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Comment by ep_jhu | Hacker News Reader

This is great! I've done something similar, but to detect helicopters and tweet them to a local copter spotting group: https://twitter.com/dcskycam/with_replies

I also use the Pi+HQ Cam, but with their wide-angle lens, and I do all the object detection (and heli type classification for a handful of types) on-device using TFLite.

How do you not run up a Rekognition bill?! One of my project goals was to have the total cost be as low as possible, so while I do use AWS for the website hosting (S3+R53+CF) it's $0.60/mo - everything else is on-device. With Rekognition, processing a file every 2 seconds, it would add up!

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Thanks! (this is my project).

Your copter project looks great! I’ll have to check out TFLite!

I’m only running twice a minute and only during daylight hours. These large boats move pretty slow, so it’s not terrible…. At $1 per thousand calls, it’s a little less than a dollar a day.

I would be interested in trying out on device classification at some point both for reducing the cost and more frequent image capture (the boats aren’t that fast but it would be nice to get the “perfect” framing).

Thanks for your comment and thanks again for sharing your project — very cool!

Really cool project. I've lived in DC for a bit and came across Helicopters of DC[1], whom have gamified spotting copters across the city.

The model they use is publicly available, too, to call via API for free: https://universe.roboflow.com/helicoptersofdc/helicopters-of...

Have you thought about collaborating with them on data/models?

[1] https://twitter.com/HelicoptersofDC

Not to hijack the OP, but yes, my Twitter bot actually tweets spots to his bot. My DCSkyCam data this helps train his models, but another objective for me was to learn image ML techniques, so I’m using all my own data/models.

I would love to read or watch any content you have created about this project. It’s literally a goal of mine, to build something similar. I love helicopters and live under a flight path that’s used for by the rescue choppers, and I run outside to watch them every time. I’m going to start collecting ADS-B data also; I can imagine that’s complimentary to your efforts.

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