Webcam

USB webcam/video capture using OpenCV. Streams base64-encoded JPEG frames at a configurable framerate.

Safety gate

This driver ships with requiresSafetyGates: false — webcam writes and actions bypass the safety gate entirely, and no audit rows are written. See Per-driver opt-out.

Properties

Property	Type	Access	Unit	Description
width	int	R/W	px	Frame width
height	int	R/W	px	Frame height
fps	int	R/W		Target framerate
quality	int	R/W		JPEG quality (1–100)
brightness	int	R/W		Brightness (0–100)
contrast	int	R/W		Contrast (0–100)
flipH	bool	R/W		Horizontal flip (mirror)
flipV	bool	R/W		Vertical flip
device	int	R		Camera device index
streaming	bool	R		Whether capture is active
resolution	string	R		Current resolution string (e.g., "640x480")

Actions

Action	Args	Description
start	—	Start video capture and streaming
stop	—	Stop video capture and streaming
snapshot	—	Capture a single frame, return as base64 JPEG

Streams

Stream	Description
video	Base64 JPEG frames at the configured FPS

Config Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
device	int	0	Camera device index (0 = first camera)
width	int	640	Capture width in pixels
height	int	480	Capture height in pixels
fps	int	15	Target framerate
quality	int	75	JPEG quality (1–100)
brightness	int	50	Brightness (0–100)
contrast	int	50	Contrast (0–100)

Video Recording

The Webcam driver supports video recording to workspace/data/recordings/. See also ONVIF which shares the same recording interface.

Recording Actions:

Action	Args	Returns	Description
record	seconds, filename?	filename	Record for N seconds (blocks until done)
recordStart	filename?	filename	Start recording (manual stop)
recordStop	—	filename	Stop recording, finalize file

Recording Property:

Property	Type	Access	Description
recording	bool	R	Whether recording is active

• Output format: MP4 (MP4V codec), falls back to AVI (MJPEG) if codec unavailable
• Auto-starts the camera stream if not already streaming
• Filename is auto-generated (Webcam_{timestamp}.mp4) if not specified

Example Connector

// workspace/connectors/webcam.js
export default {
  driver: "Webcam",
  config: {
    device: 0,
    width: 1280,
    height: 720,
    fps: 15,
    quality: 80,
  },
  poll: ["streaming", "resolution"],
};

Dashboard Integration

Display the webcam feed with a canvas widget:

{
  "type": "canvas",
  "config": {
    "label": "Webcam",
    "mode": "image",
    "stream": "webcam:video"
  }
}

Take a snapshot from a script:

const cam = connector("webcam");
cam.start();
const frame = cam.snapshot;  // base64 JPEG string
log.info(`Captured frame: ${frame.length} chars`);

Note: Requires OpenCV native libraries, which ship bundled with the Windows build.