Hey Everyone,
I finally found a good reason to get an Amazon Dash Smart Shelf (I wanted to know if my cat was sitting in her usual perch spot), but now it appears to be discontinued.
Other than making a shelf from scratch, is there a good hackable replacement for the smart shelf?
Thanks and have a great day!
Any cheap HA compatible scale, like the Xiaomi Samrt Scale? Even seems to have a similar dimension.
It would also allow you to monitor your cat’s weight over time 
I was going to get the 18"x13" version of the Smart Shelf since it was $20 retail and went on sale for $15 every once in a while. Xiaomi Samrt Scale is $40-$50 (the ones I could find) and they have a tendency to timeout and not respond until the weight is off and then back on the scale; the Smart Shelf would constantly monitor and return values.
Is there a specific cheap large-footprint scale that can help me detect a cat lying in her favorite spot?
This is not off-the-shelf (pun intended), but might suit your needs:
and
Load Cells
I use it to measure salt quantity of my descaler, works perfectly!
There are many “bed presence” solutions. Using a mat to an ESP32 or something like this. FSR - the best bed occupancy sensor
