I was checking this out and for me personally in my area with a traditional garden I would knowingly have to surround it with a fence, which I assume is common for most people. It would be cool if the farmbot was able to have an add-on or feature that could detect invasive wildlife and have a tool or technique(s) that would scare it/them away. Similar to how a trail cam detects motion, it could go after a deer for example and make a noise and/or have some light effect(s) or squirt water etc. I guess options are limitless. I just think this would be a cool feature and eliminate the need for maintaining fence that could potentially damage the bot and/or take up more yard space.
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Hey @Xfarmer1
thanks for sharing your idea, to keep the FarmBot and its plants safe from animals.
I think this feature would be nice, but maybe not necessary for everyone. So I would not add this feature to the current Farmbot Kit to keep the costs, building time and difficulty for basic users low. Offering this feature in the upcoming online shop as some kind of a mod/add-on would be possible.
Also it would take some time to experiment with different ways of scaring them away.
I am using a Camera with Motion-detection alarm, which can make a noise by itself and sends push messages to my smartphone. But it is not connected to FarmBot in any way.
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It’s not that hard to attach a light and sound box to the system to the electronics. From the web interface you can then add a schedule to trigger the light and sound at certain intervals.
But it depends on what animals you want to deter. Some of them figure out that the deterrent is at regular intervals or not harmful and learn to ignore it.
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I absolutely agree with your take on this Tim. If I were having deer (or other animals: rabbits, squirrels and birds) visit my garden I would be even more concerned about them getting tangled up in the FarmBot hardware even more so worrying about them eating the vegetables. Perhaps a web of deterrents including mesh fencing to the point of building almost a cage around the garden (expensive). Maybe connecting a motion sensor and the movement and lights could come from FarmBot. It has to be able to distinguish animal movements from wind and storm conditions.