Video camera recommendation for a ESP32 based robot

[laukejas]

Hi,

I am designing a small robot with ESP32 at it's core. It will have two modes of operation - automatic (navigating with an ultrasound and other sensors), and a manual mode (controlled remotely via Wi-Fi). For manual control, I want to have a video camera feed from the robot over Wi-Fi. I've seen several similar projects using OV7670, a cheap camera that is well documented for usage with ESP32. Problem is, this camera requires a ton of pins, and since my robot has a lot of other sensors and modules to control, I don't have that many. I want to do this without port expanders, as these introduce other complexities that I want to avoid.

So, what I'm looking for is a camera module that would work with fewer pins. As I understand it, I2C protocol is too slow for anything but a few frames per second at a very low resolution. Maybe there are some SPI cameras out there? I found some made by ArduCam, but these are very expensive and very bulky. I'm looking for something small (4x4cm at most), cheap (under $15) and that would work using no more than 6 pins on ESP32. I don't need great image quality or 24 frames per second - just enough to make real-time control of the robot possible (maybe 10 fps).

Can you name some options, please?