So, I built this chicken coop:
While this coop is pretty deluxe, it has no automation at all. I was going to add an automatic roost door, but we are departing Rocky Valley Estates to Leviathan Hall soon. Coop #2 will have to be the one that gets the fancy equipment.
What I needed was a monitor to remind me to close the roost door. I didn’t want a reminder every single day ala a calendar event. I just wanted a reminder if it was getting dark and the coop door had not been closed.
There are fancy Arduino/Raspberry Pi solutions, but I wasn’t up to the complexity. I opted for an Amazon Dash button after seeing Ted Benson’s Amazon Button Hack.
My solution is to use a Python program to monitor for the Amazon Dash button push. Once a day, my program starts up, looks up the time for sunset and dusk for that day (thanks, Astral). It then starts monitoring for the button push.
The Dash button is hanging by the roost door. When I close the door, I push the button. Assuming I beat the dusk deadline, the program records my button push and shuts down for the day. If dusk passes and the button is not pushed, the programs send a text to my phone via my Gmail account.
I’m using Github for the code- version control and code hosting: ChickenDash