Electronic – arduino – How to send video from the Arduino camera module video to the Android screen

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I'm trying to connect a camera module to my Arduino Mega, connect my Mega to my Android phone (throught BlueTooth or other), and send the live view of the camera to the mobile phone.

I saw a video online that showed this for still images — an image captured by the camera module on the Arduino was sent to Android and the output image was viewed after a couple of seconds (the time to send image by BT).

Is this doable with live video instead of image? If yes, please guide me; if no, please suggest some workarounds.

Best Answer

The feasibility of transferring live video over Bluetooth from an Android mega is low but not zero, being constrained by the following:

  1. Bluetooth practical throughput limitations:
    • Bluetooth 1.2 = ~ 700 Kbit / sec
    • Bluetooth 2.0+EDR = ~ 2.1 MBit / sec
    • Bluetooth 3.0+HS, 4.0: These use a separate wireless path (e.g. 802.11, like WiFi) for the high speed data, so not considering these for now.
    • Low-resolution (VGA 256 color) live video needs at least 200 KBPS, HD needs 2 MBPS or more, sustained bandwidth. That's the reason there aren't many live video streaming Bluetooth gizmos for smartphones yet.
    • Work-around: Use a WiFi shield instead of Bluetooth for communication.
  2. Arduino Mega limitations:
    • Capturing, processing and compressing live video in real-time, even at VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) is going to be quite a challenge for the ATmega2560 microcontroller, if it can be done at all
    • Memory (RAM, Flash, whatever) will be another challenge: A single frame at VGA 256 color resolution requires over 300 kB for just the frame buffer, twice that for higher color depth. For MJPG or other encoding / compression, a minimum of 2 x Frame Buffer Size would be needed for processing. This necessitates an external memory solution added to the Arduino Mega.
    • Work-around: Perhaps an external shield with video capture and compression, with an on-board DSP and frame buffer RAM, could be used, if you find any such.
      • In which case, the Arduino Mega isn't really needed any more.
    • Are there Bluetooth modules, XBee / ZigBee modules, or shields, which can sustain the maximum throughput rates noted above? If there are, that would be interesting to know.
  3. Android Phone constraints:
    • Does the current Android OS release support video endpoints via Bluetooth yet? If not, low-level code will be required at the Android side, just to retrieve the video stream data.
    • The processing requirements for displaying such incoming raw Bluetooth video streams would require hefty batteries, or permit very short operating duration unless docked to a charger.
    • Work-around: Use WiFi, stream from Arduino using a standard streaming video protocol, use a standard Android video player with streaming support to play the stream.

As is evident from the points above, the requirement is feasible, as long as constraints are accepted: Very low resolution, low color depth, low frame rate video, OR... all video processing offloaded to a DSP daughterboard more powerful than the Arduino itself, with its own on-board wireless connectivity.

That last is the work-around the question asks for.

Whether this is the practical approach at all, is up to debate.

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