# OpenPetCam

> OpenPetCam is a free, open-source (Apache-2.0), self-hosted pet camera. It runs on a Thingino-flashed pan/tilt Wi-Fi camera and a small Ubuntu server you own (the reference is an AWS Lightsail nano at about $5/month, at the edge of its CPU allowance). It gives live video on your phone, searches the room with the camera's motors when your pet is out of view, tells your pet from toys with a model trained on your own camera, and sends alerts. No subscription and no vendor cloud. Current release: v0.2.1. It learns this camera and pet: a simulator fitted from its own logs, tuning trained in it and checked live. Built and tested for dogs first.

Key facts:
- Camera: any Thingino-supported pan/tilt camera; reference Cinnado D1 (Ingenic T23N).
- Server: Ubuntu 24.04, 512 MB RAM; uses about 5% of one CPU core; 6-hour rolling recording.
- Phone: web app added to the Home Screen (iPhone and Android); push notifications; no App Store.
- Privacy: video goes camera → your server over WireGuard only; the camera dials out so no ports open at home; one tap turns off picture and microphone.
- Detection: YOLOX-nano proposes dog-like boxes; a second verifier model trained on your camera's footage decides whether it is your pet.
- Updates: the server installs new GitHub releases nightly, health-checks them and rolls back on failure.
- Optional agent (Claude Code) turns in-app reports into tested fixes and offers proven fixes upstream as pull requests.
- Install: `git clone https://github.com/crimeacs/OpenPetCam.git && cd OpenPetCam && ./setup`

## Docs
- [README](https://github.com/crimeacs/OpenPetCam/blob/main/README.md): install, features, updates, privacy
- [Architecture](https://github.com/crimeacs/OpenPetCam/blob/main/docs/architecture.md)
- [Camera notes (Thingino)](https://github.com/crimeacs/OpenPetCam/blob/main/docs/camera-thingino.md)
- [The self-improving agent](https://github.com/crimeacs/OpenPetCam/blob/main/docs/superagent.md)
- [Contributing](https://github.com/crimeacs/OpenPetCam/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)

## Guides
- [Build a pet camera with Thingino firmware](https://openpetcam.com/guide/thingino-pet-camera.html)
- [A pet camera without a subscription](https://openpetcam.com/guide/pet-camera-without-subscription.html)
- [An open-source alternative to Furbo and Petcube](https://openpetcam.com/guide/open-source-pet-camera.html)

## Blog
- [A 4D model of the room using a stationary $12 camera and wave physics](https://openpetcam.com/blog/room-in-4d.html): a rough 3D room from photographs, a candidate floor echo and neural depth, with observations over time and a proposed loop for self-improvement

## Optional
- [Releases](https://github.com/crimeacs/OpenPetCam/releases)
- [60-second film](https://openpetcam.com/media/openpetcam-film-720p.mp4)