In the orchard
SmartTrap field node
- Two infrared detection layers
- Temperature and humidity sensor
- Onboard backup storage
- Solar-charged battery
Our product
Counting without a camera.
Two infrared beams, one shared gateway, and a dashboard. The whole system is built around keeping a detection small enough to be cheap to move.
How it works
From the beam to the dashboard
Emitters on one wall, receivers on the other. An insect has to break both layers, in order, to be counted.
An insect enters
The lure and funnel do what they have always done. The insect drops toward the chamber.
Two beams break
Infrared layers line the chamber, upper and lower. The second layer is what keeps one insect from being counted twice.
The trap writes it down
Time, count, temperature, humidity, battery. Written to onboard storage first, so a lost connection never costs a record.
The gateway picks it up
Traps reach a nearby gateway over short-range Wi-Fi. The gateway carries the cellular connection on behalf of all of them.
It shows up on the map
Counts and conditions per trap, history charts, and heatmaps across the block.
The three pieces
At the edge of the block
Field gateway
- Collects from every trap in range
- Cellular connection to the cloud
- Holds data when the link drops
On any device
Web dashboard
- Satellite map of every trap
- History charts per trap
- Temperature, humidity, and pest heatmaps
- Register a trap from your phone
Against a camera trap
Most automated traps take a photo and run it through an image model. That buys species identification, and it costs power, bandwidth, and hardware on every single trap.
SmartTrap gives up the identification and keeps the rest. For a grower watching one known pest, counting reliably matters more than naming what was counted.
| Feature | SmartTrap | Camera-based traps |
|---|---|---|
| Detection method | Infrared beam break | Photographs and image recognition |
| Data sent per detection | A short text record | An image |
| Species identification | No | Yes |
| Power needs | Pending | Pending |
| Hardware cost per trap | Pending | Pending |
| Ongoing data costs | Pending | Pending |
Power and cost figures are still being measured in the field. They go here when they are real numbers rather than estimates.
Where the cost goes
No camera, no image processing
A beam break is a few dozen bytes. A photograph is not, and everything downstream of it — storage, bandwidth, processing — gets priced accordingly.
One cellular connection, shared
Traps talk to the gateway over short-range Wi-Fi. Only the gateway pays for cell service.
Location entered once
A trap that never moves doesn't need to keep asking where it is. Its position is saved at install, by scanning the code on the side of the trap.
Two places to fall back on
The trap keeps a copy and so does the gateway. A dropped connection delays the data. It doesn't lose it.
Questions we get
How does SmartTrap detect insects?
Insects entering the trap pass through two layers of infrared beams. Each break is logged as a detection with a timestamp, and the second layer keeps the same insect from being counted twice.
Does my orchard need Wi-Fi or internet?
No. Traps connect to a nearby SmartTrap gateway over short-range Wi-Fi, and the gateway sends data on over cellular. The gateway is the only part that needs cell coverage.
Will it tell me what species I caught?
No. A beam break counts an insect; it doesn't identify one. SmartTrap is built for growers watching a known pest with a matched lure, where the question is how many and when, not what.
How long does the battery last?
Each trap runs on a solar-charged battery.
Expected runtime, and how it holds up through a stretch of low sun.
What maintenance do traps need?
Service intervals for lures, cleaning, and battery checks.
Can I export my data?
Not yet. Export is on the roadmap.
Supported formats and integrations.
Where are the technical specifications?
They will be posted on the Documentation page once the production node is finalized.