Using an Parallax ultrasonic sensor, an Arduino and a computer this Ultrasonic Cat Water Dish Monitor project will allow you to monitor the cat dish level from anywhere. 🙂 I think a cool upgrade would be monitoring and record the time and frequency of usage and temperature. It would be cool to see an increase of water drinks as the temperature in the house got warmer. Have a look at this page for the current water level.
"Alright, so I’ve had this done for a little while – all I had to do was flip the switch on it. So here is the current setup:
- Arduino waits for serial communication from computer connected by USB. Upon request from the computer, it will take a water level reading and send it back.
- The computer, an NSLU2 reflashed with Debian, sends a request every hour at “0″ minute for the current water level. It takes that level and creates a text file, the text file is then uploaded to the hosted web server by way of the “scp” command.
- The web server runs a script every hour on the “1″ minute to read the uploaded text file and update the index.html file at www root."
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That’s a neat application, but I wonder how cats would react to the ultrasonic “chirp” if they were present when the level was being checked. I haven’t been able to get a good answer as to how high a frequency cats can hear, though I checked around a while back.
I’ve got one cat who hides when he heard wind chimes, but I’m not certain if he’s bothered by the fundamental or harmonic frequencies.
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Yeah I tested that before I put it all together, she either can’t hear it at all or just doesn’t care. I’m leaning towards “can’t hear nothin” because she is a pretty curious cat and would have chewed it up by now if it annoyed her.
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Very cool, but…..WHY?
Please don’t say “because I/he/we can” Give a real reason.
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Just for fun.