Over several years we've worked very hard to provide the best GPL drivers for our MPEG-4 and H.264 hardware compression cards. With IP cameras becoming increasingly popular, we feel the same is needed on the network.

We believe in open source software. So, like our capture cards, we're releasing everything under standard open source licenses to work with the community and other projects. You'll be able to customize everything, from the bootloader to our own web and streaming interfaces. This means users can try new versions and the latest enhancements from us and the community right away. We're working with well established open source projects to deliver the best experience for developers, and following best practices for contributions (including no copyright assignments).

Our cameras will feature a 533Mhz ARMv5 processor, 256MB of system memory and 32MB of flash.  Most will have POE (Power over Ethernet).  Some will have Wide Dynamic Range (WDR), an infrared cut filter (ICR), and two way audio.

We include a free license for our Linux-based surveillance DVR software, but you aren't limited to our software. Bluecherry IP cameras will work with most existing surveillance applications using RTSP and / or MJPEG - and you can always modify the software to support new systems.

Risks and challenges

Using (and contributing back!) to open source projects will let us develop a high quality open interface for our cameras. The biggest 'headache' will be implementing real-time notifications on the back end (when a setting is updated from the Web UI, notify the affected services). Developing proper documentation for our API (hardware motion detection, audio streaming, configurable bit rates, etc) will also take time.

Some of the software we use:

- Linux kernel (2.6.18) (Upgrade to latest to 3.x planned) 
- uClibc 
- Busybox 
- Dropbear 
- SQLite 3 
- lighttpd with FastCGI, IPv6, OpenSSL, zlib

Camera models

We plan to have our first cameras rolling out in December. The following models will be available first:

Bluecherry 720p development module (Estimated price $145)

• Bluecherry 720p development module
• 720p resolution (realtime recording @ 720p) 
• 12VDC (POE option available in bulk)
• Audio input / Audio output
• 3.6mm fixed lens

Bluecherry outdoor 720p megapixel mini dome (Estimated price $145)

• Outdoor rated (IP66) mini dome (Note: No infrared support for this model)
• 720p resolution (realtime recording @ 720p) 
• Power over Ethernet
• Audio input / Audio output
• IR cut filter
• 3.6mm fixed lens
• Wide Dynamic Range
• MicroSD card support

Bluecherry outdoor 3 megapixel infrared camera (Estimated price $250)

• Outdoor rated (IP66) infrared camera
• 3 Megapixel resolution (realtime recording @ 1080p / 2032x1936 @ 14 FPS)
• Power over Ethernet
• 12 infrared LEDs (night vision range of ~100 feet)Mechanical IR cut filter
• 2.8-12mm manual focus lens

Bluecherry indoor 3 megapixel box camera (Estimated price $250)

• Indoor auto-iris box camera
• 3 Megapixel resolution (realtime recording @ 1080p / 2032x1936 @ 14 FPS) 
• Power over Ethernet
• SD card support
• Mechanical IR cut filter
• 2.8-12mm auto-iris manual focus lens

Bluecherry outdoor 3 megapixel mini dome (Estimated price $190)

• Outdoor rated (IP166) mini dome (Note: No infrared support for this model)
• 3 Megapixel resolution (realtime recording @ 1080p / 2032x1936 @ 14 FPS) 
• Power over Ethernet
• Audio input / Audio output
• IR cut filter
• 3.6mm fixed lens
• Wide Dynamic Range
• MicroSD card support