Posted by:
LarryF
at Wed Oct 11 14:44:53 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by LarryF ]
A couple of friends and I are considereing building something I've been thinking about for a while.
Briefly, it's a sytem for controlling heating, lighting and possibly other things like misting sytems for reptile enclosures. The biggest difference between our idea and anything else I've seen is that rather than having a separate box with controls for each cage or small group of cages, the controllers would be networked and contolled by software on a PC. Aside from allowing setup of large groups of cages from one point, it would allow more flexible control.
For instance: Set heating and lighting to gradually change over a specified period. Set heat and light ranges and times to gradually change with programmed "seasons". Group cages by home region to simplify setup. Possibly allow web based monitoring and override of settings. Possibly integrate web cams.
We hope to keep the price for the controllers below the price per cage (not counting the PC) of all but the very simplest current controllers (dumb thermostats), so that this will be affordable for private keepers (like me).
What I need to hear are: Who would be interested in this? Who thinks it sounds too complicated and is perfectly happy with current, simple controllers? What (if anything) are you using now? For any breeders or curators with large display collections out there, is this something you need? Would you be willing to work with something from a new company? What are you using now? Does anyone know of anything similar that I might not have seen yet? Any other features you would like to see?
We would not be building the heating or lighting (at least for now), just the controllers.
Please let me know what you think.
(Moderators: I hope this is appropriate. It seems to be OK under my reading of the TOS but there's certainly a commercial aspect to it, so if you disagree please remove this post.)
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