This section documents how Scootercam works behind the scenes. It’s part development journal, part site manual—covering architecture decisions, custom PHP systems, data pipelines, and the occasional lesson learned the hard way. The goal isn’t polish or perfection, but clarity: notes for future maintenance, transparency for curious visitors, and a practical reference for anyone responsible for keeping Scootercam running.
- 24-Hour Lake Michigan WindowHow It Works Scootercam automatically tracks the day along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, capturing everything from aurora to sunsets to distant power plants across 40 miles of water. The Camera We use a Reolink TrackMix – a dual-lens camera that combines: The camera doesn’t just sit in one spot. Throughout the day, it … Read more
- TrackMix Preset Setup – Quick ReferenceScootercam’s Current Preset Configuration Why This Setup is Perfect At this latitude (42.56°N on Lake Michigan), the sunset position shifts dramatically: This is a ~60° swing across the horizon throughout the year! How the System Uses The Presets Sunset Timelapse (Automatic Seasonal Selection) The system automatically picks the right preset based on the date: Season … Read more
- Scootercam 3We replaced the beach deck camera with a Reolink Track Mix, a pan-tilt camera with 2 lenses (wide-angle and telephoto). Our original beach deck camera became invisible on the new home network.The wide-angle PanoramaScootercam gives us 5 views, so we used it to fill the gap. To fully deploy the new camera and temporarily disable … Read more
- 2026 PlansEquipment Scootercam starts 2026 with brand-new equipment and fiber internet. As of today, we’re down to one camera, but we’ve ordered a new PTZ camera. Here’s the hardware lineup: Website Work 2026 sees renewed focus on core site operations. We’re spending more time on optimization and speed, so the site loads quickly and without any … Read more
