It’s refreshing to see how beacons and sensors are evolving in market sectors that are mostly invisible to the general public, but have far-reaching impact on specialized industries. And one such application that we love here at Beacon Blog is the creation of Moocall.
Moocall noninvasively hooks onto the tail of a pregnant cow (unlike more invasive cow birthing monitors) and sends a text message to the farmer when the cow’s about an hour away from giving birth. It was designed to free farmers from keeping vigil over pregnant cows and to help increase live births and farm profitability. The device, which the company says can be shared among 50 to 60 cows, uses 3-D motion sensors, algorithms, and an embedded roaming M2M SIM card that claims it can pick up even weak network signals.
After losing a heifer and her calf back in 2010, Niall Austin, one of the founders of Moocall, came up with the idea of using sensors to monitor births and alert farmers when cows are in labor.
“The heifer was calving outdoors, unfortunately the calf died, and the heifer was paralysed and ended up being put down. There was no system available that would work outdoors as well as indoors. It was a very big loss to us.”
Having realised this was a common problem, Niall researched to see if a solution could be worked out. And thus, Moocall was born. Getting the product to market has taken 3 years and a significant capital investment.
Moocall was launched commercially in January 2015 and since then thousands of units have been sold and the general reaction from customers has been phenomenal. We reckon this fantastic gadget will have far-reaching impact on farmers of the world.
For further information visit : Moocall