Finnian's blog

Software Engineer based in New Zealand

2-Minute Read

I have a GoPro Hero 4 and love it. However, I was looking for something new to do with it. I thought about a drone maybe (too expensive), some kind of boat (too much at stake). Then, the other day, I was gazing at a Raspberry Pi and my GoPro, trying to think of something. Then I realised I had everything I needed, right in the palm of my hand.

What about a web enabled GoPro? All of the newer versions (Hero 3+ and 4 I believe) come with inbuilt WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity (if you don’t have a 3+ or a 4 you can buy the WiFi bacpac), all I needed to do was connect the Raspberry Pi to the GoPro’s wireless access point. I did some research and found that the GoPro by default has the IP 10.5.5.9 and it’s web server runs on ports 80 & 8080. The difficult bit was going to be finding out how the GoPro receives commands over the network. Thankfully, KonradIT had already figured this out (although I have to say, the repository definitely needs some more documentation, which is why I forked it in the first place from here). These are the commands that worked on my GoPro, simply replace the word PSWD with the password for your GoPro’s wireless access point (if you haven’t set one, then set one otherwise anyone can access your GoPro)

http://10.5.5.9/camera/PW?t=PSWD&p=%00 - turn GoPro off http://10.5.5.9/camera/SH?t=PSWD&p=%01 - start shutter http://10.5.5.9/camera/SH?t=PSWD&p=%00 - stop shutter http://10.5.5.9/camera/CM?t=PSWD&p=%00 - video mode http://10.5.5.9/camera/CM?t=PSWD&p=%01 - photo mode http://10.5.5.9/camera/CM?t=PSWD&p=%02 - burst mode http://10.5.5.9/camera/CM?t=PSWD&p=%03 - timelapse mode http://10.5.5.9/camera/CM?t=PSWD&p=%04 - HDMI output mode

It appears you can also control the bacpac attached to your GoPro by using the url structure

http://10.5.5.9/bacpac/PW?t=PSWD&p=%00
But as I don't have a bacpac, I can't test this.

You can find all the available commands here (I haven’t had time to test them all!).

After this I was wondering how to give the Pi internet access at the same time as being connected to the GoPro’s WiFi. And I’m still wondering. One option would be to connect to the GoPro through Bluetooth and keep the Raspberry Pi on WiFi but I’ve not had much luck with the Pi and bluetooth…

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