It Was a Major Coup to Build that 'Intelligent' Chicken Coop
Are you concerned about your chicken’s quality of life before it becomes your meal? This digital chicken coup is your solution. Introducing, Coop.
Founded in 2021 by AJ Forsyth and Jordan Barnes, Coop brings smart home software to your backyard chicken coop.
Barnes, who enjoys a good chicken pun, infused their web content and product names with humor, which even extends to her job title. Alongside Forsyth, she demonstrated Coop’s functionalities to Popular Science on a Manhattan rooftop, discussing the technology.
They’ve dedicated 10,000 hours to designing Coop with the help of Fred Bould, a Nest product designer.
Based in Austin, the company maintains about 30 chickens. Both founders also keep chickens, becoming avid “chicken people.”
Source: Coop
Chickens reduce food waste significantly. Barnes says, “Our chickens eat like queens,” enjoying diverse gourmet scraps.
The smart Coop includes a chicken house, fence, remote-controlled lights, and cameras—all it needs is Wi-Fi and a 100-square-foot lawn. “Chickens like to band together. They need space to roam, but not vast plains,” Barnes notes, emphasizing the thoughtful hardware and design.
They spent four weeks designing a compostable poop tray, addressing one of the top reasons people avoid chicken ownership. Production was once paused to narrow the wire cage gaps, foiling raccoon break-ins.
The founders aim to simplify chicken-raising for novices and enthusiasts. They report that 56% of customers are first-time chicken owners.
Their Coop’s unique feature is “the brain,” AI software named “Albert Eggstein,” capable of chicken recognition and predator detection—a key selling point.
The camera system, akin to Amazon’s Ring, identifies individual chickens and predators with 98% accuracy, based on machine learning and image analysis.
“We’ve developed sophisticated software for health monitoring and predator alerts, like automatic raccoon detection and ensuring all chickens are safe,” Forsyth explains.
With two cameras, the system controls roost access, opening doors after sunrise and activating nest mode at night, trained on 7 million images to recognize patterns.
“Cluck talk” analyzes chicken vocalizations, informing owners about their flock’s well-being through weekly summaries.
The Coop sells for an early-bird price of $1,995, with a $19.95 monthly AI tool subscription.
If you’re intrigued by chicken coops, remember: birds of a feather flock together.
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