Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[Paz]

Ok beeks - I need to get an idea of how many people may or may not be interested in an updated Acoustic Hive Monitor. It will be similar in operation to the Apidictor but with several fundamental differences. In order to make a few decisions on components and costs etc, it would be useful if anyone interested or otherwise could help with a poll. First of all I've never tried arranging a poll before, so if it all goes pear shaped I apologise and I'll have another go. I'll let the poll run for 10 days to gauge the level of interest and then see where we go from there.

Basically there will be four options:

1. A kit of parts for self build.
2. A preassembled and tested printed circuit board.
3. Plans only you do all the sourcing of components.
4. Not interested at all.

Just as a starter, I will guess some likely prices here, they will be very much approximate at this stage but it might get the debate started.

Let's say:

Option 1. £10 to £15
Option 2. £15 to £25
Option 3. Free downladable pdf file.
Option 4. No action required.

Please be as honest as you can. If you all think it is too expensive or none of you are interested then please let me know. I don't want to waste my time or yours with any more polls.

Paz

[biobee]

I'm up for it - I used to build transistor radios in my bedroom when I was 12, so I know which end of a soldering iron gets hot... yes, I was an early geek.

And I want the app version for my iPod!

[Paz]

Thanks for the support Phil.
Interestingly enough, I know / work with an audio consultant and he has several different apps on his iphone and at least one of them can do some quite useful spectral analysis of audio data. The difficult bit seems to be getting the results off of the iphone and onto something useful like a pc where the data can be further analysed.
As a further aside we also use 'other' software packages that run on standard 'Windoze' platforms and that will take a signal direct from a microphone record it (various different file types supported) and then carry out some very impressive and complicated analyses. So I'm sure this method could also be used. However, as is often the case with software packages, you really need to part know the answer before you start and if you happen to be a professor of difficult sums then that is useful too.

Paz

[Brosville]

Hope it'll run on Ubuntu..... no longer have a Windoze machine!

[Paz]

Well the poll has now run for 10 days and the results are summarised as follows:
The majority of respondents (45%) would go for a pre-assembled and tested pcb. That's not too surprising, not everyone is into electronics and many would want to use the device rather than build it, so no problem here.
A kit of parts was favoured by 27% which was equalled by those who are not interested at all, also at 27%.
Plans and drawings polled 0%, nil, nada. Now that did suprise me - something for free and no interest!
I guess it really confirms what I was suggesting in one of my earlier postings on this thread - there isn't much of a market for these devices but there does seem to be some latent interest in using them. I am a little suprised though, considering the number of users of this forum (however many that is?) that there wasn't more response to the poll.
On the basis of the poll results, the plan is this:
I am approximately half way through the first prototype and I need to complete this phase in order to be certain that the unit works as intended and is reliable enough for anyone else to use. Once that is complete and tested I will build a further one or two units which will require field testing. This will not only prove the idea is sound but will also elicit first hand user feedback and may result in some minor changes.
I don't want to enter a prolonged development phase here as the level of interest won't justify the effort, but when reasonably happy that those units work as intended, then the kits and pre-assembled units will follow. The plan here is that people will use and play with them to discover for themselves what can / can't be done with these units. I'm sure that there are plenty of inventive beeks out there who can find other ways of using this unit to good effect.
I'm not sure of the overall time scale for all of this, as field testing will need to be carried out during the active season I guess, although some measurements may still be possible outside of this.
Although there was no interest in the plans and drawings, I still have to document the project for my own purposes and this will be made available as a pdf file free of charge. The documentation is more advanced than the first prototype at the moment and I want it all to come together at the same time rather than piecemeal.
Watch this space, I will post updates as and when I can but at the moment I have quite a few conflicting interests which is slowing progress somewhat.

Paz

[bilbehr]

I'm in, for the completed product. Just got the poll today.

Bill