Public aquariums have webcams, e.g., from the Georgia Aquarium (funded by Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus and reopened, unlike our aquarium here in Boston).
What about for hobbyists? We should be able to buy a product that goes into the tank, gets power from a USB-C cable, and transmits video back up the cable to a wall wart that then pushes the video up to a server or at least a local computer. This is basically the same hardware as in an $85 Ring Stick Up camera, right, but cracked into a couple of pieces and a little more waterproofed?
Why doesn’t this product exist? Why can’t our fish “go live” on Facebook without a lot of custom engineering?
(And, no, it wouldn’t be acceptable to have a camera on the outside of the tank due to algae growth. Nor is it easy to find that kind of product already packaged up!)
(above: Atlanta’s Georgia Aquarium)
Related:
I assume algae will fog up the external surfaces of anything inside the tank as well? what I am missing?
There really doesn’t appear to be anything good in this category. There are various gadgets that mount to the *outside* of an aquarium, but nothing that swims.
I thought Bluetooth, so you wouldn’t need a cable. A self-contained mini-submarine that skedaddles around with little water jets taking pictures. The bandwidth is probably adequate but signal attenuation under water might be a problem. Maybe you could get around that by sticking receivers to the tank in various places. Or having the submarine record a few minutes of video and then “surface”.
How hard could it be for a good EE to come up with an adaptation of this, for instance?
https://www.racedayquads.com/products/caddx-dolphin-1080p-60-fps-hd-action-cam?variant=29614887731313¤cy=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImsGp2vLP6gIVgZ6zCh05mw3HEAYYBiABEgKOFPD_BwE
High end autonomous underwater drones are available. I’m sure the U.S. military has a bunch of them, and you can buy these from Hydromea (Switzerland). They don’t list prices. I’m sure they cost more than most people can afford. But why not something for the consumer aquarium market?
https://www.hydromea.com/exray-wireless-underwater-drone/
Strange reading 20 year old Greenspun blogs, from before flying, kids, domestic partners, & Honda minivans. So many more of us are packed into just 2 cities now compared to 2002, the fish would have to pay their share of the rent.