One head over the tipping floor: wrong items in each load, pile hot spots and loader near misses
Software: $119 per hall per month
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How it fits together
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01
The whole RecycleYard
One Pi 5 with an AI chip in a head over the tipping floor looks at every load with a colour camera and at every pile with a thermal camera: it flags wrong items with a photo and turns the bay light red, warns when a pile keeps getting hotter, and chimes the loader driver's TruckTag when someone is close behind.
02Brain
Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + AI HAT+ (RecycleYard head)
The brain: it runs the recycleyard-head program
03
Colour camera (wide)
Sees every load as it is tipped, the three bays, the loaders and people on foot
Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + AI HAT+ (RecycleYard head) · CSI-2 ribbon (camera port 0) · 30 fps video, 12 MP stills of each tip
04
Thermal camera behind a film window
Measures the temperature of every pile, 160 by 120 points, through a cheap swappable film
Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + AI HAT+ (RecycleYard head) · SPI video (VoSPI) + I²C control on the GPIO header · Radiometric thermal frames, 9 per second
05
AI chip (Hailo-8)
Finds wrong items (batteries, gas bottles, bagged waste, plastic film), people and loaders in the colour video
Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + AI HAT+ (RecycleYard head) · PCIe (ribbon to the Pi) · Detections per frame
06
BayLight on each push wall
Glows green (tip here), amber (wait) or red (load held for a check) so the driver knows where to tip
XIAO ESP32-C6 · Wi-Fi (MQTT) from the hall access point · Bay colour commands
07
TruckTag in each loader cab
Logs impacts, flashes and chimes when the head sees a person behind a reversing loader, and runs the pre-shift check
XIAO ESP32-C6 · Wi-Fi (MQTT) from the hall access point · Impacts, check results and chime commands
08
Fire-panel relay
Closes a supervisory contact on the fire panel when a hot spot keeps growing (never starts suppression)
Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + AI HAT+ (RecycleYard head) · GPIO through a transistor · One on/off signal
09
PoE+ splitter
Takes power and network from one cable down the column
Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + AI HAT+ (RecycleYard head) · Ethernet + USB-C 5 V 5 A · Power and network
10
All connected
8 key parts, one program, and your phone
What it is
A colour and thermal camera head over the tipping floor with one brain that does the load-check, pile-heat and loader jobs for a waste site.
What it does
Who it's for
Waste transfer stations, small MRFs, skip-hire yards and household recycling centres.
How the parts connect
Every part, what links it to the brain, and how the data reaches your phone. A solid line is a cable; a dashed line is a radio link.
The program
while True:
rgb, heat = cam0.capture(), lepton.frame() # CM3 Wide + Lepton 3.5
dets = tracker.update(hailo.detect(rgb))
for tip in tips.new(dets): # a truck is tipping
bad = contaminants(tip.photo, rules[tip.bay])
app.log('load', tip.ticket, tip.bay, bad, tip.photo)
if banned(bad): mqtt.publish(f'bay/{tip.bay}/light', 'RED')
spots = hotspots.update(heat, mask=dets.vehicles) # EmberWatch rules
for s in spots.growing(min_rise_c=8, mins=10):
app.alert('hot spot', s.bay, s.temp_c, heat.snap()); relay.on()
for loader, person in near_misses(dets, gap_m=3):
mqtt.publish(f'tag/{loader}/chime', 'BEEP')
app.log('near_miss', loader, person.zone, rgb.clip(10))
for tag in tags.events(): app.log(tag.kind, tag) # impacts, pre-shift checksTo your phone
Site manager's and shift lead's phone browser, weighbridge office PC
One screen for each job RecycleYard does.
Load checksA truck tips into the cardboard bay. The head photographs the load, spots a gas bottle and turns that bay's light red.
Pile heatThe thermal camera watches every pile. In bay 3 one spot keeps getting hotter, so on-call is alerted and the fire panel is told.
Near missesA worker on foot walks behind a reversing loader. The head sees it, and the driver's cab tag flashes and chimes.
App screens with sample data. The interface is in development.
| Load checks | Ticket 4471, bay 2 cardboard: 2 bags of food waste, 1 vape; photo saved | Each tip |
|---|---|---|
| Banned items | Gas bottle in bay 1, 11:20, bay light red | At once, with photo |
| Pile heat | Bay 3 spot 61 °C, up 14 °C in 12 min | Live, alert when growing |
| Near misses | L-1 reversing, person 2.1 m behind, bay 1, 09:12 | Each event, with a 10 s clip |
| Impacts and checks | L-2: 2.8 g at 14:05; pre-shift check 05:58 | Each impact and each shift |
No face recognition; people are dots on the hall map; load photos are kept 30 days for customer back-charges and clips 7 days unless flagged; signs at the weighbridge.
CAD design · Design rev A, 27 Oct 2026: CAD, fit checks and assembled 3D model done; not built
| AI processor | Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 26 TOPS (Hailo-8) in the head |
|---|---|
| Sensors | Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 Wide (loads, bays, loaders, people) · FLIR Lepton 3.5 radiometric thermal camera behind a 0.5 mm HDPE film · TruckTag: LIS3DH impact sensor, 8-LED bar, chime and button on each loader · BayLight: two 8-LED bars under a clear lid on each push wall |
| Connectivity | Ethernet over PoE+ to the site network · Wi-Fi to TruckTags and BayLights · One dry contact to the fire panel (supervisory) |
| Power | One PoE+ cable to the head, about 11.8 W (est.); TruckTag about 0.2 W from the loader; BayLight about 0.35 W from the hall 24 V (est.) |
| Enclosure | Black ASA head with a dust and rain visor on a 20° column saddle; black and yellow PETG TruckTag; black PETG BayLight with a clear lid |
| Dimensions | Head 180 x 130 x 89 mm (visor 175 mm deep); TruckTag 110 x 70 x 37 mm; BayLight 150 x 60 x 33 mm |
| Weight | ~1.4 kg head and saddle (est.) |
| Ingress rating | Designed for IP65 (target, not tested) |
| Loads | Photo of every tip, wrong items per bay, ticket link |
|---|---|
| Piles | Surface heat, growing spots, fire-panel contact |
| Loaders | Near misses with clips, impacts, pre-shift check, cab chime |
| Bays | Green / amber / red BayLight |
| Mount | Ø100-140 mm column, 5-7 m up, two bands |
|---|---|
| Coverage | About 3 bays, 25 x 20 m, from 6 m (est.) |
| Power | One PoE+ (802.3at) cable |
| Photos | Load photos 30 days, clips 7 days |
Targets for production units; they may change during development.
Hardware: $2,490 per hall (head, saddle, 3 TruckTags, 3 BayLights)
Software: $119 per hall per month
Target pricing. Extra TruckTags or BayLights $149 each. Bought separately for one hall, WasteSort ($399 + $79/mo), EmberWatch with one camera ($3,490 + $39/mo) and ForkGuard for 3 loaders ($2,397 + $45/mo) add up to $6,286 + $163/month. Parts cost about $950 per hall at qty 10 (est.). Fire-panel wiring is quoted by your fire-alarm contractor.
$2,490
One tipping hall, every job.
$4,490
Two heads for a long hall or an outdoor yard.
Custom
Councils and waste firms with many sites.
Indicative launch pricing in USD, excluding taxes and shipping. Final pricing is confirmed before any balance is charged.
Community
RecycleYard is in development. Rate the idea, tell us what to change about the features, specs or price, and we'll build it with your feedback.
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From the product lab · ideation phase
It does the job of WasteSort (wrong items with photo evidence and a light that shows where to put things), EmberWatch (pile hot spots) and ForkGuard (near misses, impacts and pre-shift checks). Bought separately for one hall with three loaders those are $6,286 + $163 a month; RecycleYard is $2,490 + $119 a month.
No. It measures surface heat and warns early; it is not a listed fire detector and never starts suppression. The contact to the fire panel is a supervisory signal. Your own detection, fire plan and fire-alarm contractor stay in charge.
No. A camera sees the top of a load as it is tipped; heavy items sink. Treat its counts as a floor with photos for back-charges, not a full audit.
No. The chime in the cab is a driver aid that can be late or miss people. Walkways, exclusion zones and training stay your controls; RecycleYard shows where near misses happen so you can fix them.
No. It is a concept in design. Specifications are targets. We are not taking orders, reservations or deposits, and it has no ship date yet.
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