from Hacker News

Ask HN: Monitor a Tennis Court from a Webpage

by smortaz on 1/4/22, 3:54 AM with 1 comments

Hello HN.

I’d like to set up a webcam on a public tennis court so people can visit a URL and see if the court is occupied before heading there.

If you have ideas how this can be done relatively cheaply please lmk!

Some background info:

There is no power, so it has to be solar.

It’s outdoors, so weather resistant.

There js no wifi, so cell network.

Only needs to work 6am to 11pm.

Video feed is not needed, a snapshot every 5 minutes or so is sufficient.

Will be placed on top of a fence overlooking two courts.

Thanks in advance!

  • by Petrakis on 1/4/22, 9:06 AM

    LoRa fits the low power and its also long range. I have never sent images over it but for sure its possible but unreliable, as its very low bandwith.

    I would do some kind of computer vision to identify people, or count them and send that data instead, those operations should be easy on a microcontroller.