From cage to cloud : building a full-stack IoT solution for the continuous monitoring of small terrarium pets

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the utilization of IoT technologies in the context of pet care. Specifically, smaller pets living in cages and terrariums such as pet hedgehogs. Aim of the thesis is to explore the current IoT solutions in pet care and fill the gaps in existing research by developing a full-stack system. The system gathers data from the environment and the overall abilities on the given tasks are evaluated. Data gathered by the system is temperature, humidity, luminosity and pressure. The frontend implementation of the system allows the pet owner to react to changes in conditions accordingly to ensure the pet’s safety and wellbeing.

Thesis covers the basics of IoT in general and in the context of pet care. In addition, the needs of a pet hedgehogs are researched to create a solid base for the system to be built. The actual implementation of the system is covered thoroughly, and technical details of each component are explained, and their choices are justified. Main components used were NodeMCU ESP8266 microcontroller, sensors for data gathering and Azure as cloud service provider to host the database and frontend required by the system.

The results showed that the system built in this thesis is efficient and reliable, indicating that it can be used for its intended purpose. The choice of technologies makes the system easily scalable, and the architectural choices allow seamless expansion of the system providing a solid base for future research.