Occasionally live feed from a few floors above downtown Saint Paul
FAQs
Where is this camera?The camera is located at the Galtier Plaza complex in downtown Saint Paul. It looks south over the Mississippi River, the St Paul Downtown Airport, and the West Side neighborhood of Saint Paul.
What powers this camera?The camera is a TP-Link Tapo C120 camera that has been converted to a local-only camera not requiring any Internet connectivity. It's connected to OBS on a computer, which broadcasts the stream (when it's running) to Cloudflare, which provides the bandwidth to the stream. A HTML webpage overlay provides the current time and temperature from the St Paul Downtown Airport.
Why so complicated? Couldn't you just use whatever tools are in the camera to power this live stream?I'm not sure a $25 camera would have the horsepower to do so. That said, I'm not keen on IoT devices being able to connect directly to the Internet if it's at all possible.
The stream's running, but the video is kind of glitchy. Who do I contact?The stream is provided on a best-effort basis. I'm occasionally checking it when it's running, but no guarantees are made for the performance of the camera or stream.
Why can't I hear anything?Out of respect for the privacy of the person whose patio is hosting this camera, there is no audio.
Why is it not a 24/7 stream?Having a camera streaming 24/7 consumes limited internet bandwidth. The stream will be turned on during interesting activities or periods of inclement weather. Otherwise, it's turned off.