Workaround for lack of auto-auto-focus in Cruise mode

Steven Kan

My BeeCam has 5 defined preset positions, but Cruise doesn't really work very well because the focus points are different for each preset, they're not stored, and the RLC-423S doesn't auto-focus automatically after moving to a preset.

So I wrote a script to do the following:

Ask for username and pa*sword

Cruise to each position

Zoom inward to force an autofocus

Stop

Repeat

This works best if the desired zoom point is all the way in (or all the way out), so that the zoom inward doesn't change the desired field of view.

I have this running on a Raspberry Pi, after testing it first on my Mac. The syntax for a bash "for" loop may vary slightly from Unix to Unix, and you'll need jq installed to pa**e the json from the camera. But it works, and it works better (for me) than the built-in Cruise mode.

Furthermore, I couldn't paste the code in verbatim, because it includes angle quote characters that screw up the BBCode "code" tags. So you'll have to change the outermost quote characters in "ReolinkToken='curl . . . [].value.Token.name''" from normal single quotes ' to angle quotes.

#!/bin/bash

echo "username:"

read UserName

echo "pa*sword:"

read Pa*sword

for (( ; ; ))

do

ReolinkToken='curl -s GET "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Login&token=null" -d '[{"cmd":"Login","action":0,"param":{"User":{"userName":"'$UserName'","pa*sword":"'$Pa*sword'"}}}]' | jq -r '.[].value.Token.name''

echo $ReolinkToken

Positions=$1
Dwell=$2
PositionPause=4
FocusPause=3

for ((TheLoop=1; TheLoop<=$Positions; TheLoop++))
do
	curl -s POST "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=PtzCtrl&token=$ReolinkToken" -d '[{"cmd":"PtzCtrl","action":0,"param":{"channel":0,"op":"ToPos","speed":32,"id":'$TheLoop'}}]'

echo "Panning to new preset . . . "
sleep $PositionPause

curl -s POST "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=PtzCtrl&token=$ReolinkToken" -d '[{"cmd":"PtzCtrl","action":0,"param":{"channel":0,"op":"ZoomInc","speed":32}}]'

echo "Focusing . . . "
sleep $FocusPause

curl -s POST "http://192.168.1.11/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=PtzCtrl&token=$ReolinkToken" -d '[{"cmd":"PtzCtrl","action":0,"param":{"channel":0,"op":"Stop"}}]'

echo "Dwelling for " $Dwell "seconds . . . "
sleep $Dwell

done

done