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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