First ever smart home tortoise table...?

[happyhank]

Hello all! So it's that time to build my Horsefield tortoise, Hank a new table. I went to town on his current setup with temperature sensors, automated lights, LCD screens etc. This time around I am going even more over the top and integrating Hank's new table into my smart home which will allow me to control and see everything from my phone!

For this build I'm going to document my progress, so I have started a blog and thought I'd share it with the community and hopefully inspire other people on their builds. Find it at happyhank.co.uk (http://www.happyhank.co.uk)

It would be also good to know what you guys think about it...

 

[Maro2Bear]

Wow...quite the torty table. Just finished up reading your blog on the build and it's quite the effort! (And cost). It will be interesting to see what your total costs will come to vs a few analog timers. Keep the updates coming.

 

[happyhank]

Thanks! Yes, I'm sure I'll do a post about the cost when it's finished. I think you will be surprised, overall this project it will cost most that a few timers, but the price of electric components in their raw form are pretty cheap. A microcomputer, 5 sensors, and 4 relays came to less than £20, that's not all I need for this but for example, a microcomputer and 4 relays is the equivalent of 4 socket timers if you knew how to build and code it and it would cost less than £5, if not cheaper...

Maybe I'll do a tutorial on how to build your own electronic socket timer???

 

[Maro2Bear]

Thanks! Yes, I'm sure I'll do a post about the cost when it's finished. I think you will be surprised, overall this project it will cost most that a few timers, but the price of electric components in their raw form are pretty cheap. A microcomputer, 5 sensors, and 4 relays came to less than £20, that's not all I need for this but for example, a microcomputer and 4 relays is the equivalent of 4 socket timers if you knew how to build and code it and it would cost less than £5, if not cheaper...

Maybe I'll do a tutorial on how to build your own electronic socket timer???

• Yes...that would be great. How To tutorials and Lessons Learned are always nice. Tks

 

[WithLisa]

Cool! I've heard of people using surveillance cameras and being able to check and regulate the temperature on their phones but it wasn't as complex as your plans.
But I would warmely recommend to make it bigger, 2x4ft is not nearly big enough for an adult Russian.

 

[a5fung]

Did you build your own smart temp & humidity sensor? I've thought about doing that but never got around to it, if you have experience please share! I was thinking if you can place multiple of these sensors throughout the enclosure and have the data sync'ed to an app with historical trends and control it'll be amazing.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Wonderful.

 

[wellington]

Wow, would love to have your know how.

 

[happyhank]

Did you build your own smart temp & humidity sensor? I've thought about doing that but never got around to it, if you have experience please share! I was thinking if you can place multiple of these sensors throughout the enclosure and have the data sync'ed to an app with historical trends and control it'll be amazing.

I will be building my own yes. You should build it yourself! I have no background in electronics, I just got stuck into it and taught myself. I think you'll be surprised how simple is it to build something like that. I've seen people making their own temp/hum sensors and logging the data into a graph online. Look into Arduino microcomputers.

 

[Markw84]

I will be building my own yes. You should build it yourself! I have no background in electronics, I just got stuck into it and taught myself. I think you'll be surprised how simple is it to build something like that. I've seen people making their own temp/hum sensors and logging the data into a graph online. Look into Arduino microcomputers.

A step by step tutorial of how you set one up would be great and very helpful. Although it may be quite simple, to research and find all the explanations of which wire goes where and how to set program parameters would take a long time to find and digest when you have not done it before. Once it was explained how to make a component like this work, it would probably be much easier to then translate that to expanding to a humidity control and light control etc. etc. I would love to see how you do it. THANKS!!!

 

[KevinGG]

Looking forward to seeing it.

 

[happyhank]

A step by step tutorial of how you set one up would be great and very helpful. Although it may be quite simple, to research and find all the explanations of which wire goes where and how to set program parameters would take a long time to find and digest when you have not done it before. Once it was explained how to make a component like this work, it would probably be much easier to then translate that to expanding to a humidity control and light control etc. etc. I would love to see how you do it. THANKS!!!

I've had a few people ask me now. I think I'm going to make a few Youtube tutorials on how to make such a setup. I'll start with making some simple setups. I'll keep you posted on that...

 

[Ramsey]

Nice job on this.

I'm actually working on a very similar and advanced system. We're in the middle of building an enclosure for it, to demo the whole system out. It's running right now in two of our enclosures.

I'll be creating its own thread (and not hijack yours ). So far it has a mobile app and can be fully controlled and monitored remotely.

Nice to know others think the same.

I'm thinking of even marketing this.

 

[Jay Bagley]

Wow. One word comes to mind. Amazing. Nicely done.