3 Pack ESP32-CAM WiFi + Bluetooth Module Development Board with OV2640 Camera Module

I really like this board. It is capable and inexpensive. It works OK and seems to have a lot of potential uses. There are some big caveats:- It''s fussy about its power supply. It needs more peak current than you might think. Use the 5V pin for power.- No instructions are included. Be prepared to do some research- There are no mounting holes. There's no good way to hold the board.- The camera ribbon is delicate and not robust.- The reset button is on the underside. Reset is not available at a pin.- There's no USB port. A FTDI serial converter board is necessary. Loose wire connections are used.- Supporting software has to be downloaded from multiple locations. It might not be Windows-friendly.

I got a 3 pack of these cameras and all of them are functional.They use the CAMERA_MODEL_AI_THINKER version in the Arduino sketch I got working with them.The cameras are sub par quality, with lots of signal interference and dead rows. If you need a clean signal, then you should probably get a bunch and find the best one.The stencil is applied wrong so the pin labels are impossible to read, making it less fun to develop on than if they were readable. It means keeping a reference handy.I think this is a good hobby product but it would be a good idea to get better camera modules if this is going somewhere important.

Compared to other esp32-cam boards I've used, the performance when using wifi to access the camera feed is very poor. I can get 1-3 FPS with a simple jpeg http server on others and this one is very slow to refresh the jpeg feed. It only gets about 1 frame every 3-5 seconds. There's also audible noise that appears to coincide with WiFi transmit/receive. That's likely caused by buck converters or some other power circuitry being faulty or low quality. I bought a 6-pack and they are all showing the same performance and audible noise.Still functional but fairly low quality.

These work fine when programmer from the Arduino IDE using the "AI Thinker ESP32-CAM" board option. All three units worked fine out of the box.Documentation could be better (available?) and as mentioned by others; the manufacturing quality is poor. Not knocking any stars here given the fair price.Some issues/notes I ran across along the way:1. Be prepared to do a little research to get these working- a great place to start are Amazon reviews!2. After programming with an FTDI (3.3v) the unit resets and immediately detects a brownout condition. Simply powering from another source or (with credit to another reviewer here) you can switch over your FTDI to 5.0v (with jumper removed) to get up and running with serial output.3. IF the camera is not detected, this can be an indication that not enough power is available or the camera was not secured properly.4. These can run hot when streaming jpegs- running off a 5V power supply, this was drawing ~.5A using the provided example.5. Be sure to connect to a 2.4Ghz wifi network

So in order to get this to work, in the arduino sketch you select the Camera model AI Thinker. Enter in your ssid and password for your router and make sure you use the 2.4ghz not the 5ghz if you have that option. Program the device using 3.3 volts. Now I had problems running at 3.3 volts, I was getting a brown out error so I moved over my jumper on my FTDI adapter to 5 volts and moved the wire from the esp32 3.3v pin to the 5v pin.Go to the serial monitor on the arduino IDE and press the reset button on the esp32 and hold it for at least 3 seconds then release.You should get info out showing you the IP address that you’re router gave the device.Open chrome or Firefox and enter in that IP address. A screen will come up with all kinds of settings. Go to the bottom of the page and click on the Start Stream button. Now you will see the camera image. Scroll back up and try changing the resolution.Dronebot.com had a very good write up so check him out!I hope this helps someone.

Out of the Box they were pre-programmed. Log on to camera Wi-Fi and enter 192.168.4.1 ... still have not been able to reprogram this esp32 unlike the very similar ESP 32 with backer board.

Needs a nice stable 5v and good Wi-Fi signal. Very nice!

One camera module is defective out of the 3 received with the boards. I tested the module on all 3 boards and it won't work and I see no defects or damage to it. I see no option to contact seller short of returning everything? While I may be missing it, I see no option to get it partially replaced, only an option to send everything back and hope a new batch is 100% working. Well the boards work themselves and 2 of the cameras. Still I will cost me over one third the price of buying these boards with cameras to buy another camera to be able to use it.