Most people will use webcams connected to a computer or integrated into a laptop without thinking about the possibility of being spied on, but Eyecam will certainly raise awareness and make you feel like somebody is truly watching.
The open-source webcam is shaped like a human eye and acts like one thanks to a Raspberry Pi camera and an Arduino board controlling six servos for eyeball, eyelids, and eyebrows movements.
The project was conducted at Saarland University in Germany, and Eyecam looks amazingly realistic – and creepy – with the eyeball and eyelids moving, especially when face tracking is enabled, and expressions are possible with servos controlling the eyebrows.
The webcam is comprised of 3D printed parts, a Raspberry Pi camera connect to Raspberry Pi Zero recognized as a USB webcam from the host, and an Arduino Leonardo Pro Micro to control the 6 servo motors. On the software side, an Arduino sketch controls the servos, Raspberry Pi OS Linux distribution runs on the Pi Zero board, and a Unity Control Interface has been designed to visually control the motors and run the computer vision processing.
Since it’s open-source, everything has been released under an MIT license on Github including the .stl mechanical files, as well as firmware and software. As I understand, everything relies on off-the-shelf boards, so there’s no PCB specific to the project. Marc Tessier, who conducted this research project, also provides additional details on his website, and he will soon upload a video showing how to assemble the webcam.
In the meantime, you can still check out the demo video below.
Via Arduino Blog
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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This looks scary. But it seems like an excellent idea to make tech devices look more natural to remind people they’re not harmless!
Kill it with fire!
So what stops makers just attaching a micro led on the main power to the vision sensor. so when the sensors on, the led light up on the web cam.
After all the world is crazy, our mobiles track and collect date on us more!
Use your webcam once, have nightmares for weeks.
I don’t know why, but I want it! 🙂