Project Update: Multi-PiCam Streaming to YouTube

So, the cameras made it outside with a purpose, watching birds, but one thing after another needs fixing before really starting anything fun. First, the WiFi stinks. I have two Netgear routers, and they both add really bad latency to any traffic. But, just between WiFi clients. To a hard-wired host traffic is just fine.

To solve that I really need to go in a direction that I really need to go in, any way.

Ethernet. And eventually PoE (Power over Ethernet).

I ran a long (100′) Cat6e cable to the back yard, plugged in to the router, and have a 8 port Gig switch in a mailbox (to keep it out of the elements). I had ideas about designing a new box, and a new camera housing; something for 3-4 Pi, plus cameras, and all kinds of peripherals. I have some relays that could be used to control all of the external IR illuminators, other sensors could be added.

Great ideas that I would like to get to, but maybe I can get to those things after the stream gets started up.

S0, I now have the multi-camera streaming I wanted. Next I need to work on audio. I have an i2s microphone already, so I can work on the software and configuration, but the quality is not good. It is a little MEMS microphone, which is a kind of compact, low-power microphone that is made on a microchip. It might be good for a doorbell-camera or a phone microphone, but it won’t do for listening to birds and nature sounds.

But, it should be able to make an OK bark-detector, and give me some idea of how to get it to stream. Then, on the list, is a higher quality microphone (maybe this, or one of its cousins).

OK, thanks for catching up with me.

Back to work.