Determining Kibble Level Via Time-of-Flight

[WTH] is building an IoT kitty food dispenser. There are a few of these projects floating around that measure out portions very sensibly — some use screws to dispense a set amount of food at a time, some measure the weight of the remaining stockpile. This build is definitely not that. This kitty food monitor uses a time of flight sensor to determine the remaining level of food in a hopper. [WTH]’s feeder lets the cat eat all the grub it wants, then alerts the hooman when kibble levels drop below a certain level.

The project starts with one of those pet food dispensers that consist of a hopper that gravity feeds into the food bowl. As the animal eats that food, more dispenses into the bowl. Attached to the lid is an ESP8266 connected to an Adafruit time of flight sensor. This reports the kibble level in centimeters, which is good enough for [WTH]’s purposes. Sensor data is logged to a Google Drive spreadsheet, published as a graph through M2X (AT&T’s IOT service), and texted to [WTH]’s smart watch via IFTTT.

Look for a plethora of Tweeting, Instagramming, and otherwise automated feeding of the cat overlords right here on Hackaday. Check out automatic cat feeder dispenses noms, wants cheezburger, and a cat feeder made with laminator parts.

Filed under: misc hacks

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