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Comment by SyzygyRhythm | Hacker News Reader

Neat! Not to toot my own horn too much, but I put together a similar project for my cat's exercise wheel. Hackaday featured it a while back: https://hackaday.com/2023/04/02/spy-on-your-cat-to-make-sure...

His exercise routine is somewhat variable but he usually goes for a short jog a few dozen times a day. Most often at 5 am, for whatever reason.

Since the article I also built and hooked up a treat dispenser for extra motivation.

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> Most often at 5 am, for whatever reason.

Cats are crepuscular animals. They are "programed" do start at 5 AM, hunt, and go back to sleep until afternoon. Living in homes tweaked them a little, but the 5 AM thing is still strong in a lot of them (mine included).

https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/cat-keeping-you...

> Sorry, you have been blocked

> You are unable to access animalhumanesociety.org

Is this because I laughed when our family dog fell down the stairs when I was six years old?

That would be an amazing and creepy track record of the website :)

> crepuscular

So not specifically at 5AM, but around twilight. In my area, and for my cats, that changes a lot between summer and winter.

Same for my chickens, which is why "automatic chicken doors" are difficult/impossible around here: It'd need to calculate sunset and sundown, and then also consider clouds and trees: in winter the sun sets around 16:30, but the low angle makes sunlight more blocked by clouds, particles and trees and such. My chickens often decide its bedtime before 16:00 already.

Sounds like something that could be solved by an ambient light sensor.

Are you crazy? Just get an LLM into the decision loop and you can obviate the need to iterate and test with a lazy human brain and instead waste a fabulous amount of energy, all while setting your project up to get some fat VC …

Light dependent resistor, opamp and relay. No digital components required.

When I did it, I closed the door at nautical twilight. The key is that you need to close the door after the chickens roost but before the nocturnal predators come out.

Yes. We used to have these. And i turned it to most conservative twighlight.

It worked most of the times, until in winter, twice, some chickens were locked out. First time I saw it in time. Second time I only found feathers the next morning and one chicken less in the coop.

While on an especially cloudy (snowy) evenings, the door would be open when it was almost pitch dark out there and I caught a fox near already.

"The Real World" is just messier than a mathematical representation can be. I use https://sunclock.net/ and have built a watchface like that for my fitbit like that. The mathematical model is perfect as guidance. But it's not reliable enough to bet the lives of my chickens on it.

The automation features in Apple Home can be set to do things at sunrise or sunset. These track down to the minute the sunrise/sunset times from the weather app data for your location.

Your best bet, if you really want an automatic chicken door, is to get a dumb one that just opens when powered on and closes (via springs) when powered off, then plug it into a smart outlet automated to turn on at sunrise and off at sunset.

I wonder if a motion sensor detector would make the last mile of it more precise, as soon as a chicken wakes up just open the doors idk (if on timeframe)

For that you need wifi and/or power. I have neither at the coop.

Most commercial automated doors work on solar + a battery.

Automated chicken door isn't too difficult; remember the goal is to allow them to come in or out, not to make them do so or wake them up, though they do get conditioned to the door opening.

I made mine to open at actual sunrise (except in the summer; I keep them in until 7am because the coop is cooler, and if let out they can get loud before my neighbors wake up) and close it at actual sunset (not civil twilight, which most people think of when you say "sunset"). Generally the door is open well after the birds are in bed, which is fine.

Aside from some dumb birds when they were younger, I've never had one locked out (and those dumb ones were trying to nest in silly places, and weren't going you come in no matter when I closed the door).

yea. I have some of these dumb ones too. After a few days I found one crawled into the pizza oven to sleep.

The site runs like a dog.

When I had cats, I couldn't leave the bedroom door wide open, because that would give them space to come running into the room and jump onto the bed (sometimes on my face) at early hours.

This is one of the great pleasures of cat ownership!

And here I can't keep them closed because they'll stick their paws under to get a grip with their claws and bang them for funsies

I recommend getting a door sweep. Although my cat got pissed we installed it and started meowing in protest! Luckily that only lasted a few days

> Most often at 5 am, for whatever reason.

It gives him time to run, shower, and drive to work

You forgot the mandatory meditation session!

And check the @#$% calendar in MS Teams or Outlook.

To complement the treat rewards, can you get the cat wheel to power a small pump to provide a water fountain for the cat?

Assuming the treats are dispensed after a variable amount of distance is travelled on the cat wheel (to turn your cat into a 'gambler' of sorts, thereby keeping your cat on the wheel in the hope of a treat), a water fountain with 'fresh' water should enable your cat to avoid dehydration (due to the excessive exercise, chasing treats).

Harvested energy could also power a fan for the wheel and/or a heat pad in your cat's bed.

With these improvements, those short jogs will inevitably become marathon runs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

Have you seen evidence he understands that running causes treats to be dispensed and is running more as a result?

Always hard to be sure, but I think so, yes. The dispenser is only triggered when he runs either fast enough or long enough (I forget the thresholds, but it's something like 10 mph or 10 seconds). Sometimes he'll run and not quite trigger the threshold, but wait next to the dispenser for the treat to come out. When it doesn't, he'll go back to the wheel and run/walk for a much longer period.

In the Vietnamese zodiac, the time from 5 AM to 7 AM is the Cat hour (it's rabbit in Chinese)

As a former rabbit owner I can attest that around 5 am was when the theater would open, and the first thing on was always this improvised bit called “abused animal trapped forever in a cage”. Lots of special effects too, there was gnawing and rattling and stomping. When I did open the cage door, she would jump out, take a look around and happily go back to napping right there in front of the cage.

I love that two people independently arrived at "my pet uses a wheel, therefore I need telemetry"

> Most often at 5 am, for whatever reason.

Poo time?

Which cat wheel is that?

OneFastCat. Very pleased with it, though it can be somewhat loud when I'm trying to sleep and the house is otherwise silent!

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