being found despite adding it to the configuration, what fixed it for me was downloading the static build of ffmpeg and copying it to /usr/bin

[@ryddlergamingandtech]

Thanks for the feedback on that. I've added your information over on the blog post.

[@brettyoung6223]

This is amazing, exactly what I was looking for! Nice work Ryddler! By any chance did you encounter the following error: Error running command: `nohup /bin/bash /config/doffmpeg.sh "{{ start_date }}" "{{ end_date }}" "{{ cam_path }}" &`, return code: 2 It has me scratching my head. The only difference from following the instructions in your vlog was monitoring/connecting the ESP32 Cams. I used the MotionEye addon. However, that seems unrelated since the images still come in the same format and same file structure. Thanks for any heads up! I'm a bit new to the HA realm :)

[@ryddlergamingandtech]

I seem to recall that error message, I'm trying to remember in what context I got it. I've been going back through the steps that I can remember and see if I can duplicate it, but I haven't had any success at failing. Which version of Home Assistant installation do you have?

[@ryddlergamingandtech]

A little more research indicates that this could be because the first line of the script is "#!/usr/bin/bash" and the path to bash may not be the same in your environment. In a terminal prompt try running "which bash" and then adjust that line to match what is returned if it's different.

[@brettyoung6223]

@@ryddlergamingandtech Copy that, thanks for the feedback. Also I am running HA Version 2021.6.6

[@brettyoung6223]

I noticed I was/am not able to run ffmpeg command even alone in command line. I know many people run HA on a rasp pi. I have it running as a VM. Maybe the architecture is different?

[@ryddlergamingandtech]

@@brettyoung6223 I am running it as a VM in my testing environment as well. If you are trying to run ffmpeg from the HA environment using a terminal plug in, that won't work because you don't have access to the underlying system in this way. Try replacing the contents of the doffmpeg script with the lines below, and then check out the contents of the debugoutput.txt file that should be in the config folder after calling the service to run the do_movie shell command. It should show you the output of the ffmpeg --help command #!/usr/bin/bash ffmpeg --help >> /config/debugoutput.txt