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Camera Control Python Client

NetCam

This directory contains an installable Python library and the camera-control command-line client for Camera Control protocol version 4. It supports status, idempotent single capture, and cancellable time-lapse operation over verified TLS. Status polling reconnects with bounded exponential backoff when Wi-Fi or the server connection is interrupted.

Requirements and installation

  • Python 3.9 or newer
  • Camera Control's TLS-only WebSocket API enabled and running
  • The verified local CA certificate shown by the phone app
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install -e .

Set the password without exposing it in process arguments:

export CAMERA_CONTROL_PASSWORD='your password'

If this variable isn't present, the CLI prompts without echoing the password.

Commands

Read camera, device, capture-session, and reliability status:

camera-control status wss://192.168.1.50:8080/ws \
  --ca camera-control-local-ca.crt

Capture and save one JPEG through the idempotent job API:

camera-control capture wss://192.168.1.50:8080/ws \
  --ca camera-control-local-ca.crt \
  --camera 1 --resolution high --flash off \
  --jpeg-quality 90 --rotation 90 --output photo.jpg

Rotation accepts 0, 90, 180, or 270 clockwise degrees. Omit the flag to keep the current app setting; use --rotation 0 to reset it. The app starts at 0°. Rotation applies to new photos and live previews; existing gallery photos keep their orientation. Library callers pass "rotation": 90 in the existing controls map. Check status.capabilities.rotation for support.

Start a 5-second time lapse, stopping after 20 photos:

camera-control time-lapse wss://192.168.1.50:8080/ws \
  --ca camera-control-local-ca.crt \
  --interval 5 --count 20

Omit --count to run until Ctrl+C, or use --duration SECONDS. The client polls session status, reconnects between polls, and requests server-side cancellation when stopped.

The legacy entry point still works after installing the package:

python3 capture_photo.py wss://192.168.1.50:8080/ws \
  --ca camera-control-local-ca.crt --output photo.jpg

Library usage

import os
from pathlib import Path
from camera_control import CameraControlClient, decode_photo

with CameraControlClient(
    "wss://192.168.1.50:8080/ws",
    os.environ["CAMERA_CONTROL_PASSWORD"],
    Path("camera-control-local-ca.crt"),
) as camera:
    print(camera.status())
    job = camera.capture_job(request_id="document-page-42")
    jpeg = decode_photo(job["result"]["photo"])
    Path("photo.jpg").write_bytes(jpeg)

captureJob retries reuse the same semantic requestId, allowing the running app process to deduplicate an ambiguous reconnect. Do not deliberately reuse a request ID with different capture settings. If the phone app itself restarts, its in-memory idempotency history is lost; verify status before replaying an ambiguous capture.

Certificate bootstrap

Download the CA from the URL shown by the app, then compare its SHA-256 fingerprint with the phone before trusting it:

curl --insecure --output camera-control-local-ca.crt \
  https://192.168.1.50:8080/ca.crt
openssl x509 -in camera-control-local-ca.crt -noout -fingerprint -sha256

--insecure is only for the initial CA download. The Python library always uses a verified SSLContext for the WebSocket connection.

Run tests with:

PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v

See ../api.md for the command and event summary.