Suggestions for a Smart Coop Door

[coopr]

This is an exciting space and it'll be a lot of fun to see how this plays out for you. I took the survey to help out, even though I already own an automatic door. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts in this space - maybe it gives you some ideas to ponder.

1. Think about what a "smart door" means to different people. From your survey, it's definitely leaning to the connected crowd. That's absolutely fine, but will that segment of buyers be large enough to support what you want to do? I'm grossly generalizing here, but you mention that you're about to finish college. I'll assume that puts you in your early to mid 20's. Your connected experience is probably significantly different than people 55 and over (just picking an age segment there). The "older" segment may not want to deal with wifi, cloud connectivity, user accounts, etc. I take my parents as an example. Any online account they have to create is met with "why do I need this?". For me, the answer is "so I can get to the next step in the setup", but to them it's one more account to hassle with, do they want to bother, etc. So, where am I going with this? Well, maybe a "smart door" for some will be a fairly priced automatic door that has a visual model feedback. I'm thinking of a small box that is physically tethered (thermostat type wire?) to the door that could be mounted on or near the coop. This box might have simple red/green status indicator lights. Door is open, red, door is closed, green. You still have your tech setup with the door (open/close times, etc) but you offer a "low tech" verification method. For these customers, they can peer out the window and see the status, and head off to bed. No phone, no subscription, no accounts, but still have a "smart door". I'm not trying to imply anything by age here, but sometimes it helps to serve as a way of thinking of different market segments. I know when I talk to my Dad about tech, he usually says "that's great it can do all that, I just want something simple". Something simple for that segment might not be as fun to build with all the latest tech, but if they are the largest market, do you want to consider ways catering to them?

2. Can you partner with an existing manufacturer? Bill Gates and Paul Allen made lots of money by selling software rather than hardware. Will it make sense for you to try and create the entire system - hardware all the way through software? It may be harder than you estimate to build a physically safe door that's reliable and error free. This could eat up expenses that you could put towards the software side. Maybe there is a current door builder out there that is itching to step up and want to go "smart" but not have the right partner to do that. But, they might have 5-7 years on you in door design/reliability. They might be willing to cut some of their margin to pay you to upgrade their door to being a "smart" door. They don't have to solve the tech side, and that lets you play in the space you might be more interested in. Again, just generalizing - I don't mean to speak for your preferences at all - but maybe that's something to think about. Also, support going forward. If you are on the software only side, maybe that's easier to support long term while you move forward in life. Maybe you want to make this door focus the primary driver in what you do right now. Or, maybe, you're looking for an engineering job in the industry, and this is more on the side. It might be easier to be more specialized and not have a full spectrum product to have to support.

3. Do you want to make a "kit" door? Say you can't find a partner as discussed in #2. Does it make sense to offer the components for a complete kit that can be assembled by your users? You'll see a number of people on this board like going the DIY route. But, maybe if you have kits available, you can broaden your market to allowing them to integrate some of your tech into what they already have. You could offer a complete solution on down to just the "smart" tech module that integrates with their existing builds.

Switching gears a bit - here's some insight into what I went through in buying my automatic door:
- Within reason, price didn't matter, feature set did. I was already in for over 3k+ in my coop. But, I built mine to tie in with our other buildings, so I had different constraints. My area is really shaded, and so solar was pretty much out from the beginning. I thought a timer mode was silly - why have to keep updating a timer every n months of the year, so I wanted something that ran off the seasonal tables and would auto adjust. I have power at the coop, but I want extended battery backup for times I'm away and can't control. Respectable UI for setup - I work in tech, so I've used really easy UI, and some not so intuitive. If I'm really only doing setup once or very infrequently, I'm fine with most UI. Of course, well laid out, intelligent UI is always preferred. I ended up with the Coop AutoDoor (http://petautodoors.com/). It's worked really well for me, no real complaints. It pretty much checked all my boxes. I do wish it had a low battery indicator. I do run off AC, but it'd be handy to know if my backup batteries were running low. The other mod I had to make was put reflective tape on the bottom of the door on the inside of the coop. Then when I look at it with my coop camera, I can see the reflective tape and verify it is down/closed.

Finally, some random thoughts with designing yours. Just things running through my mind while typing this up.
- A "reverse notification" option. An ability to only send me notifications when something didn't work as expected. I get enough notifications on my phone already. Another set of opened in morning, closed at night just adds to my total. A smart door can tell me when it didn't work. Now I know I need to take action.
- Definitely a lat/long positional/location system for auto-adjusting open close times. This was the biggest deal breaker for me and right off the bat eliminated a decent portion of the existing market. My thought was "why would I pay $200 and up for something that is a glorified timer that I have to keep updating as the days get longer/shorter?". I just don't understand how that isn't a default feature on all of them. Sure, offer the option for manual setting for cases where that works for people, but to not have that positional based logic as the core default is just beyond me.
- Firmware updatable. I like future proofing. Even though it's fairly basic in design with the functionality it provides, knowing there is the ability to update to releases/bug fixes is reassuring.
- An auxillary outlet that is available off the door. I've thought this might be kind of cool for those that either want supplemental lighting for egg laying, or those that want to turn on a light near dusk to encourage the birds to come in. This probably only makes sense with AC setup, but an outlet (one plug is fine) that is integrated in with the door, and is configurable with the offset. So, let's say that I want to turn on a simple indoor light in the coop 45 minutes before the door is going to shut. My shut time is say 5:30 on that day, at 4:45, the outlet activates, and my plugged in light turns on. It stays on until the door closes, or however long after the door closes that I set it for. Since I have rolling time adjustment, the next day it's 4:43 pm it activates, etc. I think this could be pretty neat and offer people quite a bit of flexibility to customize to whatever their needs might be. Since the door would already be plugged in, adding a simple outlet on the door could feed off the power the door was getting. That seems like it should work.
- Phone or web app setup. Since I have wifi to my coop, configuring through the web app or phone would be handy. For me, this would probably be more for the cases of an over ride.

That's probably about all I have for now. Sorry for the wall of text, but hopefully it provides some things to ponder. Stay active here as you progress and I'll bet you continue to get good feedback and ideas from folks managing their flocks each day.

Wow. First off I just want to say thank you so much for this post. It’s almost as if you know the exact hurdles I’ve been facing. I’d like to touch upon each of your points.

1. The entire design of my solution so far has relied upon having access to the internet. This is used for long/lat calculations, dawn/dusk, notifications, etc. The older market is one I haven’t given much thought to but you’re right that there is an entire segment I’m not reaching. I’m going to flesh out more “personas” to help make sure I’m meeting the needs of as many types of users as possible. I agree that visual indicators are a great addition so there is less reliance on your phone. I’m not sure I want to go the route of having Nest Thermostat type hardware but I have to give this more thought. At the end of the day it may not be worth developing a less "smart" device because I will still have monthly costs on my end and it's harder to justify a subscription model to this segment.

2. Finding a partner for the door would be ideal and is something I’ve been considering. My forte is actually iOS development and it’s what I’m doing full time this Summer. Since I have a background in Computer Engineering I’m able to handle both the software and hardware (PCB design etc) aspects. I would prefer to only focus on these parts as I’m familiar with the processes and how to take it to production. When it comes to manufacturing the door I am in over my head and would have a lot of learning to do. The door is easily the biggest hurdle and stressor for me in this endeavor.

3. I’m open to this but as I said in 2 I am very inexperienced in this area.

The rest:
- UI is something that will really set this apart. I’ve worked at top tech companies and have many connections to UI/UX designers that understand iOS and Android design languages, etc. I have full confidence that this won’t be where this product falls short.
- Push Notifications will be customizable in the app
- This is already planned as the device has internet access and can grab the actual sunset/sunrise time for the exact location
- OTA updates will be made easy with the platform I am using. I agree that this is very important.
- Modularity is an interesting thing to consider. Adding an outlet that is controlled by the microcontroller and a relay isn’t too much more work.

Your post was extremely helpful. I can tell you work in tech as you touched upon lots of critical points. This is just a side project of mine and I will be working full time soon so it’s definitely valuable to consider partnering up. I have a lot to think about and will spend the next few weeks compiling all the info I’ve gained thus far and fleshing out an MVP.

FWIW, I steer clear of anything that is labeled "smart", because that means wifi. The utility you suggest is great, but frankly, the cost for that utility is not worth the potential damage to my health that wifi exposes me to.

There is no reason to fear Wi-Fi, it is non-ionzing and harmless.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I have Chickenguards, and I’m actually about to buy another door, because I’m trying to merge guinea flocks and the dominant male is guarding the single door! You don’t have a model that I could try out, do you?

 

[Cryss]

The older market is one I haven’t given much thought to but you’re right that there is an entire segment I’m not reaching.


Yes I think this is an excellent point. I’m 69 next month so I’m one of those although I am a bit more computer literate.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

There is no reason to fear Wi-Fi, it is non-ionzing and harmless.

Where in the world did you get the idea that radiation is harmless if it's non-ionizing?