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A smart collar for cows

thehustle.co

71–78 of 78 posts

Re: A smart collar for cows

#74
post #68

So I actually started a business back in 2012 specifically for animal tracking on farms (cows and sheep). We tried BLE, image detection, loads of different approaches which worked at "prototype scale", the problems were: 1. Farms are geographically big, tend to have hills and metal stuff which bounces signals all over the place. LoRa is slow, BLE has a short area. If you're close enough to connect with the cow, you m…

A cow only costs $100?

A one day old calf that may or may not survive, can go as low as 50 bucks.

But no, typically a cow costs on the order of a thousand dollars.

Re: A smart collar for cows

#76

So I actually started a business back in 2012 specifically for animal tracking on farms (cows and sheep). We tried BLE, image detection, loads of different approaches which worked at "prototype scale", the problems were: 1. Farms are geographically big, tend to have hills and metal stuff which bounces signals all over the place. LoRa is slow, BLE has a short area. If you're close enough to connect with the cow, you m…

Did you look at drones recently? I ran into the same problems as you years ago on an outdoor monitoring PoC with stations spread over several dozen miles (it was cheaper to pay an intern than to deploy & upkeep the tech). For farming use cases, though, drones + CV at least seem to be a pretty decent solution to some problems.

Yeah, we've tried drones. Problem is identification. E-tags on animals require a proximity of below a metre and stock are jittery around flying robots.

Like you said, it's actually easier to get a quadbike and go look.

Re: A smart collar for cows

#77
post #74
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cow only costs $100?

A one day old calf that may or may not survive, can go as low as 50 bucks. But no, typically a cow costs on the order of a thousand dollars.

Exactly, part of the problem, tags go on at birth, so at what point do you stick the expensive tags on?

Re: A smart collar for cows

#78
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A one day old calf that may or may not survive, can go as low as 50 bucks. But no, typically a cow costs on the order of a thousand dollars.

Exactly, part of the problem, tags go on at birth, so at what point do you stick the expensive tags on?

Tags do not go on at birth. The mother cows have their calves and then much later when the rancher rounds them up the calves tend to stick by their mothers so we know what calf belongs to what cow.
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