The code

Let's write the code to bring our surveillance system to life.

The setup requires Node.js to be installed on Raspberry Pi which we have already done quite a few times through out this book so we will not repeat that and straightaway start writing the code.

Camera module code

To use the camera, we need to include a library from npm. We use the pi-camera library, and to install it, run the command in the terminal, as shown in Figure 6.23. Check out the official link for the pi-camera npm module at https://www.npmjs.com/package/pi-camera:

Figure 6.23

Now, create a file with the name CameraModule.js and include the pi-cameramodule in it:

const PiCamera = require('pi-camera');

As per the documentation of the pi-camera module, we need to set the configuration of the camera. We define both configurations, one for taking still pictures and the other for taking videos:

const myCameraPhoto = new PiCamera({
    mode: 'photo',
    output: `/home/pi/Node_Programs/photos/photo.jpg`,
    width: 640,
...