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USB cameras: use them with your smartphone This review looks at a variety of USB cameras which are normally intended for use with a laptop PC. But if you are trying to poke a USB pipe inspection camera down a blocked drain you don’t want it to be hooked up to a laptop – it is too awkward. The solution: hook it up to your smartphone and use an app like CameraFi. By Leo Simpson I have been eyeing off a couple of USB pipe inspection cameras from Jaycar for a while, as they should be very useful in quite a range of situations. Jaycar have two models: one with a 7-metre long flexible cable and one with a 2.3m flexible cable but in other respects they are identical. The camera itself is only 10mm in diameter and it can be poked into very small open46  Silicon Chip ings indeed. And while it is billed as a pipe inspection camera, it has far more uses than that. Incidentally, they are very often described on the net as borescopes – and even (obviously erroneously) as endoscopes. Since I was involved in a home renovation, there was quite of lot of wiring and plumbing to be done and I found that the electrician and plumber had not even come across the idea of using a pipe camera for peering into wall and ceiling cavities. In fact, when running new cables, most sparkies are using the tried and true method of poking a strip of “yellow-tongue” into a cavity and seeing if it can be fed through to the wanted location. Often it can’t. One particularly frustrating job involved installing a lot of LED downsiliconchip.com.au We’ve shown this close-up of the 2.3m Jaycar QC3373 for two reasons: you can see the four LEDs alongside the camera lens, with brightness controlled by a knob on the box. Also on the box is a “shutter” button to take a freeze-frame image. lights in the this home and trying to run the necessary cables over ceiling joists was time-consuming and labourintensive. If the electrician had used one of these inspection cameras, some of the frustration could have undoubtedly been avoided. But there are plenty of other applications where such a camera would be very handy. For example, you could use it check inside the cylinders of many engines (via the spark plug holes). It could possibly even be used to check for corrosion and blockages inside the water channels of exhaust headers on boats. Each camera incorporates its own light source in the form of four white LEDs, adjustable in brightness via a tiny knob on the side of a small plastic case in-line with the USB cable. That same in-line box also has a push-button which can use to take photos or start and stop a video recording. No batteries are required for the camera since that comes via the USB cable from the PC it is plugged into. This one is the Jaycar QC3374 which has a the tiny (10mm diameter) camera on the end of a rather stiff 7m cable. In this case the control box is integrated with the USB plug. The mini CD contains Windows software (but not Android). OK, all good but there are many jobs where you simply don’t want to have a camera tethered to a PC. Can you imagine a plumber trying to inspect a pipe with this camera tethered to his laptop while he stands in a muddy trench in the rain? Neither could I. But there is an easy solution. Ditch the PC and use your smartphone instead. Virtually every tradesman has a smartphone in his pocket and they are always using their phone to take picture of jobs. The pics can be used for later reference or sent to clients. And despite all the marketing hype, trying to convince you otherwise, over 70% of smartphones sold in Australia are of the Android variety (although it must be said there are countless camera apps for iPhones as well). So it is a simple step to hook one of these inspection cameras up to the micro USB socket on your phone. You need an OTG USB female A plug to micro male B plug. By the way, OTG stands for “on the go” and refers to adaptors while allow USB devices to connect to smartphones etc. Jaycar have a short cable adaptor which will do the job (Cat WC7747). So that takes care of the physical connection but would the USB inspection camera actually work in this mode? CameraFi There are probably more camera apps out there than you’ve had hot breakfasts but one which we’ve previously used is CameraFi, a free Android app from www.camerafi.com So I duly downloaded the Camera- Resolution The camera has a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and is quite adequate for the tasks it is likely to be used for. Each camera comes with Windows software on a CD which can be loaded onto a laptop PC (provided it has a CD or DVD-ROM drive) and installation is relatively straightforward. You can then take the camera and your laptop to the job to be inspected, poke the camera into the job and view the cavity on the PC, take pics or a video. siliconchip.com.au Here’s a screen grab of the CameraFi app from my Samsung smartphone. It not only gives you instructions on connecting your camera (or in this case, the inspection camera) but allows you to set various modes (including movie mode) and a variety of other settings. It’s a free download from www.camerafi.com May 2016  47 The proof of the pudding, as they say: this screen shot is taken from the setting on page 46, looking down a large stormwater pipe. You can even see the join in the pipe in this shot – but fortunately, no blockages! Fi app onto my Samsung Galaxy S4, plugged in the inspection camera and it worked first time. It’s just so much more straightforward than loading software from a CD into a laptop. Well, does it work well as a camera in nooks and crannies? Well, yes, sort of... There are a few wrinkles. First, having the short OTG cable between the camera’s USB plug and the phone is a bit awkward, due to the relative stiffness of the camera’s cable. I found it was better to use a compact rigid female USB to micro USB adaptor. Second, it is quite awkward trying to take a picture using the in-line button on the camera cable. It is more convenient to simply touch the camera logo on the CameraFi screen. The Samsung phone has a “speech” function to take pics – you just say the word “shoot” and it . . . shoots! But I couldn’t get this to work with the app. With a focus down to about 50mm (or even less) the camera is more than capable of capturing text, which can then be put through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software (also available online) and converted to a document file. It would be ideal if the camera sat in the centre of the pipe but it usually doesn’t. It goes where it wants to go – and in most cases, that’s following an edge. When you do get a clear view, it works very well. Other USB cameras What about using CameraFi with other USB cameras, such as a USB microscope camera? I tried it with Jaycar’s 5 megapixel USB microscope camera (Cat QC3199) which we featured in the article on magnifiers in the September 2015 issue (www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2015/ November/Magnifiers%3A+When+ You+Want+A+Really+Close-up+View). Again, it worked really well and it’s much more straightforward than using it with a laptop or PC. Selfie sticks We cannot finish this article us- ing smartphones without referring to selfie sticks. Most readers probably regard these devices with disdain and think they are only used by self-indulgent nitwits to post images of themselves and their equally inane transient companions on Facebook or Instagram. But selfie sticks can be very useful devices when you are trying to look into awkward locations which may well be out of arm’s reach. You only need to use a selfie stick once in this sort of situation and it will have already paid for itself. By the way, if you do decide to buy a selfie stick, make sure it will “pair” with your phone (it’s a Bluetooth connection) before you make the purchase. There are quite a few which won’t even find another Bluetooth device and even some which won’t pair, especially if the smartphone is more modern than the selfie stick SC Interpreting the image But the biggest problem tends to be when you are poking the camera down a drain or in a wall cavity and trying to interpret the image. First of all, Murphy’s law ensures that the image you see is not related to the horizontal. It takes some brainpower to work out which way is “up”. And the reason the image tends to be “fuzzy” is that, especially when you’re looking in a narrow pipe, say a 90mm storm water drain, the camera will slide along the edge of the pipe. 48  Silicon Chip A typical “selfie stick”, fitted here with my Samsung S4 Android smartphone. The stick, which telescopes out from about 90mm to almost one metre, is supposed to “pair” with the phone via Bluetooth to shoot pictures. . . except for one tiny detail – it won’t! In my case, I simply take the photo by saying “shoot” to the phone. But if your phone can’t do this, make sure you buy a selfie stick that will pair with your smartphone! Inset top left are two types of USB adaptors which are needed to fit an inspection camera to a mobile phone. siliconchip.com.au