Improving the Motorola Blink Baby Monitor/Camera (Part 3)
So, baby was born, meaning not much time for hacking. Hooray though! Lucas Alexander Gullo, 9/8/2014, 6 lb 9 oz, 19 inches. Hooray!
I haven't had a ton of time to work on things, but there is some progress. Motorola got back to me, though not completely. They've given me a link to a repo with their modified cambozola, which is here: https://github.com/nikhilvs/cambozola-bms I'm still waiting on the source for mjpeg-streamer, and some guidance on the parameters to make the romfs image. I contacted gpl-violations.org and they are also trying to press on the fact that the GPL should have been included since it has embedded linux
I did something kind of interesting hardware wise though. Theory is, wouldn't it be neat to be able to move the camera, say if wife wants to monitor him napping downstairs for a while? So I figured out a way to provide stop-gap portable power for the monitor, so it can be moved around. Best yet, I did it without actually modifying what comes in the box, it all taps onto the exterior. Take a look:
Basically, I got a high current portable USB battery which charges off a micro USB, then made a converter for the power brick it comes with to go to micro USB, and then built a USB to barrel plug cable. Here's my parts list:
- Intocircuit Power Castle 11200mAh Heavy Duty 5V 2A/1A Dual USB Ports External Battery Pack Charger
- CABLE USB-A TO MICRO USB-B 0.5M
- CONN JACK 1.32MM X 3.6MM
- Size H Coaxial DC Power Plug (2-Pack)
Pretty simple solder job, just cut the USB cable in half and strip the wires, bam. I've only tested it briefly, but in about 5 hours on the battery it dropped from 100%->88% so I imagine it'll run for a VERY long time.
Hopefully I'll get to dig through the source a bit more in upcoming weeks, but feel free to use these findings in your own hacking.
Related Posts:
- Improving the Motorola Blink Baby Monitor/Camera
- Improving the Motorola Blink Baby Monitor/Camera (Part 2)
- Improving the Motorola Blink Baby Monitor/Camera (Part 4)
- Improving the Motorola Blink Baby Monitor/Camera (Part 5)