Use this any time you need to see the physical hardware: while debugging, after reboots, during serial output, mid-process. Do not wait until the end of a task. Returns daemon version, uptime, camera states, pause flag, buffer fill, adapters, and system warnings. Always call this first.

List all detected physical USB webcams and IP cameras with their ID, name, resolution, fps, and state.

Use this any time you need to visually inspect the hardware. Captures a live frame directly as an MCP image result. Never saves to disk by default. Can crop to a defined region and annotate existing regions.

Captures a sequence of frames over time and returns a single token-efficient contact sheet with timestamps. Use to observe physical motions, LED blink patterns, or mechanical movements.

Returns a contact sheet of buffered history frames plus timestamp-aligned event lines from serial or log adapters. Use to correlate hardware events (e.g. crash, reset, button press) with visual frames.

Compute quantitative measurements on the camera frame or region without returning heavy images. Returns mean brightness, contrast, lit-pixel percentage, dominant colors, edge density, sharpness (Laplacian variance), and motion level.

Asynchronously monitor the camera until a physical condition is met or timeout expires. Conditions: 'change', 'motion_start', 'motion_stop', 'brightness_above', 'brightness_below', 'color_present'. Returns fired status, timing, and before/after evidence images.

Define and save a named region of interest (e.g. 'status_led', 'oled_screen', 'pixgen32') using normalized coordinates (0.0 to 1.0) or 4 corner points for perspective homography.

List all saved named hardware regions of interest.

Delete a saved named region.

Ask the user in the Dashboard UI to interactively draw a region on the camera preview. Blocks until user finishes drawing or timeout.

Capture and persist a golden reference image for subsequent comparison. Use to establish a known-good baseline before running experiments or flashing firmware.

Compare the current physical camera state against a saved baseline. Returns SSIM structural similarity score, percent of changed pixels, and a visual difference heatmap image.

Perform OCR to extract printed text or seven-segment display digits from the camera frame or region. Returns extracted text and confidence.

Capture and perspective-correct (unwarp/rectify) an angled hardware region or screen into a flat, orthogonal top-down image. Returns the rectified image for high-precision inspection or OCR.

Sample high-speed frames of an LED or indicator to detect state (solid_on, blinking, off), blink frequency in Hz, duty cycle, and exact perceived color (red, green, blue, amber, etc.).

Adjust hardware camera parameters: exposure, focus, brightness, contrast, gain, white balance, or lock auto settings. Reports exactly which parameters were accepted vs rejected by the driver.

Read timestamped lines from an active event adapter (serial, log file, MQTT). Can block until specific text appears or until timeout.

Execute a configured allowlist action (e.g. 'reset_board', 'pause_print'). Subject to approval policy. If observe_seconds is configured, returns post-action timeline sheet.