Gerrit Niezen
- @gerrit
- | He/him
Does anybody know of any good open-source solutions for habit box monitoring (e.g. bird boxes, bat boxes, hedgehog boxes and kestrel boxes)? We're trying to figure out if the boxes are being used or not. I’m guessing movement (PIR or break-beam) sensors would be the simplest?
I’ve found a few solutions using a camera as part of a pre-built box, but not any solutions that can be added to existing habitat boxes. These boxes don’t have access to wifi or power. The boxes can be visited regularly, but ideally only need to be attend to once a year.
Camera traps would seem to power-hungry for this application, so we're thinking PIR, dry-contact pressure plate or mmWave. Data to be stored on an SD card or retrieved via USB, or low-power wireless like LoRa or NB-IoT.
16 May 2026 9:30pm
Hallo Gerrit
I just set up a simple catch monitoring network using LoRa devices from https://en.szdx-smart.com/EN/zwfa.html.
I set this up so that the transmitters are OFF when the trap is set and ON when the trap is sprung. When ON it sends the module ID, then sleep for an hour and transmit again. So minimal power usage. PIR would be the most power efficient for monitoring habitat usage. If you like, send me you email ([email protected]) and some more info about what you want to do (no of habitats, area, environment) so I can make some suggestions for a low cost solution for this and what power usage you could expect.
Jacob de Feijter