We all know how important bees are to our ecosystems and [Kris Winer]’s bee monitor provides a great way to monitor these amazing but delicate creature’s habitats, hopefully alerting us before a disaster strikes a vital hive.
The board is based around LoRa sensor tile called Cicada but redesigned to make it smaller and cheaper. LoRa is a popular low-power wide-area network running on sub-Ghz bands designed exactly for applications like this. This board has a nice suite of sensors. It can detect UVA, UVB, and the visible spectrum of light. It can also observe the temperature, pressure, and humidity. Importantly for bees, the accelerometer can detect the various vibrations of the hive as well as disaster events like vandalism.
The data is all logged into a Cayenne dashboard which the prospective farmer could view and analyze from anywhere. [Kris] mentions that the board is relatively easy to re-spin with a different sensor suite depending on the application. Technology like this can go along way towards a more sustainable future.
From the Cayenne website Terms of Service.
“The Services collect, analyze and store data submitted from your IoT-enabled devices, including, without limitation, mobile devices (collectively, “Devices”) that are set up by you and connected to the Services in order to submit such data to the Services.”
And..? How else would they dashboard your data?
If it’s a real concern, spin up a private grafana instance instead.
It is a relevant question unless you carry a cell phone….
Adding a load cell or two to measure weight and you’d have a great combo. Nice job.
There was an episode of Elementary where the payment to Everyone was Joan setting up a camera so someone could watch Sherlock’s bees.
Cool.
I’ve been working on something similar for my 3 hives, but it will already too late in the year by the time I am done and testing.
Looking forward to putting it in place next spring.
I’m sorry, but there is no way a bee could ever carry this around, it is too heavy.
+1
Aww c’mon, this is just the first generation of portable computing for bees, like luggables were for humans, it’ll get a little handle on it, and they can lug it on the train or in a cab, can’t expect PDA/Cellphone scale right off the bat.
Yeah, it’ll start as a bit of “Power culture” joke, only Queens or drones who don’t actually have to do any of the real work will have them, but all the other bees will secretly want them, and eventually technology will make them smaller and cheaper, then all the bees will have them. Then, eventually, the originals will become hipster chic collectibles and command obscene prices on B-bay.
Lets hope none of those “wireless networks affect bees” stories hold any truth (I know it’s unlikely for it to have any effect). Otherwise this might not help.