Android Central Labs
Android Central Labs is a weekly column devoted to deep dives, experiments, and a focused look into the tech you use. It covers phones, tablets, and everything in between.
Chickens are wonderful, lovable pets. I heartily recommend them to anyone who has space and is allowed to keep them, but they do require a fair bit of work. While they’re certainly capable of taking care of themselves throughout the day — heck, they actually put themselves to bed at sundown — ensuring something doesn’t eat them is practically a full-time job.
In the nearly six years since I’ve started keeping chickens, my flock has grown substantially. What started as three hens turned into 11, and while I’ve lost a few over the years to disease, it’s nearly impossible to resist the urge to get new chicks every spring.
During that time, I’ve discovered many ways to keep my chickens safe and my caretaking job easier, most of which involve smart home devices I’ve either cobbled together or found along the way. Even if you don’t have chickens, some of these ideas might be helpful for your other pets, especially if you’ll be away from home on vacation during the holidays.
Starting the day the automated way
To prevent a predator-caused disaster, chickens have to be locked up at night. When we got our first three hens back in 2019, we kept them in an enclosed run at all times, so keeping the door closed at night wasn’t important unless it was freezing outside.
But as our flock, coop, and run size grew, it made more sense to let them free range during the day. Of course, this introduces a number of potential issues, including waking up at the crack of dawn.
As the sun rises in the morning, my Omlet Automatic Chicken Coop Door opens by itself once the right amount of light hits its sensor. The latest version of the door connects to Wi-Fi and has an app that allows me to see if it’s open or closed, plus remotely open and close it manually if I need to.
I specifically chose the Omlet brand because it not only has a great reputation for build quality and reliability, but I also preferred the design and safety measures built into the product.
Lots of automated chicken coop doors use what I call a guillotine-style store; they open and close vertically, and I can pretty easily imagine one of my hens sticking her head in it at just the wrong moment. Omlet’s door slides side-to-side like a sliding glass door and features pressure-sensitive sensors that ensure errant hens sitting in the doorway don’t get crushed.
The model I have has the option to use batteries or plug into an outlet, but the downside is that you have to choose one or the other. If you plug a plug into it, it bypasses battery power. I wish they would update it with the ability to plug it in and keep batteries as a backup for when power goes out.
You may not have chickens, but it’s likely you might have another pet that needs to go outside from time to time. Whether it’s a cat, dog, bunny, or something else entirely, an automated door like this could be a great solution for when you’re away.
I’ve also got several cameras posted around the backyard, including in the coop and chicken run. This lets me check up on them throughout the day, make sure the door is opened or closed, and keep an eye on their food and water situation.
Smart around the year
One of my all-time favorite smart gadgets for my chicken coop is Blink Outdoor cameras. Blink is notable for its cost and long battery life (up to 2 years on a pair of AA batteries), but I love it specifically for the temperature sensor inside.
Each battery-powered Blink camera has a temperature sensor that you can monitor from the Blink app. Since my chicken coop is, well, outside, it’s important for me to be able to monitor the temperature throughout the year. If it’s getting too hot, I swap out the solid wood coop door for a more ventilated one to allow for additional breeze in the summer.
In the winter, the camera helps me keep track of how cold it is in the coop so I can turn on the heater as needed. I’ve got a ceramic heater designed for chicken coops (it mounts on the wall inside) plugged into a Kasa Matter Smart Plug, so I can turn it on and off remotely via the Google Home app or through voice commands.
It looks like Amazon sells smart heaters that directly connect to Wi-Fi these days, but my solution is quite ideal if you’ve already got the heater and just need a way to remotely control it.
We’ve also got heaters for our waterers hooked up to separate smart plugs since those waterers are in the run, not in the coop. I’ve got another Blink camera mounted in the chicken run that monitors the outdoor temperature and can send me alerts for when it drops below freezing, triggering the chicken waterer heater to turn on.
While I’ve reduced the number of smart light bulbs throughout my home because most of them use PWM dimming, I’ve increased the number of smart appliances and plugs so I can automate and remotely control things to give me and my animals the best life possible.
One of these days, I’ll get the Homey set up and further automate things but, for now, it’s amazing to be able to remotely monitor and manage the coop when I’m out of town for the holidays or on one of the many business trips I take throughout the year.
