Now that we've got the excellent MultiCam plugin, I thought it might be nice to write up a step-by-step tutorial for installing a Raspberry Pi Zero W computer as a webcam server.
In theory, you could dedicate one Raspberry Pi Zero W computer with each webcam to serve up different views. I'll design and print an enclosure in a bit but wanted to provide the how-to first.
Is this still a good alternative to a prebuilt webcam? Are there other options since it has been 2 years?
For me a Pizero Camera Streamer would cost ~30€ (Pi=20€, Clone camera 8€, sd card 5€). Power supply LM2596 DC-DC converter connected to the printers power supply.
A somewhat decent camera is also around 30€ and with cheap streaming webcams there seem to be some protocol problems.
I don't think I can push my Pi 3b much further. I already have 2 instances of Octoprint and Homeassistant running on it. There is also one free USB port and eliminating some additional cables would be nice.
Personally, I love the dedicated Zero for this. In that it's detachable, you can clip it to almost any angle of perspective you'd like.
