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Great project and all, and definitely something fun to work on, but this is a pretty questionable application for IOT (don't wish to discourage). What's the ke

Great project and all, and definitely something fun to work on, but this is a pretty questionable application for IOT (don't wish to discourage). What's the key metric here? The chicken coop opens and closes at the appropriate time of the day? How does IOT help solve that objective? There's some great parallels here to an MVP in the software world. As for my two cents, an alternative and more robust solution, could be put together with something like an aliexpress ambient light switch, limit switches, a recycled car battery, a trickle charge solar panel, and some relay logic.

ergothus 8y ago
I'm unclear on why this is a questionable usage. My wife keeps chickens, and going out morning and night to open the doors is...certainly not hard, but inconvenient (particularly the night one, as you often remember AFTER you've settled in for the night and must head out, regardless of weather. Skipping the occasional visit doesn't work either - they need to get out both for general happiness and foraging, and if you don't close the door, creatures kill your chickens. (This has happened to us twice, and we're in the middle of suburbia, albeit the Seattle variety with more wildlife than the average cul-de-sac) > The chicken coop opens and closes at the appropriate time of the day? It's closed sometime after chickens have entered for the night, which tends to go off of sunlight, and opens early enough that the chickens aren't literally cooped up when they want out. That's rough, but the machine doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to do as well or better than we humans do. As for what value does IOT add? Well, it can help confirm when it is/isn't working, but mostly it's that the cost is almost the same, at least for those of us without extensive electronics experience. Your alternative (I'm not sure how it's more robust) solution LOOKS cheaper, but I wouldn't know how to connect the parts and would likely screw up the amps/watts enough to break stuff and require replacement parts. For me, spending an extra $50 on parts is worth the saved time and effort - even as the $250 version that has no options for customization of behavior/interactions is NOT worth the saved time and effort. Probably - it should be noted I've been researching this topic (along with any way to ensure the chickens ARE all inside - if they get broody they may nest elsewhere, which ends poorly) for the past year but so far we're still doing it manually. I expect this to change over the holidays. > There's some great parallels here to an MVP in the software world. Only in the vague "is this adding enough value to be worth it?" sort of way, but as the answer is "it depends" I'm not seeing the great learning opportunity you're implying.
- dpeckett 8y ago
  I have no qualms with the merit of an automatic chicken coop door. Obviously the benefits can be considerable, and the project certainly fits the bill. The point is, almost all maker projects jump straight to let's throw an Arduino at it, with no consideration to the tradeoffs at all. This can be quite a disservice. There are tradeoffs, eg. power management? (those batteries aren't going to last at all), fault tolerance? (arduino crashes due to condensation shorting out the timing crystal), maintenance? can you instruct an untrained individual to perform any meaningful repair work (eg. bend the arm on a damaged limit switch). One benefit IOT can bring, is the detection of fault conditions etc (door took too long to open fully something stuck in the tracks), but implementing that kind of handling in a meaningful way is a complex problem. These things rarely matter for a diy project, but you see this stuff everywhere. Consider whether a problem can be solved in an analog or mechanical manner, it's likely to lead to a simpler and more robust solution. As for ensuring chickens are inside of a coop, that's a tough problem and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that? Eg. for the above chicken in coup problem, something as simple as a weight triggered switch on the ramp (or a push bar near the coop opening) is likely to out perform anything more complex.
  - ergothus 8y ago
    > I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that? My thoughts are definitely too complex. Currently I'm thinking of a camera that will turn on a light and take a picture (at a specified time || when door closes) and send that to our family Slack - someone will habitually look at any notification, and we don't have a large number of chickens so it's fastest to rely on human perception to see if someone is missing. Or just a camera that we can turn on remotely to check the feed ourselves. That's the "simple" version - a more complex one would take a picture and compare to an empty sample to decide how many blobs there are, but that is hampered by (1) If chickens huddle, that becomes complex and (2) it's not a problem space I have any interest in, so the problems won't be fun to solve.
    - dpeckett 8y ago
      Vision sounds like a really tough way to solve it, challenging lighting conditions just to make things trickier. I know that in some contexts, RFID tags are used for livestock tracking. Don't know if they would comfortably work on birds though.
CGamesPlay 8y ago
I think IoT here actually meant DIY electronic... at least I can't see anything in the article that says this was connected to the internet at all.
- dpeckett 8y ago
  Fair enough, I got the impression the target audience was more IOT focused given the site it was hosted on.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    I think the author considered an IoT solution, but he did go for a simpler one (Arduinos by themselves can't connect to anything wirelessly).

ergothus 8y ago

I'm unclear on why this is a questionable usage. My wife keeps chickens, and going out morning and night to open the doors is...certainly not hard, but inconvenient (particularly the night one, as you often remember AFTER you've settled in for the night and must head out, regardless of weather. Skipping the occasional visit doesn't work either - they need to get out both for general happiness and foraging, and if you don't close the door, creatures kill your chickens. (This has happened to us twice, and we're in the middle of suburbia, albeit the Seattle variety with more wildlife than the average cul-de-sac) > The chicken coop opens and closes at the appropriate time of the day? It's closed sometime after chickens have entered for the night, which tends to go off of sunlight, and opens early enough that the chickens aren't literally cooped up when they want out. That's rough, but the machine doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to do as well or better than we humans do. As for what value does IOT add? Well, it can help confirm when it is/isn't working, but mostly it's that the cost is almost the same, at least for those of us without extensive electronics experience. Your alternative (I'm not sure how it's more robust) solution LOOKS cheaper, but I wouldn't know how to connect the parts and would likely screw up the amps/watts enough to break stuff and require replacement parts. For me, spending an extra $50 on parts is worth the saved time and effort - even as the $250 version that has no options for customization of behavior/interactions is NOT worth the saved time and effort. Probably - it should be noted I've been researching this topic (along with any way to ensure the chickens ARE all inside - if they get broody they may nest elsewhere, which ends poorly) for the past year but so far we're still doing it manually. I expect this to change over the holidays. > There's some great parallels here to an MVP in the software world. Only in the vague "is this adding enough value to be worth it?" sort of way, but as the answer is "it depends" I'm not seeing the great learning opportunity you're implying.

dpeckett 8y ago
I have no qualms with the merit of an automatic chicken coop door. Obviously the benefits can be considerable, and the project certainly fits the bill. The point is, almost all maker projects jump straight to let's throw an Arduino at it, with no consideration to the tradeoffs at all. This can be quite a disservice. There are tradeoffs, eg. power management? (those batteries aren't going to last at all), fault tolerance? (arduino crashes due to condensation shorting out the timing crystal), maintenance? can you instruct an untrained individual to perform any meaningful repair work (eg. bend the arm on a damaged limit switch). One benefit IOT can bring, is the detection of fault conditions etc (door took too long to open fully something stuck in the tracks), but implementing that kind of handling in a meaningful way is a complex problem. These things rarely matter for a diy project, but you see this stuff everywhere. Consider whether a problem can be solved in an analog or mechanical manner, it's likely to lead to a simpler and more robust solution. As for ensuring chickens are inside of a coop, that's a tough problem and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that? Eg. for the above chicken in coup problem, something as simple as a weight triggered switch on the ramp (or a push bar near the coop opening) is likely to out perform anything more complex.
- ergothus 8y ago
  > I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that? My thoughts are definitely too complex. Currently I'm thinking of a camera that will turn on a light and take a picture (at a specified time || when door closes) and send that to our family Slack - someone will habitually look at any notification, and we don't have a large number of chickens so it's fastest to rely on human perception to see if someone is missing. Or just a camera that we can turn on remotely to check the feed ourselves. That's the "simple" version - a more complex one would take a picture and compare to an empty sample to decide how many blobs there are, but that is hampered by (1) If chickens huddle, that becomes complex and (2) it's not a problem space I have any interest in, so the problems won't be fun to solve.
  - dpeckett 8y ago
    Vision sounds like a really tough way to solve it, challenging lighting conditions just to make things trickier. I know that in some contexts, RFID tags are used for livestock tracking. Don't know if they would comfortably work on birds though.

CGamesPlay 8y ago

I think IoT here actually meant DIY electronic... at least I can't see anything in the article that says this was connected to the internet at all.

dpeckett 8y ago
Fair enough, I got the impression the target audience was more IOT focused given the site it was hosted on.
- icebraining 8y ago
  I think the author considered an IoT solution, but he did go for a simpler one (Arduinos by themselves can't connect to anything wirelessly).