Comment by hikinghack

11 hours ago

Hi! I'm andy! I'm the guy who spent the past year making the Mothbox! I don't know how this got on ycombinator, but cool! We are working here together Let me know if you have any questions!

Some quick basics: It's an entirely open source system made from off-the-shelf parts made so you can build one yourself! We built it to help a set of community reforestation initiatives here in Panama! (

Existing automated insect monitors we checked out wouldn't work for us because: 1) They were REALLY BIG (like huge heavy suitcase size+) 2) They were really EXPENSIVE (like 7000-15000$ !) 3) There wasn't any info to build robust ones that could withstand months in the rainforest!

So we build one ourselves! We started with absolutely no budget, and the costs that people have noticed ($375) are really the cheapest you can find these parts (Pi5 + big battery + 64MP camera + really bright lights), and for instance are on par with the $200 just for the 16mp logitech webcam employed in many existing insect monitors!

We got about 20 of these out in the wild here in Panama already, and are literally building more in the jungle as I'm typing this!

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hikinghack

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sinuhe69  2 hours ago

I skimmed through the user manual and find the design is really cool. It is well thought for the field use and obviously the optimized result of many iterations. Although I'm no naturalist, I find inspiration in your design. Kudos to the good work!

steve_adams_86  8 hours ago

Hey Andy, this looks awesome. Nice work!

I think I'd like to get one to track insect diversity and populations in areas where I work on riparian restoration projects. My hope is that when projects are completed, in the following years it'll be evident in the insect data the Mothbox collects. Do you think that's a valid use case? Maybe I'd need more than one to get enough data?