RabbitCam

Is Pickles back?

A private camera for Pickles, the wild rabbit who visits a garden window, made so a four-year-old can check any time she likes.

A seventeenth-century painting of a woman waving through a leaded window, with the RabbitCam rabbit rising behind the glass
Salvador Dalí's Figure at a Window: a girl looks out an open window, with the RabbitCam rabbit rising into view in the window
A woman sits on a window seat hugging a doll, while the RabbitCam rabbit slides in from the right
A man sits on a window sill looking out, as the RabbitCam rabbit slides in from the left
An older man in glasses gazes out a window, where the RabbitCam rabbit rises into view
A man peers through window blinds as the RabbitCam rabbit rises behind the slats

RabbitCam is an iPhone app that watches one window. A weatherproof camera looks out at the garden, a small computer in the house keeps an eye on the picture, and the app shows what it sees. There is no cloud account, no subscription, and no company in the middle. It lives on a Raspberry Pi in a family home.

How it works

The camera streams video only inside the house. The Raspberry Pi reads that stream, spots animals in it, saves clips when something moves, and sends the alerts. Your phone reaches the Pi over a private network called Tailscale, which means nothing is opened up to the internet and only people who were invited can connect. The security page explains what that protects and what it doesn't.

The camera's picture-recognition model has never heard of rabbits, so Pickles is usually reported as a cat or a bird, and occasionally a dog. The alert is still called a bunny alert. Everyone knows who it means.

Trying it

RabbitCam is in TestFlight for family and friends. Everything you need, including the invitation to the private network, is on the set up your phone page. The invitation and the app's address and token stay hidden until you enter the family password there; ask Mark for it. It takes about ten minutes and you only do it once.

Why it exists

A rabbit started visiting the spot outside a kitchen window. A four-year-old wanted to know, constantly, whether it was back, and before long it had a name: Pickles. This is the answer to that question. It is also a teaching project for her eight-year-old technology buddy, who built the camera and the computer by following a printed Mission Guide, thirteen missions long, from flashing the memory card to installing the app.