Question for the "techie" people out there - automation, wifi etc.

[AgnesGray]

Very nice!!! Also, I like your logic on the door automation and luminance! Another option is to use an API for sunset/sunrise times, but your motion on the run idea makes it so that the chickens are deciding when to close the door!

What is this dashboard (or the system more broadly) running on?

Thanks! The app is hubitat's dashboard. We use hubitat for the most part to control our home automation. It has a main control panel and we set up sub panels where it makes sense. The coop definitely needed a subpanel of its own.

 

[jthornton]

Nicely done documentation - but honestly, I am confused what it is for? a control display?

I wrote a PyQt5 program to control the lights and door and play music and have a 7" touch screen in the coop. It also puts up a web page with the status of the coop.

JT

 

[Spudlo]

I'm looking to do a few upgrades to my coop and need some input. I plan to get an automatic door opener, but would like to have the ability to do a manual override over wifi or bluetooth. I see that the "Coop Tender" has wifi available, but their reviews are abysmal. Total bummer to see that, I was very close to ordering one!

The coop is wired for power, and I also plan to have some other automations put into place, such as temperature-based commands (if temp sensor goes below xx degrees, turn on wall mounted radiant heat panels, or if temp sensor goes above xx degrees, turn on fan). I was toying with using a smart power strip that could do IFTTT or Alexa (or it's own app).

One thing I'm not sure of is what automatic coop doors could be a good candidate for this. The power strips that have WIFI that I'm looking at also have a few USB ports plus a handful of smart outlets (and can do things like scheduling and scenes, etc).

If using a smart power strip to do ad-hoc open/close isn't feasible, is there another way to add wifi functionality to a door opener? The coop is about 40 feet from the house, and has a strong enough signal that I was able to take a video call on my laptop for work out there last week.


Thanks in advance!

Hi, so I got on the ask about automations and it seems you may have got all my questions answered! BUT. Some of the responses are to techy for me, to try and attempt. My question for the thread is... is there a door on the market now that I could easily set up, that has an app that can be expanded later? Without writing code or. So right now we want a door to open close on timer, sun or manual. But I would like to expand to cameras, motion and temps.My husband doesn’t want a door opening to something in the run. But he would just walk out there and look instead of opening more than one app. while reading this I saw a post about hubitat and I’m gonna look that up. Our coop is large but they go out the back door into the run we can’t really see.

 

[nickyblase]

Hi, so I got on the ask about automations and it seems you may have got all my questions answered! BUT. Some of the responses are to techy for me, to try and attempt. My question for the thread is... is there a door on the market now that I could easily set up, that has an app that can be expanded later? Without writing code or. So right now we want a door to open close on timer, sun or manual. But I would like to expand to cameras, motion and temps.My husband doesn’t want a door opening to something in the run. But he would just walk out there and look instead of opening more than one app. while reading this I saw a post about hubitat and I’m gonna look that up. Our coop is large but they go out the back door into the run we can’t really see.

So far, I haven't found one. There are apps that could do the lighting and camera in one app but without I haven't seen one that does a coop door too. I'd be very curious to see if you hear of one.