VisionDesign complete (stages 1-6, rev A), not built, not validated

CalveClock

The calving camera you already have, made to time every labour

An Edge Hub reads the farm's own barn cameras, adds a second view on the opposite corner of each calving pen, starts a clock when the water bag or feet show, and rings a bell by the bed when a cow or heifer goes past the farmer's own limit with no calf, or a newborn calf has not moved.

Who buys it: Spring-calving beef and dairy farms with 40-300 cows that already check calving pens at night, on foot or through a phone camera.
Why it pays: About 22-41 hours of night walk-outs saved per season (est.), and the checks that remain are the ones that matter. Saved calves alone are small: about 0.2 a season per 100 cows, 0.5 per 100 heifers (est.), so it is priced on top of cameras the farm already owns.
Target price: $449 hub + $129 per PenEye + $49 BarnBell + $99 per season (target)
First-minute wow: The bell by the bed at 02:05: 'Pen 2: heifer, feet showing 60 min, no calf', with the clip from the moment the water bag appeared.

See the CAD design Concept page

CalveClock concept: the idea and where each part goes — The concept. The CAD design is below, under Printable CAD.

What the research found

And how this design answers it

Every camera kit shows the cow but nobody times the labour → a clock per pen from the first water bag or feet, against the extension rule (30 min cows, 60 min heifers)
One camera misses the first sign in most positions (the CAD view report: 43-44% seen from one corner, 29-38% from overhead) → a PenEye on the opposite corner post lifts it to 86-87%, and the hub fuses all cameras per pen
When no camera can see her rear the system says so (NO VIEW) instead of staying quiet
AI calving systems sell as new hardware at about CAD $2,400 for 4 cameras → CalveClock reads the cameras the farmer already bought
Phones on silent miss alerts → a BarnBell with a rising tone and one I'M GOING button that silences every bell and tells the others who went
Tail raising predicts calving well only 1-2 hours ahead → we sell the stage-2 clock, not a 'calving tonight' promise

Use case

A heifer with a leg back at 01:40

FarmerVetCalveClock hubPenEye

01Trigger: the opposite-corner PenEye sees a water bag behind the lying heifer at 01:05; the farm's own camera faces her head and sees nothing
02Detect: the hub starts the pen 2 clock and saves a clip; the bell's ring counts the minutes
03Alert: at 02:05, 60 minutes with no calf, the bell by the bed rings and the phone gets the clip
04Action: the farmer presses I'M GOING, finds a leg back and calls the vet with the times and the clip

Outcome: Help arrives at about 1 hour into stage 2 instead of about 2 hours at the next walk-out (est.)

How it works

Architecture

01
Sense: the farm's own RTSP cameras plus a PoE PenEye (Camera Module 3 Wide NoIR, 850 nm IR) on the opposite corner post
02
Decide: Edge Hub (Pi 5 + Hailo-8) runs cow pose and a stage-2 sign classifier at 2 fps per pen and fuses every camera that sees the pen
03
Send: MQTT on the farm LAN to the bedside bells; push and clips to the phone when the internet is up
04
Tell: bell ring and tone, phone alert with the clip, and a calving log per cow

Hardware

Real parts, buyable today

Bill of materials: about $327 hub, $100 per PenEye and $39 per BarnBell at qty 1 (est.); the farm's own cameras and PoE switch are not included.

Block	Part	Why this part
Hub	Raspberry Pi 5 4GB + AI HAT+ 26 TOPS (Hailo-8)	Reads up to 8 pens at 2 fps at about 13% NPU load (est.)
Pen camera	Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W + Camera Module 3 Wide NoIR	1080p H.264 to the hub; 9-12 px per calf hoof from the corner
Night light	2 x OSRAM SFH 4715AS 850 nm on 1 A drivers	Only on when dark; 6.5 W at night within PoE
Power	802.3af PoE splitter to 5 V	One Ethernet cable to the post, no mains in the pen
Bedside bell	XIAO ESP32-C3 + NeoPixel Ring 12 + piezo + 18650	Rings through a power cut; one button for I'M GOING

Mechanical

Printable CAD

5 parts, generated from code and checked as closed solids. Pick a part to inspect it, or download the STL files to print.

See the CAD parts render

CalveClock printable parts, rendered from the CAD — Render of the printable parts from the actual CAD. Not yet printed or photographed.

Loading the CAD…

Real CAD · drag to rotate · scroll to zoomReal CAD · swipe sideways

Open risks we are working on

Night accuracy of the stage-2 sign classifier in IR, with straw and wet coats, is unproven; alerts stay off until clips from 3 farms pass (test T1)
False 'over limit' alarms would teach farmers to ignore the bell; the target is under 1 per 10 calvings (est.)
Lely's Zeta ceiling camera does the same and is due in the UK in 2026; BETSY and Nikon already sell AI calving cameras; Moocall could add a timer
Saved calves alone pay little (about $150-450 per 100 cows a season, est.); the case rests on sleep and labour, which needs farmer interviews (gate G1)
Not every barn camera kit gives an RTSP stream (gate G2), and group pens with two cows need tracking (rev B)

Design stage only: nothing on this page is for sale. Specifications and prices are targets.