IVPort Raspberry Pi camera multiplexer, for multiple CSI cameras

[Lomax]

In the interest of minimising power usage (my application is solar/battery powered), and getting the most out of the on-board video acceleration, I would like to use only RasPi CSI camera connected cameras - but I want to connect more than one such camera. It seems others have had the same thought, and the guys at IVMech in Turkey have come up with a pretty nifty camera multiplexing board for precisely this purpose. It uses GPIO pins to select which camera to monitor (one pin for two cameras, two pins for four, and so on), and the Pi only ever sees them as one single camera. In other words, you can only view/record the output from any one camera at a time, but by switching between them (by setting the corresponding pins high/low) you can monitor multiple views. I'd be quite happy to live with that, but I'm wondering how one would best integrate the multiplexing in Domoticz? Anyone see any issues, have any thoughts? The boards are $77 (4 ports) so I'm hesitant to dive in without checking here first!

Read more about the IVPort here: https://github.com/ivmech/ivport
IVMech official store: http://www.ivmech.com

[Lomax]

F-it, I went ahead and ordered one anyway, the two port version. Hopefully I'll be able to set up a simple switch in Domoticz controlling the GPIO pin which controls the multiplexer, then schedule this to switch between the two attached cameras and email a snapshot from each one every X hours. I also want to set up a couple of PIR sensors to trigger this. Might work!

[Lomax]

In case anyone's interested in using multiple CSI connected surveillance cameras with the Pi, see also this discussion on the Raspberry Pi forums: CSI FPC DIP15 to round cable

[PWiAM]

@Lomax, have you received the device yet? Their stereo recording does sound good. Not sure of the seller, though.