Things that go moo in the night!

WellCow Ltd and Ziconix Ltd are working together to connect cows to the internet, in a novel twist on the Internet of Things. The companies have developed a collar using Bluetooth to connect a smartphone to a sensor inside a cow's stomach to measure pH levels and improve health and milk yield.

Helped by a Scottish Enterprise SMART Award, WellCow has commissioned Ziconix to develop a collar mounted module which will talk to its pH bolus which uses ISM frequencies to get radio signals out of the cow’s stomach and transmit them onwards via Bluetooth to an App and onwards to the Cloud for review by vets and researchers.

Malcolm Bateman, Director of WellCow said “the development of the collar was a key element of Well Cow’s strategy to commercialise its successful long term pH measuring bolus which can alert farmers and vets of dietary issues that can seriously affect milk production in dairy cattle. Currently hand-held readers are used in close proximity to the animals to gather the data but a Smart device with the collars can gather data simultaneously from many animals or even permit unattended operation 24/7.Steve Sims, Technical Director of Ziconix said “the collar development posed a number of challenges that have had to be overcome in order to realise the communications bridge which can be packaged in a unit around the animal’s neck which is rugged enough to withstand a farm environment and have sufficient battery life.” 

The collars will be deployed in a TSB funded trial at SRUC in Edinburgh to prove that the data can be captured efficiently and transmitted to a web portal in a real farm environment with poor cellular reception and large steel structures.


Ziconix Ltd

Ziconix Ltd is a technology company specialising in mobile applications and related hardware developments including app-cessory and app enabled projects that create revolutionary new products and services or enhance existing product offerings.


WellCow Ltd

WellCow Ltd is a subsidiary of Roslin Foundation and was established to provide a vehicle to introduce new technology to animal health monitoring. The company has worked closely with The Technology Partnership PLC and has been supported by the Genomia Fund.

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