Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A smart collar for cows

thehustle.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 78 posts

Re: A smart collar for cows

#11

Post by adventured »

tuatoru wrote: post #8
williamtrask wrote: post #3

It’s weird but I get it. We already did fences so why not a collar I guess. Might be more anxiety inducing though. I prefer walls myself over a collar

Cows already obey electric fences which are basically just a piece of string. (When really stressed/agitated they walk right through electric fences, apparently without much additional distress.) This is just a wireless electric fence. Cue joke about the old lady and radio telegraphy[1]. :-) 1. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=no%20cat

I think the parent's premise is that the cows can't see a well defined fenceline with the smart collar, to visually know to stop, whereas they can with an electric fence (or other types of physical fencing). And that lack of visual cue would induce anxiety in the cow, perhaps not being as certain where it can go.

Re: A smart collar for cows

#12

Post by tbabb »

adventured wrote: post #11
tuatoru wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cows already obey electric fences which are basically just a piece of string. (When really stressed/agitated they walk right through electric fences, apparently without much additional distress.) This is just a wireless electric fence. Cue joke about the old lady and radio telegraphy[1]. :-) 1. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=no%20cat

I think the parent's premise is that the cows can't see a well defined fenceline with the smart collar, to visually know to stop, whereas they can with an electric fence (or other types of physical fencing). And that lack of visual cue would induce anxiety in the cow, perhaps not being as certain where it can go.

The article says that there is an audio cue.

The cow will hear a beep long before it gets zapped. It's the same as for invisible fences with pet collars.

Re: A smart collar for cows

#13

Post by saalweachter »

adventured wrote: post #11
tuatoru wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cows already obey electric fences which are basically just a piece of string. (When really stressed/agitated they walk right through electric fences, apparently without much additional distress.) This is just a wireless electric fence. Cue joke about the old lady and radio telegraphy[1]. :-) 1. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=no%20cat

I think the parent's premise is that the cows can't see a well defined fenceline with the smart collar, to visually know to stop, whereas they can with an electric fence (or other types of physical fencing). And that lack of visual cue would induce anxiety in the cow, perhaps not being as certain where it can go.

Re: visual cues, a de-powered electric fence almost works as well as a powered-on fence.

(It doesn't, because cows will reach through and around a fence to get bites of tall grass on the other side, and if it doesn't shock them at that point they'll start pushing through to reach more.)

Re: A smart collar for cows

#14

Post by veb »

This is a pretty awesome New Zealand company, been following them since they first got funding. I love farm tech! Another is OmniEye: https://www.irisdata.co.nz/omnieye I've seen this in person and it's fantastic stuff.

I note in the article they say "Holy cow!" as a play on words I guess, but here in Dunedin we have a milk company called Holy Cow: https://www.holycow.nz/

It's wonderful milk.

Re: A smart collar for cows

#15

Post by ElCapitanMarkla »

veb wrote: post #14

This is a pretty awesome New Zealand company, been following them since they first got funding. I love farm tech! Another is OmniEye: https://www.irisdata.co.nz/omnieye I've seen this in person and it's fantastic stuff. I note in the article they say "Holy cow!" as a play on words I guess, but here in Dunedin we have a milk company called Holy Cow: https://www.holycow.nz/ It's wonderful milk.

Always great to see a company from my city on here. This line on their page always cracks me up “creators of the world’s first sheep facial recognition model”

Re: A smart collar for cows

#18

Post by flyinglizard »

I’ll just add that smart collars and sensors are pretty much the norm on cows, at least in Western Europe (which is generally at the forefront in terms of animal care and food safety regulations).

The novelty here is the remote herdkeeping functions. The limit to adapting such tech is usually collar cost and battery life (the industry usually aims for 5+ years of battery life).

Of course the environment is pretty hostile too. Neck collars get snagged on things, exposed to mud and rain, etc.

Anyway, it’s not like “technology finally makes it to farms”. Dairy cows are the worlds most monitored animals.

Re: A smart collar for cows

#19

Post by mkaic »

looking forward to the birth of a new job title in tandem with this product becoming popular: bovine cybersecurity expert!

in all seriousness though, i'd be surprised if we don't see at least one comical headline in the future about cows being hacked and remote-controlled!

Re: A smart collar for cows

#20

Post by jessaustin »

Cattle destroy everything they can reach that isn't manufactured from steel. We have to build fences over our water tanks to prevent them from destroying automatic water valves. If they can get to e.g. a phone pedestal it is flattened within a week. Properly-built barbed wire fences deter them, but as soon as a post or wire loosens they're going through. Ear tags were a major innovation, in that they are made of plastic, in constant reach of cattle, and typically are only destroyed at a rate (I'm estimating here) of one per year per twenty cattle. I know that collars have been used to e.g. attach bells to cattle, and the pictures at the Halter site seem solidly-constructed, but I do wonder about reliability...

Pastures are most productive when cattle eat the grass in an individual section to a particular minimum height, and then are moved to the next section. Cattle are fairly easily controlled via trivial annoyances (which makes various barbaric methods like hotshots used by some ranchers particularly unethical), so it makes sense that noise/vibration could move them in a particular direction. There would probably be some leakage, since different individuals have different personalities and tolerances. It looks like you could see the animals who escape on the map in the app, so that would be nice.

Since we AI quite a bit the heat detection would be great. I wonder how it works? Maybe the collars communicate their relative positions to each other?

Post reply on HN