OT: Wireless USB

I want to connect a USB webcam to a PC wirelessly.

I would have though I could buy a suitable adaptor, one each end, to provide such a link, and that these would be ten a penny from China.

But I can't find nuffink. Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology?

Reply to
Clive Arthur
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Bluetooth webcam. Plenty on ebay.

Reply to
charles

You might need to put a bluetooth dongle on the PC too.

Reply to
newshound

IP webcam with wifi would probably be the easiest route. Failing that, something like a Raspberry Pi setup as a webcam server would be another way.

e.g.

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Reply to
John Rumm

But he has a USB webcam. So I guess what he's really after are two boxes with USB connectors, that talk to each other wirelessly. Bluetooth might not have the range, and he won't be able to use his USB webcam.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Exactly.

Reply to
Clive Arthur

This one will go 1600 feet for USB2, using fiber optic cable.

The fiber optic cable at least bounds the latency.

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They seem to have a driver, and the adapter shows up in Device Manager.

The problem with USB2, is there are some tight timeouts. At least, if you believe the usb.org FAQ page which discusses it.

It likely requires some sort of monkey business at the adapter level, to break that limit.

*******

This one from 2007, used UWB radio.

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It looks like IOgear did not make any further products of that type. The parent company of IOgear is Aten, and they make KVMs.

This was likely a "crime of opportunity". Someone made a chip, which they used. Rather than them spinning a chip on their own.

Since UWB came out, there is WiGIG at 60GHz, which is only good within a single room (25 feet max). At longer distances, it is no better than conventional Wifi.

For USB2, those technologies are overkill. It's unclear why UWB was selected for a wireless USB design. That's because today, there are Wifi standards that "almost" make supporting USB2 easy. While Wifi standards have very high stated limits, the reviews (smallnetbuilder.com) are seldom that impressive. And maybe that's why they went with UWB back when they did.

Today, HDMI is carried over WiGIG. But that's the only transport I know of. And there might be some compression going on there, rather than pure straight brute-force bit transmission.

Johns suggestion, of a streaming server, seems pretty practical.

Paul

Reply to
Paul

A USB webcam needs power via the USB cable, you can't transmit the power wireless. Best bet would be a IP webcam like a baby or pet monitor.

Reply to
whisky-dave

If you download free 'Contacam' it has a facility to connect to HTTP and you could connect multiple Wifi cameras.

Reply to
Smolley

if you have a wifi router, wots rong wiv a raspberry pi ?

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Is the USB webcam particularly expensive / advanced?

Technically its doable, but with notable limitations and at a significant price for now. For example:

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Better[1] options are either to connect the camera to something that acts as a streaming source, and gets you off USB at the first opportunity, or to get a camera designed for wireless access in the first place.

[1] i.e. cheaper, and work reliably at longer range.
Reply to
John Rumm

And MotionEyeOS:

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Mine is using a RPi ZeroW.

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

If it is a USB webcam, how is it powered, and where does the camera output go?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

For example, this is nearly right, eBay item no 283590879150. It's a USB camera telescope with a battery pack/WiFi adaptor box. You can run it from a charger too.

It's not quite right for two reasons:

1) Unfortunately it won't run on a PC without some sort of Android emulator which I don't want to install. 2) I want to use a different why dangle camera, not a telescope.

But it does show that such things might exist. A Raspberry Pi of course could do it, but time is money and I have plenty of work. As I said, I had imagined that - for example - a wireless USB extender would be dirt cheap.

[FWIW, the telescope actually works very well, though not after dusk. The magnification is such that an unoccupied flat in a tower block 400m away is about the height of the image, and the air disturbances make any better resolution a bit pointless.]
Reply to
Clive Arthur

Try it on the moon - quarter phase terminator will give a nice easy contrasty target. Then if you are feeling brave a bit later go for the planets Jupiter and Saturn both low on the southern horizon.

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Reply to
Martin Brown

Not a chance after dusk. It's surprisingly better than expected, but needs daylight.

Reply to
Clive Arthur

I think you will be pleasantly surprised. You can go for crescent or first quarter moon pretty much any time from early evening onwards.

The moon is pretty much like tarmac in direct sunlight (basalt really).

The planets might be pushing it but still worth a try.

Reply to
Martin Brown

on 29/06/2020, Clive Arthur supposed :

Wifi is much better if you need wireless. Wifi cams are common these days, as are POE cams - Power Over Ethernet. That's wired cams via the LAN, using a single cable for both LAN and power.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield, Esq.

"Such things" in this case being a computer in a battery powered box, that interfaces to the USB camera, and makes it re-available as a TCP/IP streaming source. Its not re-presenting a USB interface at the users end.

I would expect a wireless USB extender to be technically quite difficult to make, and quite expensive. There are now chipsets that can do it, so with time the technology may commoditise. The question really being if there is much demand for it. (since in many cases there are better ways of achieving the end result)

You may find you can access the thing as a video source in VLC without needing any android emulation on the PC.

Reply to
John Rumm
<snipped>

Yes, I should have been clear, I don't use the WiFi adaptor, the telescope plugs in to a PC USB port and 'Webcam' in Win 10 will display it, as would VLC. That's not mentioned in the advert or Chinglish booklet.

Reply to
Clive Arthur

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