Nah, it’s not the typical birdhouse you see around!
Albert Raven has just launched a new Kickstarter campaign dubbed ‘Birdhouse: An Internet-of-Things work of art’. As the name suggests, it’s an IoT-based project that is as interesting as it sounds. But, there is a catch: the project does not involve the participation of any real bird like you may expect. But, there is a virtual bird, that you cannot see, moving from one birdhouse to another.
The users have no say in deciding the movement pattern of the bird, however, there is a website with a live map that keeps track of all the birdhouses across the globe along with the current location of the bird.
Because the Birdhouses are connected to the internet, a lot of information is available to the bird, for instance about weather conditions. The bird can decide to fly to where it’s warm, or where there’s daylight.
In simple words, you don’t get to decide when and where the bird flies. All you can do is sit idle and wait till the bird decides to visit your birdhouse. However, there is a button on the birdhouse which lets you attract the attention of the bird if pressed. But then again, it’s always up to the bird to decide whether or not to visit your birdhouse.
A 5V micro USB cable with 100-240V adapter is included in the package to power up the Birdhouse. For the device to work, you’ll, of course, need a working WiFi connection to establish the connection with other birdhouses.
Bird will automatically visit the Birdhouse a number of times a day and stay there for a couple of minutes.You can call the bird by touching the stick of the Birdhouse. But remember: Bird decides where it flies to next. The Birdhouses are handbuilt, no two are exactly the same. Its wooden roof is either birch (lightbrown), walnut (darkbrown) or black.
The Birdhouse: An Internet-of-Things work of art is available to back on Kickstarter with early bird pledges starting from €325. The product is estimated to start shipping to the early backers sometime during April 2018.
[Source]
