←back to thread

236 points montycompostco | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source

I'm from a compost tech startup (Monty Compost Co.) focused on making composting more efficient for households and industrial facilities. But our tech isn’t just for composting— it’s a versatile system that can be repurposed for a wide range of applications. So, we’ve made it open source for anyone to experiment with!

One of the exciting things about our open-source compost monitoring tech is its flexibility. You can connect it to platforms like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, or other single-board computers to expand its capabilities or integrate it into your own projects.

Our system includes sensors for: * Gas composition * Temperature * Moisture levels * Air pressure

All data can be exported as CSV files for analysis. While it’s originally built for monitoring compost, the hardware and data capabilities are versatile and could be repurposed for other applications (IoT, environmental monitoring, etc.)

Hacker’s Guide to Monty Tech: https://github.com/gtls64/MontyHome-Hackers-Guide

If you’re into data, sensors, or creative tech hacks, we’d love for you to check it out and let us know what you build!

Show context
lofaszvanitt ◴[] No.42203208[source]
Why do you need to monitor compost?
replies(6): >>42203228 #>>42203360 #>>42203935 #>>42204013 #>>42210289 #>>42217218 #
1. ssl-3 ◴[] No.42204013[source]
I don't.

My most-productive compost operation mostly just consisted of just piling stuff up beside my brick shed, which was conveniently near an outside door on my kitchen.

The rest of the process consisted of giving it a bit of a toss with a hoe, a shovel, or a fork if I was outside, bored, and felt like doing that, or giving it a bit of water from the garden hose if it had been very hot and dry. And I did as little of this as possible because taking care of compost, while certainly interesting to me, is just not something I generally enjoy doing.

I really didn't pay much attention to it.

By the time spring came 'round again and I had a use for the stuff, I had plenty of it for the garden.

And this worked very well -- for me, on my scale, in my region, with my needs.

Therefore, I do not need to monitor my compost.

---

But not all composting operations are lazy. Sometimes, they are very active. And some operations are large enough (or the available space small enough) that real estate becomes a seriously-limiting factor.

And in these instances, optimizing the process to get higher-quality compost faster can become a very desirable goal.

Optimization of composting is not dissimilar to optimization of any other process, wherein: Having some good data is better than having no data.