My parents have an unusual number of bird / squirrel / deer / racoon feeders in their back yard. Like easily over 50 feeders, so what’s one more, right? For mothers day, I got my mom a Birdfy Smart Bird Cam from Netvue, that will use A.I. to identify birds that land on the feeder, and send you notifications to your phone with video. I did not particularly like the feeder that you could buy with it, so I opted for the stand-alone cam with solar, and designed and built the bird feeder part myself. Easy-peasy, right? Well, it turned into a project indeed with something that is way more complex than it needs to be. But I could not be happier with the end result!
I used my Glowforge Pro laser and 3D resin printer in this project to create the feeder. I recently got a Anycubic Photon Max, to print a custom enclosure for the camera housing. Designed in Fusion 360, this is the housing that the camera slides into, but keeps the bird seeds off the camera. It’s angled down slightly to get a better view of the bird perch.
I designed the house/seed holder part using Illustrator to be cut with the Glowforge. I used a combination of 1/4″ and 1/8″ Baltic Birch, Proofgrade acrylic and walnut. Lots of engraving to get different faux patterns on the outer faces of the feeder. I was going for the timber frame look and think it turned out great. I finished all exposed pieces with Shellac to protect against the elements.
Within 30 minutes, the is the first bird that landed on the feeder. Although, I think they need to provide a macro lens for this, as the images are a bit soft and blurry, I was giddy when the A.I. actually worked. My beta tester was identified by the app as a either a Rainbow Lorikeet or a Painted Bunting. This is a Painted Bunting, and am happy that he was the first to get a snack. Unfortunately, after a day of use there are some concerns. The A.I. has not been very accurate with subsequent birds. It also misses a lot of birds that land on the feeder. I’ve seen a cardinal land a number of times, but it doesn’t trigger the motion alert or record and try the identification process.
Please keep in mind that this is a gift for my mom, and she will be thrilled with it. But as a technology professional, I also need to remind myself that this is one of the first cameras trying to use A.I. to identify birds, and the product will hopefully improve. The camera is 1080p, but feel like for the cost, they could have used a 4K option. The wide angle lens has the focus set to infinity, and close objects like the birds are soft and blurry. The camera also only takes photos at 1280×720, which isn’t good. It should have a much higher resolution for stills. Maybe someone will come up with an aftermarket macro lens attachment the will help bring the focus into the range where the birds land for sharper images.
Netvue cameras are also locked into their own cloud eco-system. They are not truly an IP Camera because you can’t use RTSP or provide an API to get access. The bird camera is a one-off purchase for me as a gift, but I would never buy anything else from Netvue because they don’t integrate into Home Assistant or other smart home hubs. They are missing out on a ton of opportunities and product sales because of their limited and restricted system. The app crashes a lot for me on a Samsung Galaxy s21 Ultra. It also claims to be Alexa enabled, but the camera does not work with my echo shows. If you’re a bird watcher, I’d give this a marginal thumbs up for the novelty of the A.I.. But for the cost of over $250 and the restricted eco-system, I would recommend waiting until other options become available at a future date.