MeshCam app

The self-hostable gallery + ingest server for MeshCam LoRa mesh trail camera networks. FastAPI + React. Run the whole backend yourself; the hosted cloud is optional.

Live demo with real captures: demo.getmeshcam.com

What it does

• Thumbnail-first gallery: a ~5 KB thumbnail arrives over the mesh in seconds; tap ★ to request the full-resolution image, which the mesh delivers opportunistically (the UI shows live chunk-by-chunk transfer progress from telemetry).
• Sightings, not frames: burst photos group into one "animal visit" tile (per-camera capture gaps under TRAILCAM_SIGHTING_GAP_MIN, default 30 min) — a real field feed collapsed 19x. Tap to page through the burst; ?flat=1 shows every frame. A brushable activity timeline above the grid jumps the feed to wherever the activity was.
• Ingest API: idempotent, store-and-forward-friendly; devices are first-class via the open spec (meshcam-api). Sites and cameras auto-create on first contact; the mesh adds itself.
• Node health: per-node battery (LiFePO4-aware coloring), RSSI/SNR, temperature charts; OK/Quiet/Dark status from last-seen.
• Command queue: pull-based (gateways live behind NAT; nodes sleep): full-res fetches, maintenance windows, sleep.
• OSD stamping: burns camera/temp/battery/timestamp into full-res images at ingest, keeping pristine originals as .raw S3 siblings.
• Retention: unsaved photos expire (default 180 days); starred never.
• Survey map (/survey): walk the property pressing the surveyor's button; probes plot coloured by gateway RSSI, cluster into sessions, and a before/after compare mode shows whether an antenna move actually helped — refusing to state a median from fewer than 5 matched positions. Probes are permanent (retention never touches them). Basemap tiles are off by default: probe coordinates are your camera locations, and third-party tiles would tell the tile host where they are. Opt in per browser in Settings, or set TRAILCAM_MAP_TILE_URL deployment-wide.

Quickstart

docker compose up --build
# → http://localhost:8000  (eval login enabled; see docker-compose.yml)

Storage is any S3 API (MinIO in the compose file; Garage/AWS/B2 all work). Database is SQLite out of the box, Postgres via TRAILCAM_DATABASE_URL or TRAILCAM_DB_* parts. Human auth is OIDC: point TRAILCAM_OIDC_* at your IdP (Authentik, Authelia, Keycloak…); device auth is per-device bearer tokens:

python -m trailcam.devicetoken my-gateway   # prints once; sha256 stored

All configuration is TRAILCAM_* environment variables; see backend/src/trailcam/config.py for the complete, commented list. (Env prefix and module name keep the project's original working title, trailcam; renames are churn and the API is the contract.)

Development

cd backend && uv sync && uv run pytest         # 69 tests
uv run uvicorn trailcam.main:app --reload
cd frontend && npm ci && npm run dev

License

AGPL-3.0, see LICENSE. Self-hosting is free forever. If you modify it and offer it as a network service, share your changes. For commercial licensing outside AGPL terms: hello@getmeshcam.com.