

Arduino-Based Outdoor People Counter - matell
https://github.com/petervojtek/diy/wiki/Arduino-based-Outdoor-People-Counter

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danpat
Nice project, and will probably work great for short-term studies, but you'll
want to improve the battery life and work hard on weatherproofing if it's to
be used in the field for anything other than temporary projects.

I used to work for a company ([http://www.trafx.net/](http://www.trafx.net/))
that specialized in making a device just like this, but using a passive
infrared sensor instead of the ultrasonic sensor. The _number one_ field
problem is moisture damage to the electronics. Condensation, UV failure of
seals, ice expansion through seals, etc. The list goes on. Based on the moss
on the trees in the photo, it looks like a pretty wet environment, so you'll
want to double-triple-quadruple seal that case and sensors before you think
about leaving it outside for more than a month or two.

For comparison, we had some customers that had had our units in continuous use
for nearly 10 years. Battery life on 3xAA alkaline was about 60 months using
the IR sensor. The Arduino+ultrasonic sensor is a pretty power hungry
combination for a battery-operated unit that might need to operate for
extended periods. 5 days is a pretty short study period, a lot of the useful
statistics that land management organizations want to see will span multiple
years.

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matell
thanks for feedback. you are right, the battery life is poor.

the problem with the battery life is not the arduino itself - a bare atmega328
(the hearth of arduino) will live for several months from a 3AA battery.

the real power consumption comes from the ultrasonic sensor - I tried to
completely cut it off from power between measurements, however the ultrasonic
circuit is not recovering properly from these on&offs (I was looking for help
on arduino forums but without response:
[http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=216079.msg1589123#ms...](http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=216079.msg1589123#msg1589123))

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alexisnorman
This may be a dumb question, but isn't this more of a "movement detection
counter" rather than a "people counter"? Nothing sets apart an animal vs a
human triggering this, right? I was imagining a camera with CV processing the
images or something.

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sc00ter
The ultrasonic transducer probably does a pretty good job of warding off
animals. Nothing quite like disturbing the wildlife while counting how many
people are disturbing the wildlife.

~~~
mindslight
But arduino. Arduino arduino, arduino. Don't you know it can last five days?!

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vog
From the description:

 _> Video [here]. Photos are [here]._

Sorry for the nitpicking, but I think you should avoid "here" links and use
descriptive link names instead.
([http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere](http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere))

~~~
vog
Wow. So many downvotes. I never thought that constructive criticism on a
product's presentation is undesired on HN. What's wrong with my comment?

