The Raspberry Pi Camera Module can be tricky to position. It’s small, light, and can flop about on the end of its connecting cable. While it’s possible to improvise something with LEGO, Blu Tack or Sellotape, there’s no real substitute for a proper mount that’s designed for it.
That’s what the ZeroView Mini is. It’s made from printed circuit board, although the printing is purely decorative. There are four holes for screwing your Pi Camera Module in the middle of the board, and a cut-out shape for the camera to point through.
At each end of the board is a hole for fixing a suction cup. The suction cups fit the board well with no risk of movement or slipping.
The Pi Hut team say they have sourced the best suction cups they could find, made by Adams in the US. They are about 2 cm in diameter (unsquashed) and fix well to glass and smooth wood, supporting the weight of the camera easily.
The Pi Hut makes an alternative product called the ZeroView, which enables you to screw your Pi Zero to the camera mount too. It’s the better choice for projects that mount the Pi on glass. The ZeroView Mini is ideal when you have a larger model Raspberry Pi, or need the Pi to sit on a surface, perhaps because you have circuits connected to the GPIO.
You can fit the suction cups into the board either way around, so you can use the mount to fix a camera to a window looking out – or to a window or cupboard, looking into a room.
The mount gets your lens about a millimetre away from the glass, which helps to reduce reflections from inside the room. One of the suction cups was being reflected in our images, though, so we improvised a solution by removing it from the board and resting the board on it. Your results will depend on your setup and lighting, but you might need to experiment.
The unit is supported by the manual for the big brother ZeroView, so you’ll need to make allowances for the differences in the units. It’s simple to set up, though, and there are some tips on getting started with the camera included.
Last word
4/5
The ZeroView Mini is a well-made mount for your Raspberry Pi, with high-quality suction cups. Careful camera positioning and lighting control remain important to avoid reflections, though.
