The ESP32-CAM Development Board is based on ESP32S chip and a 2MPixel (OV2640) camera.
It’s very little (40mm x 30mm), it’s very cheap (less than 10€) and it’s also easy to integrate (as we are going to see in this article). Said that, don’t expect high performance or realtime video streaming, you will obtain a low refresh rate and low resolution compared to any IP camera in the market, but still usable to monitor some room or dumb device on your home. That’s the way I’m going to use it: in front of my electric water heater thermostat to check temperature status. Obviously you can do the same with any other household appliance such as monitoring the end of the Washer machine cycle. Recently I’ve also used same system to monitor my plants (see photos at the end of this article)
What we need are an ESP32-CAM and a FTDI programmer board (plus some jumpers), they are also sold on bundle:

The ESP32-CAM board doesn’t has an onboard USB-Serial converter, so we need the FTDI board in order to connect the ESP32-CAM to the PC and flash the ESPHome firmware.
Wiring diagram is very simple, my suggestion is to to use 5V supply and not 3.3V; I found that some boards doesn’t works properly with 3.3V. (also pay attention to the jumber on the FTDI, and select 5V mode)


Flash ESPHome Firmware
- Open ESPHome Control Pannel
- Click to Add a new Configuration
- Fill in Name, in my example boiler-temperature-cam, and your WI-FI credentials
- Click Next

- Click SKIP THIS STEP
- Select ESP32 device and click NEXT to complete the procedure

- Finally click CLOSE

- Back to main ESPHome Control Panel now should appears the new boiler-temperature-cam configuration
- Click EDIT

- Copy and Paste following code. The section highlighted in red is already present in your configuration due to previous steps, so you can add only the remaining part of the code.
- Pay attention to replace you YOUR_SSID, YOUR_PSW and the name of your configuration (highlighted in bold)
- Click SAVE
esphome:
name: boiler-temperature-cam
platform: ESP32
board: esp32dev
# Enable logging
logger:
# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
ota:
password: "9e4905f0508602492cef8777d17d0542"
wifi:
ssid: "YOUR_SSID"
password: "YOUR_PSW"
# Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
ap:
ssid: "Boiler-Temperature-Cam"
password: "UPnSengsnc0t"
captive_portal:
esp32_camera:
external_clock:
pin: GPIO0
frequency: 20MHz
i2c_pins:
sda: GPIO26
scl: GPIO27
data_pins: [GPIO5, GPIO18, GPIO19, GPIO21, GPIO36, GPIO39, GPIO34, GPIO35]
# the order of the data_pins is significant, don't mix up the order
vsync_pin: GPIO25
href_pin: GPIO23
pixel_clock_pin: GPIO22
power_down_pin: GPIO32
resolution: 800x600
name: boiler-temperature-cam
idle_framerate: 0.1fps
output:
- platform: ledc
pin: GPIO4
channel: 2 # channel 1 is used for esp32_camera
id: led
light:
- platform: monochromatic
output: led
name: espcam_02 light
- Connect the FTDI USB cable to your PC
- Click INSTALL
- Click on Plug on this computer
- Select the USB PORT and click CONNECT
- The firmware upload should start. Some ESP32-CAM board requires to hold the RESET button (placed close to the 5V and GND PIN) during all the steps above until CONNECTING appears in the screen

- Once the upload is completed you should see new ONLINE status on your configuration

- Navigate from Home Assistant main menu to Configuration – Integration
- Home Assistant should prompt that has discovered the new device, click on the name boiler-temperature-cam

- Click SUBMIT

- Select an AREA for you device and click FINISH

- New Device is ready and integrated. Two Entities are available, the camera feed and a switch for the onboard flash LED
- Click ADD TO LOVELACE

- This is the final results

- Unplug your device from the PC and disconnect the ESP32-CAM from the FTDI.
- What you need now is only a 5V power supply connected to pins 5V and GND on the ESP32-CAM board
- As you can see from the image I usually connect a little MICRO-USB board to use a standard USB-Cable charger to feed 5V to my projects

- Place the camera in front of your dumb appliance to monitor what it is doing while you are not watching him

While the cat’s away the mice will play
Someone, Somewhere … out of control
Or if you prefer to monitor how your plants grow up
