r/homeassistant • u/prohr450 • 1d ago
Personal Setup Smart Chicken Coop
Just got my in coop data monitoring and control system setup. Still adding sensors and automations but so far it's working well. When I moved my coop I ran conduit and two POE lines, one for a camera and the other for monitoring. Programmed though esphome. My roll off egg tray now has a laser tripwire to detect when an egg is ready to be picked up. Still trying to figure out if this is the definition of overkill.
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u/walrustoothbrush 1d ago
I just finished a project with those POE boards, they're freaking awesome. Probably the most reliable device on my network now besides my lights
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u/prohr450 1d ago
I have a diy weather station that I'm going to switch over to this POE board. I run wire wherever I can.
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u/snpster 1d ago
I'm about to get chickens, and had not considered adding sensors. What do they do, what is the overall plans?
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u/prohr450 19h ago
Sensors: Dht11: temp/humidity Mq135: ~ammonia level Laser tripwire: egg Hc-sr501: pir motion detector Optical water sensor: water Level ok Waterer connected: optical sensor plugged in (can be unplugged for filling making the above sensor invalid)
Outputs: Exhaust fans to cool the coop
Future?: Speaker to play Mozart? LED striplights under the coop in the run for chicken parties?
Open to suggestions to make it more ridiculous
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u/Grimm_Spector 18h ago
What’s the purpose of the motion detector?
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u/prohr450 18h ago
To detect when they're in the coop. It's very sensitive and stays on for a preset time. It makes it fairly obvious to tell if a chicken is in there
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u/logikgear 1d ago
Me too! Me too!
the two gates are vertical doors on 12v linear actuators ram by an ESP32 . The water heater thermostat is a smart plug connected to a troth heater in their water bucket. It uses the outside temp from another ESP to turn on the smart plug if it drops below freezing. The cops at the top From left to right coop temp, run door open automation, run door close automation, run light manual control, and water heater indicator.
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u/prohr450 19h ago
We have the opposite problem lol. I'm in FL so I'm concerned about cooking them not freezing them. You need the laser tripwire for the eggs.
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u/logikgear 16h ago
I've been trying to figure out how to integrate the laser tripwire with an esp32. 😆 Just think with the weather you've been having you could just have pre-poached eggs.
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u/prohr450 16h ago
Esphome makes it easy, buy the tripwire set from Amazon/AliExpress and go ham. The worst part is aligning the laser tbh
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u/Itchy-Organization-3 1d ago
Have you done anything fun to track whether the chickens are in the coop or not? Any other fun ideas for the coop? I’ve done the camera, door and tinkering with weight to count the chickens in the coop but it’s not great
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u/prohr450 19h ago
Yes, that's the chicken movement. It's a pir sensor in the corner
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u/tinker_tut 1d ago
I love it omg. I love it even more you get to raise chickens 🐓. As an IT professional my dream is to retire and become a goose farmer
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u/psychoholica 21h ago
Jesus I read that as smart chicken soup then looked at the sensors and thought are you kidding what does that even mean “chicken movement”??! How absurd, then ohhhhh coop. Chicken coop not soup. 😂 I know HA is a rabbit hole but thought someone surely went off the deep end. 😂🤣
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u/tangobravoyankee 18h ago
I approve. Only have cameras and smart lights in my coops, and when I'm brooding chicks I use some temp sensors and a smart outlet to run the heating plate.
Curious about how you've modded the Fontana coop to have a roll-off egg tray.
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u/Big_Fortune_4574 18h ago
That’s dope as hell lol
Don’t post it on the chicken subs though. You’ll have chicken ladies yelling at you saying you don’t care about them and what not
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u/prohr450 17h ago
Eh, It'll be entertaining. I can tell them they don't care about their chickens because they don't have full time monitoring that's on a battery backup😂
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u/fart_huffer- 1d ago
How do you program esphome? I need a good tutorial. I’m rebuilding the coop next year and have so many plans
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u/talkingdragontv 1d ago
Love it! Maybe use llm vision to check if any and how many eggs? Also how are u controlling the fans? I get u using esp home, more like how u power and wire them to the esp? Wanted to install some for my battery cupboard but not rly found a way to power and control them
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u/prohr450 19h ago
Eggs: I'm using roll off egg tray and a laser trip wire. Egg rolls off and breaks the laser beam. If there's more than one I need to go out and get them so simple on off is sufficient.
Fans: power is coming off the waveshare Poe board though the sysbus side (5v) and the ground side is connected though a 2n2222 transistor. Temp is monitored with a dht11 up top. Bang bang controller setup, gets too hot turn on, cools below threshold turn off.
Power though to the system is POE from my networking rack
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u/RaggedBulleit 19h ago
Where do you keep the dumb chickens?
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u/prohr450 19h ago
Outside the smart coop on the balcony. They're too dumb to use technology. My black sex links are not the brightest (Dodo diamond and Electra fox).
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u/enter360 Contributor 17h ago
This is your standard run of the mill industrial egg harvesting system. Overkill would be scanning the eggs with LiDar and associating eggs laid to chicken with calendar entries making each.
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u/prohr450 17h ago
With nfc wristlets and candling capabilities to make sure each chicken is healthy
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u/MarcoNotMarco 1d ago
This is crazy overkill. It's silly. It's ridiculous even. Geez!
Also, would you mind sharing build plans because now I need to have this for my chicken coop as well 😂