How to detect one or two cats in their kennel

Hardware
1

I live in a colder environment and have two cats that have an indoors kennel to keep them warm during the colder nights. The kennel is pretty closed over and the entry is out view, so it’s difficult to know if they’re in there without taking off the roof. The cats don’t come when called in natural cat fashion.

Are there any good mechanisms I could use to detect if there is one or two cats in the kennel? Ideally something that acts as a trigger I can use to change the color of an RGB light or something. I’ve considered dropping an IR Camera in there, but that’s clunky. Weight would be reasonably useful, but I’m not sure of any good devices (particularly as the cats weight 6-7kg each, I assume most are built for human weight). MMWave might also work, but I’m not sure how well a sensor would work at detecting one vs two non-humans at close range (the kennel is about 2ft x 1ft wide).

I’m also after similar for the cat litter. There’ll only be one in there at once and it’s not like they hang out in there, so I’m thinking a standard motion sensor would be effective but open to other ideas also.

2

I think weight sensor approach would be the most reliable.
You can find 4 load cell kits with hx711 for few bucks, add esp32 board and you are good to go. You could place them under the floor or even under the whole kennel.

3

Thanks, looking at that it it looks perfect for all the things I want to do, and more!

4

Camera and Fritzing object detection.

5

I do something similar in two ways:

  1. IP camera and frigate NVR
  2. Presence sensor (radar version not IR). These work really well and most can even identify the number of people or pets detected. The aquara ones to even further with lice room maps.
6

Do your cats have (name & phone) tags already?

How about adding something like this to it and use Bluetooth procies to detect when they in the kennel or the litter box?
Amazon.com: DX-CP27 Bluetooth Ibeacon 70m Long Distance Single use Cargo Tracking Mini ibeacon tag IP67 Waterproof Life (DX-CP27*3 pic) : Electronics

Only issue I have with these specific ones is the potential battery life :frowning:
I ordered one from AliExpress in January and it’s still going, but I don’t have any experience with how long it will actually last.

7

Do your cats have (name & phone) tags already?

I’ve considered these, but the cats are fairly small and those tags fairly large in proportion. The cats don’t wear collars (fully indoors) and have microchips in their ears in case they do escape and get taken to the vet. In theory it would be possible to read the RFID tags, but I don’t want to mess with them in case I brick them.

These would be perfect for a larger animal. I do wish there were smaller tags for tracking them like this though!