Hello all,
Having read other threads I am not coming in asking if you can tell me what final project I should do. One of the standards for our University is that the item you are designing for your final project can not be commercially available (you can't already buy it). One of my hobbies is rescuing pet reptiles that have not been well cared for. Different reptiles require different environmental conditions within their enclosures (i.e. basking platform temp/humidity, overall enclosure temp/humidity, etc.) for optimum health. I was thinking of creating a wireless mesh network using the zigbee protocol to manage the environmental conditions within the enclosures (multiple enclosures). I figured if it worked on a small scale for me with 8 enclosures that it might be something a zoo could possibly use. I know I use individual enclosures for different types of reptiles depending on what species the pet store/ vet askes me to take in, and it would be nice to be able to monitor, or even change the conditions within each enclosure from a central point without installing cables to every sensor/heater/fogger/fan/light that is needed. The idea here is I could place a low power zigbee transceiver with the appropriate sensor atached where needed within the enclosure and monitor the various conditions on a PC, or maybe even just an LCD. I have searched the web (google, bing, etc.) and have not been able to locate anything like this. Does anybody know if there is something like this that is already commercially available? Hope not as it seems like it would be a fun project.
Having read other threads I am not coming in asking if you can tell me what final project I should do. One of the standards for our University is that the item you are designing for your final project can not be commercially available (you can't already buy it). One of my hobbies is rescuing pet reptiles that have not been well cared for. Different reptiles require different environmental conditions within their enclosures (i.e. basking platform temp/humidity, overall enclosure temp/humidity, etc.) for optimum health. I was thinking of creating a wireless mesh network using the zigbee protocol to manage the environmental conditions within the enclosures (multiple enclosures). I figured if it worked on a small scale for me with 8 enclosures that it might be something a zoo could possibly use. I know I use individual enclosures for different types of reptiles depending on what species the pet store/ vet askes me to take in, and it would be nice to be able to monitor, or even change the conditions within each enclosure from a central point without installing cables to every sensor/heater/fogger/fan/light that is needed. The idea here is I could place a low power zigbee transceiver with the appropriate sensor atached where needed within the enclosure and monitor the various conditions on a PC, or maybe even just an LCD. I have searched the web (google, bing, etc.) and have not been able to locate anything like this. Does anybody know if there is something like this that is already commercially available? Hope not as it seems like it would be a fun project.