PRE2025 1 Group1

Name	Student number	Study	E-mail
Robert Arnhold	1847848	Mechanical Engineering	r.w.arnhold@student.tue.nl
Sietse Bosman	1894013	Applied Physics	s.bosman@student.tue.nl
Octavian Astefanei	1836374	Electrical Engineering	o.astefanei@student.tue.nl
Anne Willems	1631810	Electrical Engineering	a.m.j.e.willems@student.tue.nl
Kerim Gjergjizi	1813420	Electrical Engineering	k.gjergjizi@student.tue.nl
Lucas Spronk	1563564	Computer Science	l.spronk@student.tue.nl

Concept

Concept Introduction

The initial aim of this project was to design and prototype a smart hamster cage. Hamster cages have long featured similar designs, features and limitations. While a hamster wheel may give the hamster the ability to exercise, a water bottle the ability to drink and a food bowl the ability to eat, these are all parts of the hamster cage that are long outdated. In our modern world there is a market gap: a commercially available hamster cage that can help care for your hamster, teach you more about it, and lets you better interact with your beloved pet. If successful, this proof-of-concept opens the door to an expansion towards larger pet enclosures such as rabbits, guinea pigs, and more. Through user interviews and surveys, the aim of the project was narrowed down to designing and prototyping a device to help provide the user with care- and health-information on the hamster. This information can help them care for their hamster and resolve current problems the user has as a hamster owner.

Objectives

• Provide reliable care for the hamster, even while users are away.
• Help users more effectively care for their hamsters.
• Other, user-defined objectives that will be found via user research.

Users

General Target Audience:

Potential users were considered from the groups: hamster owners, small pet researchers and veterinarians. This was narrowed down to the group hamster owners, following the user interviews and surveys.

The target audience consist of hamster owners themselves, as well as anyone else involved in caring for the hamster, e.g. owner's family or roommates.

People of various ages own hamsters, but they are mostly "millennials, aged 25-39", who "make up about one in three small-pet owners" (also includes fish, birds and some other animals) . There is a strong correlation with younger aged owners, especially the presence of household members under the age of 12; "approximately 72% of hamster owns are under the age of 44" , and "nearly 90% of households with hamsters include children, and 87% of those households have children under 12 years old".

While small-pet owners in the U.S. tend to earn lower incomes than other pet owners, they actually spend more on their animals. On average, small-pet households spend about 252 USD/month, compared to 140 USD/month for dog owners. Spending patterns also vary by demographics: men spend slightly more than women, married owners spend slightly more than singles, and younger owners (18–24) spend the most overall (174USD/month), with pet spending declining gradually with age. The exception to this spending trend is the age group of 14-17 with the lowest average spending of 73 USD/month. While there is a general willingness to spend upwards of 100USD on small pets every month, this also highlights the need to keep costs manageable for younger owners with limited budgets.

Finally, owners of small pets are most commonly "urban dwellers, particularly those [living] in apartments or smaller living spaces". They "disproportionately own compact pets due to space constraints" , and since hamsters are quite restricted in their spacial requirements compared to other larger animals or animals with special living conditions, hamsters are very popular in this demographic category. The majority of families with children live in suburban single-family homes with more space, however the smart hamster cage should not significantly exceed the dimensions of a regular cage to ensure product suitability for those living in more compact environments such as apartments and student housing.

To conclude, a preliminary target market can be narrowed down to users of all ages, which are typically either children or their parents, who either care for the hamster themselves or live with family who helps take care of the pet. Users will typically be willing to spend upwards of 73 to 137USD/month, which suggests a further increased price range for a one-time purchase.

Example User Profiles:

Emma, 12 years old (student):

• Recently got her first hamster as a pet.
• Parents want her to learn responsibility but also want to ensure pet safety.
• Would benefit from automated feeding/water alerts and activity data.
• Likes fun graphics showing hamster’s daily life.

Michael, 28 years old (busy professional):

• Works long hours and sometimes travels for a few days.
• Wants peace of mind that his hamster has food/water when away.
• Needs reliable notifications and refill reminders.
• Less interested in visuals, more in core “care assurance” features.

Sofia, 38 years old (parent of two children):

• Sarah has two children, ages 7 and 10.
• Children are responsible for daily care but Sarah supervises to ensure the hamster’s well-being.
• Values tools that make pet care educational and fun.
• Wants quick access to reliable information to monitor the hamster throughout the day.

State-of-the-Art

Automated home cage monitoring systems are used to study hamster behavior welfare, and patterns, with minimal human interference. Literature studies were done on hamsters and the usage of smart aids/cages for hamsters. In the following part summaries are given of literature on hamster behavior and implementations of existing systems.

Behavioral monitoring systems:

- Video based systems:

• Phenotyper: utilizes video observation to record movement of individual subjects.

• mask R-CNN based monitoring: Detects behavioral features and internal states to identify typical and anomalous activities in hamsters.
• piE: open source behavior assay system with continuous video recording, environmental control and remote monitoring.
• SmartCage: Uses multiple sensors, including floor vibration and IR matrix, to measure locomotion, rearing and sleep/wake states in rodents over extended periods of time.
• CageView: Combines cameras, CNN based position detection and sliding food doors for behavioral and feeding monitoring.
• LocoBox: A modular, open source system, which controls light/dark cycles and monitors locomotor activity for circadian studies.

- Activity / motion sensors:

• Infrared/vibration sensors: these allow continuous detection of locomotor activity and rest without being dependent on lighting conditions.

• PhenoMaster: relies on infrared sensors for the detection of horizontal and vertical activity.
• Intellicage: does the monitoring and registration of activity of micro chipped animals via antenna containing tubes for entry into activity corners.
• Miroslav: an, Arduino based, open source system, supports long term circadian and behavioral monitoring while minimizing disturbance.

Feeding and drinking monitoring systems:

- food monitoring:

• Smart feeders: These systems combine weight sensors , cameras and microcontrollers to dispense controlled portions and monitor eating patterns.
• FED: photo interrupter based, open source device , which distributes pellets and does stamped time logging.
• Arduino based feeders: these are low cost systems adaptable for various pellet sizes and species and provide controlled feeding schedules.
• CageView: combines sliding door food access with behavioral and movement tracking.

- drinking monitoring:

• Photo beam based sippers: Battery powered devices measuring liquid intake with high temporal resolution.
• Lickometers: low cost, Arduino based, systems, which can monitor multiple cages simultaneously.

- feeding patterns:

• There are systems that support nocturnal meal-feeding or grazing schedules, which enables consistent feeding. This is relevant to circadian or behavioral experiments.

Environmental control:

- lighting: LocoBox allow programmable light/dark cycles, simulating circadian phases.[16] Female Syrian hamsters prefer blue light during the day and red light at night, which indicates that light control is important for physiological alignment.

- temperature and ventilation: PiE and Miroslav provide sensors and actuators to maintain stable cage environments.

Current advantages of automated systems for hamsters:

- minimal human interference: allowing more natural behavior

- continuous long term monitoring: enables detection of circadian, age and welfare related changes.

- high temporal resolutions: captures detailed activity, feeding and drinking patterns. ,

- open source and modular designs: provide flexibility, scalability and a low cost of the system. ,

Current disadvantages/limitations of automated systems for hamsters:

- technical challenges: Video occlusion, lighting artifacts and mechanical jams in feeders or sippers.

- data management: Data storage (e.g. SD cards) can be difficult when it scales to higher volume.

- species specific needs: light preferences, feeding habits and cage enrichment must be considered for its physiological relevance.

- calibration: systems require careful calibration to make sure that behavioral and feeding measurements are accurate.

Approach

General Approach

Our initial approach to developing a smarter hamster cage is guided by three main principles: scientific validity, user-centered design, and technological feasibility. From the beginning, the team decided that the hamster’s welfare had to be the main factor in shaping our technical choices. This required us to draw extensively on literature in animal monitoring and feeding technologies, most of which originated from laboratory rodent studies. For example, automated home-cage monitoring systems have been shown to improve the reproduction and animal welfare by allowing for continuous, minimally intrusive observations of rodents in their natural living environment . Similarly, systems such as SmartCage demonstrate the feasibility of integrating multiple sensors to track locomotion, rearing, and even circadian activity rhythms in real time, all while leaving the animals relatively undisturbed in their enclosure . These insights inspired our vision of a cage that actively monitors hamster behavior and health and automates their food consumption, without introducing stress or altering its natural routines.

Equally important is the owner’s perspective. While much of the existing research on automated feeding and monitoring technologies come from laboratory rodent studies , our project acknowledges that the priorities of pet owners might be different. To capture these needs, we plan to conduct interviews and distribute questionnaires among hamster and other rodent owners. This will provide a deeper look into personal concerns of home-owners such as convenience, cost, emotional engagement, and educational value for children. We expect these findings to reshape our design towards features that are most meaningful for households.

Potential Features

The technical features we propose are not isolated add-ons but part of a coherent monitoring and care ecosystem. A central element is an automated feeding system. Inspired by devices such as the Feeding Experimentation Device (FED) and CageView, our prototype will employ a microcontroller-driven feeder with integrated weight sensors to dispense precise amounts of food. Unlike laboratory feeders, however, our design should emphasize reliability for everyday pet use and safeguards against malfunctions, since in a domestic context there is no research technician on hand to intervene.

Behavioral monitoring is another cornerstone. Systems based on computer vision and deep learning, such as the one described by Shibanoki et al. , show the potential of detecting unusual or stress-related behaviors by analyzing posture and activity patterns. While a fully AI-driven vision system may exceed the scope of our prototype, simplified methods such as passive infrared sensors, wheel encoders, or low-light cameras can still generate valuable activity profiles.

Environmental monitoring is the third axis of our approach. Inspired by research on home-cage monitoring of aging mice , which showed that changes in activity and rest patterns can flag welfare concerns, we plan to integrate basic climate sensors (temperature and humidity) and ammonia detection. This ensures that cleaning and ventilation are triggered by real welfare indicators rather than arbitrary schedules, aligning with best practices in laboratory husbandry.

Together, these systems form a smart cage concept. The hamster’s physical needs are reliably met, its behavior is continuously tracked, and the owner receives actionable information through an app interface.

Expected Outcomes

By following this staged and evidence-based approach, the project will deliver a prototype that not only demonstrates technological novelty but also addresses concrete welfare concerns in hamster care. Integrating insights from open-source monitoring systems , smart feeding devices , and automated welfare detection , we expect our design to serve as a model for future smart pet enclosures.

Milestones

The team's main milestones are:

• Finish conducting the interviews in order to model out prototype based on the opinion of the possible customers;
• Deciding the list of characteristics that our product have have in order to satisfy as many customers as possible;
• Finishing and testing the working prototype;
• Finishing the presentation, demo and wiki page.

Deliverables

The project must be done with certain constraints in mind:

• An estimated 840 hours of development
• Be created within 7 weeks, during the timespan of the course
• Have a robotic component
• A wiki page containing all development information
• A final presentation

It should have:

• A selling price affordable for the defined user
• User input and feedback into the project
• A prototype
  

User interaction

To acquire user feedback on the design of our product multiple 3 rounds of user interviews and surveys were performed. The first round was focused on getting to know what are issues the users have with their current hamster cage and what functionalities would help them. The second round was focused on going more into the specifics details of the design choices that were based of the first rounds responses. So we would know the specifics of what these users wanted to get from these features and how they would like it implemented. The third round was focused on getting feedback on the prototype design that was made. The results of these 3 rounds can be found in later sections in this wiki.

Target User Interviews and Surveys

User Interviews

Introduction

User interviews are a core part of the design process. They allow engineering teams to understand real user needs, challenges, and expectations, rather than making assumptions based on own experience or theoretical research. By gathering this information early, we can ensure that the smart hamster enclosure is not only functional but also solves real-world problems faced by target users of the hamster cage. The objectives of these interviews can be summarized as follows:

• Identify current limitations of traditional hamster cages
• Determine common user habits, routines and challenges in caring for hamsters
• Understand priorities regarding factors such as convenience, safety, interaction, education and cost
• Gather feedback that will shape design requirements and features of the prototype

Potential users from the following groups will be interviewed:

• Hamster owners
• Small pet researchers
• Veterinarians

Some considerations for the format of the interview questions are listed below:

• Close-ended questions for specific data, such as information on demographics of the participant
• Open-ended questions to allow participants to freely express their opinions
• Leading questions should be avoided to ensure users provide feedback that is based on their own experience
• Standardized questions on demographics of users should be asked at the beginning of the interview to collect consistent and comparable demographic information

Below, the summaries of the interviews answers have been added. The full transcripts can be seen under Appendix - Interview Transcripts. The interview questions can also be found in the appendix. A list of suggested features, as well as frustrations with current State-of-the-Art has been included for each interview too. These suggestions, as well as the findings of the survey detailed below, will help guide the decision on which user group will be focused on, and consequently also the design of various prototypes. These will then be presented to users of this user group and feedback will be collected on which designs and feature combinations are most useful to the user.

User Consent and Data Anonymity

For the interviews to be allowed by the TU/e without going through the Ethics Review Board (ERB), the are some requirements that we have to adhere to. Most importantly, explicit informed consent needs to be obtained from participants digitally. To address this, the interviewee will simply be asked verbally if they agree with their answers being audio-recorded, and to be used for scientific purposes only.

The participants will also be informed that all data will be anonymized and stored up to 10 weeks. To anonymize the interviewee, only a audio recording will be made of the interview for it to transcribed later. Audio recordings will be stored in a password-protected digital folder, and be kept there until the end of the course.

Target User Group: Hamster Homeowners

Interview Summaries

Interview 1:

General Notes

• Interviewee: 56-year-old female consultant, ~20–30 hrs work per week.

• Hamster experience: Owned hamsters for ~13–15 years (one in childhood, four with her children). Last hamster was kept until ~1 year ago
• Household: Husband (56), daughter (14), son, interviewee was mainly responsible for hamster care, though children helped with food, water, and cleaning the cage.
• Daily/weekly care:
  • Daily: Check food/water (~10 mins).
  • Weekly/bi-weekly: Clean cage (30+ mins, 2 people).
  • Occasional: Vet visits, nail clipping, health issues.
• Hamster housing:
  • Large cage (~1m x 40–50 cm x 30–40 cm), two levels with ramps, nest area, wheel, plastic houses, transparent tubes.
  • Extra play area (“gym”) with tubes, small cardboard house, toilet rolls.
• Purchasing habits: Higher-end food (natural, no added sugar), recycled bedding, cucumber/apples for fresh food. Cage inherited but considered high quality.
• Interactions: Direct play, training hamster to trust humans, hamster often out on lap/arms or in gym. COVID increased family interaction.
• Health & vet: Typical signs of illness—eyes, fur, movement issues. Mona lived unusually long (4–5 years), needed vet visits, surgery, eye drops.
• Daily challenges: Cleaning cage, hamster’s nocturnal rhythm, hamster chewing plastic parts, risk of hamster escaping during play.
• Travel: For weekends, used food sticks and water. For longer trips, moved hamster and cage to neighbor’s home.
• Preferred notifications:
  • Would like simple notifications, not overload. Interested in:
    • Knowing if hamster is awake/asleep.
    • Cage cleanliness notifications.
    • Reminders for food/water.
    • Remote monitoring (basic data + optional camera).
    • Potential health indicators or well being assessment.
    • Enjoyable “cute” videos.
• Extra notes: Importance of light (dark underground-like nest). Desire for better hamster-owner education. Frustration at discontinuation of dwarf hamsters in the Netherlands.

Requested/Suggested Features

1. Activity Monitoring
   • Awake/asleep status.
   • Tracking movement/habits (e.g., exercise, play).
2. Environment Monitoring
   • Notifications when cage is dirty (toilet status, bedding condition).
   • Light-level control (simulate underground/nest).
   • Temperature monitoring (especially in winter).
3. Care Reminders
   • Food/water refill reminders.
   • Vet/maintenance reminders (e.g., nail clipping).
4. Remote Monitoring/App
   • Basic hamster health/vital signs overview.
   • Camera feed (for enjoyment + reassurance).
   • Short video/photo updates (cute/engagement).
   • Notifications limited to important/relevant info.
5. Cage Design Improvements
   • Easier cleaning system (modular pull-out parts).
   • Larger, multi-functional spaces (toilet, nest, play, wheel, ramps, tubes).
   • Safe materials (avoid chewable plastic).
   • Integrated “gym” or external play area option.
6. Education Support
   • Info for owners about hamster needs (food, daily routines, care).

Challenges/Frustrations Identified

• Cleaning cage is labor-intensive and stressful for hamster.
• Hamster’s nocturnal rhythm complicates care and medication.
• Stress during vet visits and cleaning due to displacement.
• Temperature control during transport (esp. winter).
• Hamster chewing unsuitable materials (plastic).
• Difficulty judging hamster’s happiness/health without clear signs.
• Owners sometimes unsure about when cleaning is really necessary.
• Hamsters are cheap to buy but proper long-term care is costly.

Interview 2:

General Notes

• Interviewee: 14-year-old female student.
• Hamster experience: Owned 4 hamsters at separate times over ~10–11 years. Mother mainly responsible for care, interviewee assisted with feeding, cleaning, and enrichment.
• Household: Lives with parents (both in their 50s). Hamster often kept in interviewee’s room.
• Daily/weekly care:
  • Daily: Refill food (~5 mins), occasional interaction/play (up to 20 mins).
  • Weekly: ~1 hour total including enrichment/play.
  • Bi-weekly: Cage cleaning (~2 hours).

• Hamster Housing:
  • Large two-level cage (~1m x 50cm x 40cm) with ramps, nest, wheel, food/water stations, and transparent tubes.
  • Food: Medium to high-quality grain and vegetable scraps; occasional food sticks for travel.
  • No smart devices used.

• Interactions: Physical handling with mother and some play outside the cage in additional enrichment area.
• Health monitoring: Observes fur condition, movement (limping/leaning), eye health, injuries, and scratching.
• Travel & remote care: Short trips: food stick and water; longer trips: someone checks on hamster. Remote monitoring considered useful if away for extended periods, preferably via camera or app.
• Cage improvements suggested:
  • Dedicated deep-bedding area for burrowing.
  • Easier-to-clean, rust-free bars.
  • Secure bar spacing to prevent escapes.
  • Larger, multi-functional space for comfort and enrichment.

Requested/Suggested Features

1. Activity Monitoring
   • Awake/asleep status.
   • Exercise tracking (distance run, play).
2. Environment Monitoring
   • Temperature inside the cage.
   • Cage condition notifications (bedding, cleanliness).
   • Care Reminders
   • Food and water refill reminders.
   • Remote monitoring/App
   • Notifications in app about monitoring aspects mentioned
   • Camera feed for live view or videos.
3. Cage Design Improvements
   • Modular or easier-to-clean components.
   • Larger, multi-functional spaces.
   • Safe, chew-resistant materials.
   • Designated deep-bedding area for burrowing.

Challenges/Frustrations Identified

• Cage cleaning is time-consuming and delicate due to hamster nests.
• Difficulty in knowing when cleaning is truly necessary.
• Risk of hamster escaping during play.
• Hamster nocturnal activity reduces time for observation.
• Maintaining proper temperature and environment conditions.
• Need for larger and better-designed living spaces.

Target User Group: Researchers

Next to individual hamster owners, researchers could be interested in a smart hamster cage, since a standardized monitoring cage would make research likely easier and more accessible. Animal testing sometimes uses hamsters, for which a yearly report is written by the Dutch Food- and Consumer Product Safety Authority,. It states a list of all companies and universities in the Netherlands with a license for animal testing . Throughout the list of universities, only LUMC keeps hamsters and has a contact information for this research. From the companies, only MSD Animal Health (Boxmeer) was contacted, since other animal testing did not seem to publish research using animal testing, or do not seem to keep hamsters. In both cases, mostly in universities, mice seem to be very popular in this field and have more research on their behavior during testing [source]. When changing directions to mice, this field would yield a significantly larger interest group than hamsters would. The questions for these user interviews can be found in the appendix.

Researcher interview 1:

Caring for hamsters

Care: The center cares for around 24 hamsters daily, which are kept only a few weeks. During that time the cages are cleaned, animals fed and given water, very important is checking in on the hamsters individually. Also registration of the animals is a standard task. Cleaning the cages is the most work, which is about half of the half day the hamsters are cared for.

Housing: The cage is the Type III IVC blue light cage from Techniplast. (800 cm² for 2 hamsters)

Interactions: Unlike other animals like rats, hamsters need less play time, however each hamster gets daily attention during the checkup. The hamsters do have toys which are varied. There is only one hamster wheel for all hamsters.

Health check: There are general rules in testing, stating that for animal testing, hamsters need to be checked daily. Checking is looking at the coat, posture and behavior. The only general complaint that the interviewee came op with is diarrhea. They have a vet employed for health issues. Issues are kept in a digital wellbeing diary, so that overall health can be monitored.

Requested/Suggested Features

Automatic feeding is unnecessary, since the animals have food in their bowls perpetually, same with drinks.

Monitoring changes in behavior would be very useful, since it shows the wellbeing for hamsters well and could be an interesting addition to research.

Problems with the idea in researcher field.

Monitoring is only supporting, since the animals need to be cared for in person by law. There are other companies looking into digitalization of animal wellbeing. In Italy a company makes cages with smart ventilation, where also monitoring of air and sound are monitored.

Backup for staff does not work here, since there are many caretakers working here, since human connection is not allowed to be replaced.

Expanding cages are expensive and there is not a general budget for these investments in universities, and it will not certainly increase research results.

Camera’s are not a problem for the hamsters themselves (possibly expensive), however privacy of staff can be a problem.

User Surveys

Introduction

User surveys were done via a google forms survey. This will be done because online surveys have a large reach. It also produces more quantitative data, which makes it easier to analyze/visualize. The survey were posted on multiple hamster forums. The questions of the survey and the forums it was posted on can be found in the appendix.

User Consent and Data Anonymity

For the surveys to be allowed by the TU/e without going through the Ethics Review Board (ERB), the are some requirements that we have to adhere to. Most importantly, explicit informed consent needs to be obtained from participants digitally. To adress this a small clause is included at the start of the survey that participants need to click in order to continue. This ensures all submitted surveys are done by consenting adults who are fine with their answers being used for scientific purposes only.

The participants will also be informed that all data will be anonymized and stored up to 10 weeks (or until the end of the course). The anonymization is already built-in with Google Forms, as long as no identifiably information is asked in the questions.

Survey Results

The following results are the results of the first survey.

- Open questions (I.e. limitations to current setup, common problems in day-to-day care, features you would not want and why, and any additional comments or ideas for a smart hamster cage):

From the answers to the open survey question an affinity diagram was made to process the response data. This diagram can be seen in the figure below.

affinity diagram of survey results

- interest in smart features:

1. Automatic feeder with portion control: As can be seen in the survey responses, in the figure below, a majority of the survey responses are strongly against automatic feeders. Reasons that were given for not wanting automatic feeding are the lack of scatter feeding, less human interaction with the hamster and that regular feeding times give the hamster routine.

   

   Automatic feeder with portion control survey result

2. App notifications for water/food low: as can be seen in the figure below the responses on the need for app notifications regarding food/water are divided. Criteria on this smart feature was that it could cause over reliance of owners and, that the water would need to be changed every day either way and the hamster does not drink much.

   

   App notifications for water/food low survey results

3. Activity tracking (wheel distance, movement): As can be seen in the survey responses, in the figure below, a majority of the survey responses are in favor of activity tracking. One current activity tracking issues that was given is that one responders current camera does not pick up wheel movements. One criteria that was given on this feature is that it would be better to check the hamster visually so it does not get neglected.

   

   Activity tracking (wheel distance, movement) survey results

4. Temperature & humidity alerts: as can be seen in the figure below the responses on the need for app notifications regarding temperature are divided. However, no issues/criteria about this feature were stated in the responses to the survey.

   

   temperature & humidity alerts survey results

5. Camera for live monitoring: As can be seen in the survey responses, in the figure below, a majority of the survey responses are in favor of activity tracking, there are also no responses against this feature. Some current activity tracking issues that were given can be found in the affinity diagram figure under monitoring issues.

   

   Camera for live monitoring survey results 

6. Air-quality/ammonia sensor to suggest cleaning: as can be seen in the figure below the responses on the need for an air-quality/ ammonia sensor to suggest cleaning are divided. However, no issues/criteria about this feature were stated in the responses to the survey.

   

   Air-quality/ammonia sensor to suggest cleaning survey results

User info:

1. age range:

   

   age range survey results

2. country/region:

   

   country/region survey results

3. household type:

   

   household type survey results

4. approximate household income range:
   

   

   Approximate household income range survey results

hamster experience:

1. How many hamsters do you currently own?:

   

   How many hamsters do you currently own? survey results

2. How long have you kept hamsters?:

   

   How long have you kept hamsters? survey results

3. Species/breed of hamster(s):

   

   Species/breed of hamster(s) survey results

current products and pain points:

1. current products: The items that were responded under other were the Bucatstate 3.0(2x) and a custom made wooden enclosure with glass front(1x). Issues that people had with their current cages can be found in the affinity diagram under cage issues.

   

   Which of these items do you currently use? survey results

2. How do you currently monitor your hamster’s health or activity?:  The methods that were responded under other were feeling for lumps(2x), cameras(2x) and holding and watching the hamster.

   

   How do you currently monitor your hamster’s health or activity? survey results

price range:

1. Would you be willing to pay more for a cage that includes these smart features?:

   

   Would you be willing to pay more for a cage that includes these smart features? survey results

2.  Price range you would be willing to spend, in Euro/Dollar:

   

   Price range you would be willing to spend, in Euro/Dollar survey results

User Requirements

Introduction

To provide users with a product that appeals to their needs and preferences, a list of requirements, preferences and constraints (RPCs) will be created based on the interviews and surveys above. Requirements represent basic necessities and the most popular features that a design should absolutely include, while preferences are secondary features the designs should incorporate as it moderately benefits an average user, however if a design does not include them, whether that's due to pricing, component compatibility or other reasons, users will still be able to use the product to a significant benefit. Constraints typically refer to physical constrains, such as the expected dimensions of cages, the absence of open wiring in and around the hamster cage, or other limitations that the context of the product's use may place on the design. The features of this RPC list will be used to create possible prototype designs that are useful and relevant to the target user group, as well as realistic in terms of the scope of the current project. Research will then be done into if and how these RPCs can be realized in this project, after which prototypes will be designed based on the results of this research. The resultant prototype designs will then be presented to the users for feedback.

Requirements, Preferences and Constraints

From the first survey and interviews the following requirements and preferences that the users wanted from the product were subtracted, another round of interviews and a survey was done to get more specific feedback on these requirements and preferences and look which ones the users actually felt need for. There were 9 responses on the survey.

Requirements

• 1. The user is able to keep track of the daily usage of the hamster wheel by the hamster and will be able to compare it to previous usage via an app on their phone. Usage will be measured in time spent using the hamster wheel and the distance covered on the wheel: 88.9% of the responders agreed on wanting this feature. They would find it useful to monitor the hamsters health, by looking at change in usage. And they would find it interesting to see how far the hamster runs. One criteria given was that one user would like to monitor the hamsters whole activity instead of just the hamster wheel. Specific requirements that users would want for this feature were covering time and distance, ability to view averages, ability to compare to previous days, a display as alternative to an app, a pedometer, and simple and reliable usage. The feature was rated an 3.89 out of 5 on usefulness.
• 2. The user is able to watch the hamster remotely via a live camera feed which they can view via the app on their phone, with the capability to see the hamster in low-light conditions via infrared or similar camera capabilities. 66.7% of the responders agreed on wanting this feature. They would find it good to be able to watch the recording the next day and to be able to see what their hamster was up to the previous night and it could help to spot problems in the cage. It would also help them monitor the health and activity of the hamster. Criteria that was given is that most users already have a camera set up an would also prefer to use their own and that the camera shouldn't do things to upset the hamster. Specific requirements for this function that were given are that it should be reliable, it should have a motion sensor to only save to cloud when the hamster was active, low light conditions, ease of attachment for the camera and an app. The feature was rated an 3.67 out of 5 on usefulness.

Recommended:

• The user is able to get insights into the weight of the hamster via an app on their phone and will be able to compare this to its past weights. 66.7% of the responders agreed on wanting this feature. They would find it useful to check their weight as a health check regularly without having to get them onto a scale. Criteria that was given is that they wouldn't want it to be expensive, weighing themselves is good enough, they didn't get how it would work since hamsters store food in their pouches which can disrupt the weight and that only weighing isn't good enough to monitor the hamsters health. Specific requirements for this function that were given are that it is reliable, ability for data comparison, easy to use and accurate and weighing in cage. The feature was rated an 2.89 out of 5 on usefulness.

• The user is able to find the info that is processed by the product in a daily overview on their phone: 66.7 % finds this additional feature useful. 11.1% would really NOT want this feature.
• The user is able to get a notification via an app on their phone, when the temperature has reached the threshold for being a temperature unhealthy to the hamster. 77.8 % finds this additional feature useful. 11.1% would really NOT want this feature.
• The user is able to get a notification via an app on their phone, when the humidity has reached the threshold for being a humidity level unhealthy to the hamster and will be told that the cage needs to be cleaned. 33.3% finds this additional feature useful. 22.2% would really NOT want this feature.
• The user is able to see via an app on their phone where their hamsters peeing spot is. 77.8% finds this additional feature useful. 22.2% would really NOT want this feature.
• The user is able the get notification via an app on their phone, when the ammonia exposure reaches 25ppm, in the form of a reminder to clean the cage. 66.7% finds this additional feature useful. 11.1% would really NOT want this feature.

Possible:

• The user is able to get a notification via an app on their phone, when it is time to feed the hamster and the user is able to adjust these times to their preferences. 33.3% finds this additional feature useful. 33.3% would really NOT want this feature. criteria: feeding time varies with owner and hamster waking habits, so it would not be the same for everyone. Relying on tech for this seems neglectful.

• The user is able to track at which times the hamster is awake or sleeping and how many hours it has slept. They will be able to compare this to past data via the app on their phone. The user will also have the possibility of being notified when the hamster wakes up. Only 44.4% of the responders agreed on wanting this feature. They would find it nice to be able to know whether the hamster is alive or okay when its hidden in their bedding or hide out for a long time and in general for monitoring health. But most respondents don't deem this feature as necessary, they find it intrusive and are also not able to see how it would work, since the hamster is also active when it is not out, because they live in burrow and do a lot of things underground which is not visible from the outside. Specific requirements for this function would be that it is reliable, the owner would know when the hamster is up and the owner gets a notification. The feature was rated an 2.67 out of 5 on usefulness.

• The user is able to get a notification via an app on their phone, on when a part of the cage is not functioning properly. 44.4% finds this additional feature useful. 22.2% would really NOT want this feature.
• The user will be able to receive short video/photo updates of their hamster on their phone during the day.
• Modular/easier-to-clean cage components 55.6% finds this additional feature useful. 22.2% would really NOT want this feature. criteria: makes it sound low quality and flimsy. The hamster would find ways to escape or hurt itself.
• The cage will have a designated deep-bedding area for burrowing (if not present throughout entire cage) 55.6% finds this additional feature useful. 22.2% would really NOT want this feature. criteria: Ideally the base would hold 25cm of bedding throughout the whole cage, so not just in one area.
• The light-level in the cage can be controlled to simulate underground or nest. 33.3% finds this additional feature useful. 22.2% would really NOT want this feature. criteria: there should not be light control at all in the cage, because the hamster needs natural light just like humans.

Not recommended:

• Integrated “gym” or external play area option for the hamster. 22.2% finds this additional feature useful. 66.7% would really NOT want this feature. criteria: product should be safe and suitable. NO external parts. hamsters are better with having everything in one large cage area. Should not be made to make money. Seems like an idea for someone that does not understand hamster welfare at all. If its a playpen i would be okay.
• The user will be provided info on the basics of taking care of the hamster (i.e. how often and how much to feed the hamster, how and how often to clean the cage, when to contact a vet and cage requirements) and will be able to access this info via an app on their phone. 33.3% finds this additional feature useful. 44.4% would really NOT want this feature. criteria: hamster equipment makers and sellers usually give incorrect information. If there is no info at least people will research. The app should provide things that people need to be aware of so their hamster is always feeling safe, comfortable, and content based on ratios and measurements for things we know they require.
• The user is able to get a notification via an app on their phone, when the water dispenser is empty. 33.3 % finds this additional feature useful. 55.6% would really NOT want this feature. criteria: relying on tech for this seems neglectful. water is not supposed to sit there for days, so only if its a daily reminder it would be okay.

Constraints

• Price: ~150–250 EUR
• Cage/enclosure dimensions: should fit in typical home hamster cages (minimal dimensions are approximately ~1 m length × ~50 cm width × ~30 cm height)
• No exposed/open wiring inside the cage
• Materials must be hamster-safe, so chewable parts should be avoided and edges should be made of plastic where possible)
• Power supply should avoid noisy or significantly heat-generating components

• The user should be able to decide for each type of notification, whether they want to receive it or not.
• Parts should be able to be disinfected.

Preparatory Research for Prototypes

In the following section feasibility / possible methods for multiple user requirements and preferences are discussed. This to make sure that what the users wants is actually wants is possible to achieve.

Computer Vision Model to Detect and Track Hamster

Introduction

A widely-requested feature of the hamster cage is the capability to monitor it via a live feed, as well as track its sleep/wake cycle. To achieve this, a computer vision model can be used, which is trained to detect hamsters in an image, or frame of a video. Since hamsters typically sleep underground and are of course stationary while they sleep, detecting a moving hamster indicates the hamster is awake and active in the cage. While there may end up being areas of the cage that a camera would not be able to see, estimates of the hamster's habitual movements and active periods can be made and communicated with the user. Potentially, additional features such as a motion sensor or microphone may improve accuracy further.

Method

To try detecting the hamster visually, and thus deduce whether it is awake, an artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) model can be trained on datasets of images of hamsters in their cages or other similar environments. The model 'learns' how to isolate the hamster based on this dataset, and then applies that same detection logic to new images. The trained model is then fed the video frames coming from the camera set up in the cage, and, if trained correctly, will be able to identify the hamster in the cage with a good confidence. These frames are sent to the computer by a small processing unit (a Raspberry Pi is typically used for its higher video-stream rate in comparison to the Arduino), which is connected to the camera, which is an infrared-capable camera, in this case, since hamsters are typically active at night. On the receiving computer, the frames are then processed using the ML model, and an output is provided which represents whether a hamster has been detected and where. It is possible to also save the output video of the detected hamster in its environment (e.g. for testing to ensure the model is detecting the hamster correctly).

Existing Research

A number of articles and papers have been written on the topic of tracking hamsters, or other animals, within an enclosure. This includes analyzing the resultant data on where the hamster goes, if its movement is habitual or erratic, and what that indicates about the stress levels of the animal.

For example, in a paper on "monitoring animals based on behavioral information", authors "prepared video images containing routine behaviors and generated a model that can detect non-routine behaviors". They conclude that "the results supported the possibility of using a pet monitoring system to immediately inform the owner when the animal is under load". While the system in question for this project may not achieve this advanced level of complexity, the results of the paper show the possibility of using camera tracking in combination with ML models to track the hamster and its behavior.

With regards to models suitable for this task, there are multiple open-source projects which provide programs which are "accessible to everyone, including those without knowledge of coding and image analysis". Especially useful might be AnimalTA, which can be used to "obtain many different variables related to the trajectory of [the] target, such as average speed, total distance traveled, [...] explored surface", and more. These values can then be used to track various aspects of the hamster's behavior to improve the information relayed to the user.

From the above sources, a clear possibility is demonstrated to provide the user with, at the very least, a basic video feed of the hamster with detection of the hamster, its location and potentially its movement through the cage. To better evaluate the effectiveness and applicability of video analysis tools, including those specialized for animal tracking, a number of tools have been tested to see if they can be used to provide improved information on the hamster's movement, behavior and perhaps even mood. Detailed summaries of these evaluations are provided below.

Evaluation of Open-Source Models

AnimalTA

AnimalTA is an open-source software that provides tracking of one or more animals in an enclosure, and analysis thereof. The software works by taking the average shade of each pixel throughout the entire length of the video and comparing the current state to that average. If the shade of the pixel is very different to its average shade, that would indicate that something is moving through that pixel on the video. When done for all of the pixels in the video, the hamster should theoretically be tracked moving through the different pixels in the video. While testing whether the software is relevant for this project, a potentially problematic detail was that the example videos provided in the zip-file were all top-down views of a very basic environment, where the outline of the animal is very distinct in comparison to the background, a detail which will be further explored below. This meant that it would be more difficult for the software to be able to distinguish the hamster in a diverse and more complex environment. To get a better idea of the workflow of the software, a user manual is provided which explains all of the main features and functions of the interface and tracking and analysis tools themselves.

To summarize, the process begins with a new project being created, to which one or more videos are added. These videos can then be manipulated for improved tracking and analysis performance by choosing the exact number of frames used, stabilizing the video, and more. Once the videos are prepared, the user can begin tracking, and after a few seconds or minutes (depending on the length and framerate of the video) the video with the tracking result can be opened. If successful, a colored dot should appear near the center point of the animal, and should track the animal accurately, leaving a line showing the animals pathing throughout the video. This trajectory can then be analyzed for data such as velocity, area of enclosure covered, etc.

Image of multiple tracking points around hamster

However, this is in an ideal case and there are a number of issues surrounding the efficacy of the program in the test project used for this evaluation. Firstly, it seemed as though if the video is not from a fixed-frame camera showing the hamster moving around the cage from a top view, the software was not always able to deduce the hamster as the target and track its movements. There were also frequent issues with the software 'detecting' what it conceived was an animal, while actually being a stationary piece of the environment. Even after some stabilization (which, in fairness, was not done to a very complex degree, but the assumption was that an average user can operate the software effectively), this issue remained, and has not been fixed so far. In an attempt to prevent the software from 'tracking' parts of the background, a it was indeed possible to manually define the background using a given frame of the video. However, this again did not fix the issue even though the software should, in theory, ignore any possible changes in the selected background area and focus on the remaining area only (which should only consist of the hamster, since that is the only thing that is not part of the stationary background).

To give the software a fair chance of success, given the video is not ideal (small brightness changes and subtle light flickering, minor background movements, etc.), a more extensive set of correctional measures were taken to produce the tracking shown below. An example of one of the correction variables is shown above, comprising a screenshot of the color threshold menu which can be used to try to improve target isolation from the background. While continued tracking of the hamster was not possible as soon as it entered a small space in the environment, the tracking did correctly identify the hamster as a target and for a few frames of the short video, the camo-colored marker indicates the approximate centroid of the hamster. This changes, however, even before the hamster begins to enter a different part of the environment in which it has to narrow its body to move through. What is interesting is that the purple market, while not centered on the hamster but rather fixed on a back part of its body, was able to track the hamster quite some distance into the new environment, where it then stopped at the different-colored upper surface.

Improved hamster tracking after stabilisation, brightness and colour correction

To conclude the summary of the AnimalTA software, it is a piece of software with a high ceiling for manual video correction and user specification of relevant enclosure areas, number of targets, and other important factors. However, it is not suitable for use in a product context where an average hamster homeowner will not possess the knowledge or willingness to apply these corrections, nor should they be expected to. Because the automatic corrections are not sufficient to enable consistent tracking of hamsters in a colorful and diverse environment, this software will not be used for this project.

ToxTrack

ToxTrac presents an automated open‐source executable software for image‐based tracking that can simultaneously handle several organisms monitored in a laboratory environment. This software is contained in a single executable (.exe) and can be easily installed on many systems. Additionally, ToxTrac requires Windows 7 or later, and is created for 64-bit hardware. In terms of specs, a minimum of 8 GB of RAM memory and enough hard drive free space to handle all recorded video files is recommend. A 2.0+ GHz Quad core or higher is recommended for proper performance. This would make it unable to run locally on Raspberry Pi 3 (which we plan on using), as that only has a Quad core 1 GHz. Modern phones should be able to run this software though, if converted to an APK.

The main advantages ToxTrac gives are as follows:

1. no specific knowledge of the geometry of the tracked bodies is needed,
2. processing speed, ToxTrac can operate at a rate >25 frames per second in HD videos using modern computers,
3. simultaneous tracking of multiple organisms in multiple arenas,
4. integrated distortion correction and camera calibration,
5. robust against false positives; (vi) preservation of individual identification,
6. useful statistics and heat maps in real scale are exported in image, text and excel formats.

While good on paper, this software requires a strict filming setup, as can be seen in the diagram below.

ToxTrac Filming setup

This setup would provide a high-contrast video where a dark silhouette travels across a backlit plate and is enclosed from all sides. This makes tracking exceptionally easy and effective. However, this is made to be used in a lab environment and is not fit for a long-term installment in an actual hamster cage and would be extremely unhealthy for the hamster. It might be possible to adapt it to fit our use case if given enough time, but this is a complex piece of software/hardware setup that requires a high level of expertise to modify; given the remaining time, it would be smarter to explore other avenues.

If we ignore this issue, the tracking of the software would be ideal for our project. It is capable of multi-target tracking, activity heatmaps, and full path superimposition over the arena. All of which are features we desire and could use for aspects of our project. Below is an image of what the tracking is capable of in an ideal case. This, however, is not worth the trade-off with the aforementioned downsides.

ToxTrac heatmap and full path tracking

Lastly, as ToxTrac is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, we are allowed to modify the existing source code but not commercialize it or distribute the modified code. As a result, if our project were to go to market, a full redo would be required for the tracking software.

TRex

TRex is an easy to use system that uses background subtraction to track many individual entities at once. It estimates the 2D visual fields, outlines, and head/rear of bilateral animals and provides real-time tracking capability for up to about 256 individuals. Furthermore, TRex supports interactive data exploration through a user-friendly, platform-independent graphical user interface, as well as deep learning-based visual identification of up to around 100 unmarked subjects .

This software is similar to ToxTrac in terms features and limitations, and as a result we can keep this section short. This software will not be used for this project as for the same reasons ToxTrac will not be used. Both software require a high contrast between background and tracked entity, which this project cannot guarantee and as a result is ill suited. Below an image of what proper input would look like for TRex.

TRex Visual field

ezTrack

ezTrack is an open-source, platform-independent suite of behavioral analysis pipelines built in interactive Python. It includes two main modules: one for positional analysis of individual animals—adaptable to a wide variety of behavioral tasks—and another for analyzing freezing behavior. Both modules feature interactive plots and visualizations that help users verify that selected parameters yield the expected results. In addition, ezTrack provides batch processing tools for rapid analysis of multiple videos, along with frame-by-frame output that facilitates synchronization with biological recording data. Users can also easily analyze specific time segments and define regions of interest as needed .

The software is made in Python and runs through Jupyter Notebook. This means that we either have to adapt the software to an APK if we want to run it on Android, or we run it on a Raspberry Pi 3. The issue with the RPI 3 is that, from personal testing, the software creates a decently high workload when video material is being processed. Additionally, the software seems to have some bugs in it. When testing, tracebacks and errors were consistently showing, even when using the video material provided by the developer. Even if this can be attributed to user error in some way, this shows that the software is unreliable.

Despite the aforementioned issues, in terms of features, this software is really promising. It offers similar functionality as TexTrac while avoiding the strict camera setup. Below is a screenshot of the type of tracking that is done.

EzTrack IR Tracking

Because the software looks promising, it might be worthwhile to test the software in another system to ensure the errors are not caused by the user.

Finally, the code is licensed under GNU GPLv3, and similarly to ToxTrac's license, we are allowed to modify it for personal use if we do not commercialize it or distribute the modified code. And again, as a result, if our project were to go to market, a full redo would be required for the tracking software. Admittedly, I am not a lawyer, and I am not well versed in lawyer-speak, so I might be wrong, as the GNU GPLv3 is significantly harder to read than ToxTrac's license.

YOLO General Purpose Object Detection Model

YOLO (You Only Look Once) is a series of real-time object detection models developed for computational efficiency. The model works by dividing the input image into a grid, and for each grid cell the model predicts bounding boxes, class probabilities, and confidence scores. These are variables which are related to how the model 'understands' images: breaking down a large image into small components (grid cells). While regular detection methods, such as R-CNN (Regions with Convolutional Neural Networks), build those grid cells back together to fill boundaries with a certain confidence, and then sequentially identify them as certain objects, YOLO models perform these tasks simultaneously through a complex feature extraction that provides information on both boundaries and classification at the same time (aforementioned bounding boxes, class probabilities, and confidence scores). Ultralytics, the company that develops and maintains modern implementations of the YOLO object detection models, creates versions such as YOLOv5 and YOLOv8 which are widely used because they provide a good balance between accuracy, real-time speed, and ease of use, and come with pretrained weights, simple APIs, and compatibility with Python. This makes these model versions well suited for applications requiring fast, reliable detection in resource-constrained or embedded environments (such as real-time animal tracking).

To begin testing YOLO models' suitability for application in this project, YOLOv8l was used (YOLO, version 8, large) due to its relatively fast processing speed and reduced reliance on high-performance computer power. An unspecialized model can be downloaded within the Python environment which has a baseline ability for object detection with a limited number of objects it can recognize. An initial test was done given a short test-video, for which some of the resulting frames are shown below.

Composite frames from output video of YOLOv8L object detection model

[To clarify, the number shown next to the object label and bounding box is the confidence, which refers to a value from 0 to 1 representing how confident the model is in its identification.]

As can be seen in the frames shown above, the model is not able to correctly identify that the object it is detecting is a hamster. Also, as can be seen in the second frame from the right, there are moments when, as the hamster moves through small gaps, the model does not recognize it at all. Correctly identifying the hamster is something that can be addressed by training the model with a given data set, and this may also in turn allow it to detect the hamster in a wider range of environments and states such as squeezing through small gaps.

The training process comprises a number of stages:

• Coding environment is set up to train the model
  • For this project, Python is used to create the training and running environment. For more information on the Python code used for this model, see the appendix under YOLO Model Python Implementation. Python is used for its versitility and extensive resources on how to train models in it, as well as the fact that IPYNB (Jupiter Notebook) file formats use Python. These are file formats which include not only the Python code, but also the execution results and other internal file settings.
  • The code executes the steps below in the Jupiter Notebook environment, including saving the resultant model parameters in an accessible file. These parameters, comprising values referred to as 'weights' and 'biases', can then be exported for use in other models or to continue training based on those weights and biases at a later moment.
• Dataset is created and subdivided into training, validation and test data, or existing datasets are imported
  • The training dataset forms the most critical part of the training process and has one of the largest effects on the accuracy of the results, besides perhaps the model type and version. A significant body of research exists on how exactly to build datasets, including how much of the dataset is used for training, validation and testing. The difference between these steps can be explained as follows:
    • The training forms the main generating process of the model's parameters. Training is usually the largest subset of the data and allows the machine learning algorithm to begin formulating parameter sets based on pre-labeled data.
    • Then, validation data is used to refine these weights and to prevent overfitting, which might occur when an ML algorithm essentially 'memorises' the training data rather than learning general patterns. Providing new data which was not included in the training component while still allowing the model to adjust its parameters helps reduce this memorisation effect and encourage pattern recognition which extends to the validation set as well as the training set.
    • Finally, the test set is provided to the model, at which point the model can no longer adjust its parameters. The purpose of the test set is, as the name suggests, to evaluate the model. Once all of the parameters have been generated, it is still not known at this point how the model would perform on images it has not seen before, with no labeling provided, since both the training data and the validation data are labeled and allow the model to adjust once it has seen them. Unlabeled test data is therefore a critical part of the dataset, allowing the trainer to understand what they can actually expect from the model in terms of accuracy when applying it to unseen data without having to release the model in an external environment.
  • While creating a personalised dataset specifically refined for the context in which it is intended to be used, such as in our case on a top-down, angled camera view of hamster cages of various sizes, putting together a sizeable, labeled dataset is very time-consuming and complex, a process beyond the scope of this project. Instead, existing datasets were assessed for their accuracy, dataset size and smiilarity of dataset images to the expected live-stream feed images, resulting in two large datasets being chosen and imported into the coding environment.
  • The datasets were sourced from Roboflow, an ML dataset repository. The two datasets chosen for this hamster detection dataset are cited here . There was one major issue with the merging of these datasets, and that was that the labelling differed between the two datasets, by exactly one letter: 'Hamster', and 'hamster'. While to a human interpreter the synonymy of these two labels may be obvious, it makes a significant difference to the performance of the resultant model. Essentially, rather than the combining of the model leading to one large group of training data helping the model identify 'hamsters', the model is trained on the two training sets individually, learning to look for 'Hamsters' and 'hamsters' separately, which would have led to a significant decrease in performance. This was overcome using a small Python script which was run in the dataset directory which looked for all occurrences of 'Hamster' and replaced them with a unified 'hamster' label. The Python script looked through the merged dataset's files and found any labels with index '1' rather than '0', and replaced these with index '0'. This way, for the model, these labels were equivalent and considered one.
• (Optional) Dataset can be augmented to improve performance
  • Totaling to around 2,000 images, the merged dataset could now already be used to train the model. However, to improve the accuracy of the resultant model and to improve its performance specifically with grey-scaled and noisy video feeds (typical to small camera modules, Wifi-streaming and infrared video feeds), the following augmentations were applied:
    • Grayscale: Apply to 15% of images
    • Noise: Up to 1% of pixels
  • While 15% and 1% respectively may not seem like a lot, these values are on the upper side of the recommended range for augmentation of training data, above which Roboflow warns that model performance may decrease significantly due to unpredictable effects of excessive augmentation. As Roboflow states it, "more [...] augmentation is not always better".
  • More information on augmentation can be found on Roboflow's website and associated articles.
  • The final dataset size equated to around 5,200 images, including the original and augmented components of the training dataset.
• Model training
  • Once the dataset has been prepared, training can begin. This process begins by feeding the data into the model's neural network in small groups (referred to as 'batches'), where the batch size determines how many images are processed at a time before the model's parameters are iterated. All of batches being processed once is referred to as one 'epoch'. Typically, models will be trained on multiple epochs to allow the model to refine its predictions for the training data and, by comparing its predictions to the expected results, it can further minimise errors via certain optimisation algorithms (e.g. gradient descent). As more and more epochs are completed, the model begins to move from learning from its training data to generalising its parameters based on unseen data (this is the previously-discussed validation dataset component).
  • Model training is a very processing power-intensive step. There are a few options to run the training if not enough processing power is available on accessible devices. One such example is Google Colaboratory, which offers free CPU and GPU processing power via an online IPYNB environment. While daily availability varies, significant portions of the model training can be completed via this platform, even without paying for additional compute. A very useful feature both of the training process architecture and of the Colaboratory environment, is that intermediate training cycles can be executed whenever free compute is available, saved when it is about to run out, then restarted at a different point via the continuation of training based on the intermediate parameters. This was also taken advantage of when part of the training was executed on an available device once free compute ran out, which allowed model training to continue with further epochs using the saved parameters from the online environment-based training. A screenshot of the output of a training run can be seen below, with training parameters including 100 epoch cycles and GPU usage of approximately 10GB.

    

    Partial screenshot of model training on Google Colaboratory

• With the model training completed, it was applied to a number of unseen image sets (videos broken down into frames) which were then processed by the model to try to identify hamsters in its frames.

- Show results for better-trained model, hopefully consistent, use full video I think since we need to get different angles and such, although it is tough since videos of a convenience distance as well as cage/habitat environment are few and far between. Ask users maybe if they have videos?

Ammonia Measuring

Introduction:

From the surveys it could be seen that the opinions on having an ammonia sensor were divided, with some people being in favor and others preferring not to have one.

Feasibility:

According to Smeets et al., a guideline for maximum exposure is 50 ppm. In this paper they use 25 ppm as the ammonia level at which the cage will need to be changed. So considering that at 5ppm a human can already smell ammonia, the smell of the cage itself at up to 25ppm will already be a good enough indicator that the cage would need to be changed. Therefore, the info about the ammonia values in the app would probably be more of an extra verification, which can measure the ammonia more accurately then the owners nose detecting a given level due to its smell.

Sound Measuring

Introduction

Measuring sound could represent an option to distinguish the state of the hamster, however it may not be very exact. Comparing to, for example dogs, the hamster expresses its feelings through both sound and motion. However, some of the sounds could still be unique to some of the feels. For example, high-pitched squeaking usually suggests fear or stress, while more quiet squeaks are used to express excitement or are used in communication with other hamsters. Hissing and grinding usually suggest a more defensive or aggressive state, while sneezing and cough-like sounds are usually related to health-related problems.

Feasibility

The sounds that a hamster produces are also in the ultrasound range. Thus, for measuring the sound this would require a microphone that is able to capture sound in the ultrasonic range. The table shows some of the sounds that a hamster can make and the frequency interval.

Sound	Frequency
Squeaks	2 - 12 KHz
Hissing	1 - 7 KHz
Teeth grinding	10 KHz
Calls and stress signals	20 - 50 KHz (ultrasonic range)

However, for hamsters measuring the sound does not provide the complete information regarding the state of the hamster. The body language also plays a huge role in detecting the feelings of the hamster. For example, the position of the ears, posture and the fur represent another good ways to measure the state of the hamster.

Research using other sounds

Fox A, Neville V. in 2024 used bar biting and teeth chattering as a method to distinguish happiness and stress among hamsters. The methods work as the behaviors are rare in happy hamsters and will occur more in less ideal situations. The sounds can be used, but since the volume and pitch are common it is hard to distinguish in a standard home and not feasible.

Model derivation

In the current design, hamsters are examined on their weight, running distance and ear movements. At first glance these values might seem arbitrary, but they give a solid insight into the hamsters general health. As in the researchers interview is discussed, a hamsters difference in behavior can be an indicator of bad health. This is backed up as well by Mason and Rushen (2006) as well as Fischer, Gebhardt-Henrich, and Steiger (2007).

Another thing to notice, is that hamsters can hibernate, have a torpor or have nothing, depending on the species as well as on the environment. This is something that has to be taken into account by a model, since weight is impacted by hibernation, and can increase with around 10-20% before it starts. Also movement and mood will also likely be impacted in such a state. Since hibernation in pets happens barely, and only torpor (a short version of hibernation) can happen, any indication of it can be a good reason to check up on the hamster, as the environment may be too cold, they have lack of food or another health issue.

Weight

Body weight in hamsters can greatly differ, that is mostly because there are different species of hamsters. Since the design should work on all hamsters, a general indication can not be done without any previous indication of the particular hamster in the cage. A general estimate can be made when a species is given. The weight indication of hamsters would be as follows:

Roborovski dwarf hamster 17g on average

Campbell's dwarf hamster 23-28g

Winter white dwarf hamster 19-45g

Syrian hamster 114-140g

European hamster 220-460g

Further research shows hamsters lose 50% of their weight each winter. Day to day differences can also be very large, since hamsters have a relatively low body weight.

Hamster weight measuring can differ up to 15% (as the standard deviation), due to all types of reasons for error. Also every weight change between 1-2 days can be situational.

Hamster wheel

Hamsters run often, their cage and surroundings also give many reasons to run. In a study similar to this design, hamsters ran 40-60% of their time. In that time the distance ran averaged around 8km, while having a range of 0.63-18.56 km on average in said study. These values are dependent on many things, so cannot be taken as absolute guidelines. Another study found a daily distance ran of 12-14km, the timeline of both studies is very short, so while the values do not interfere, they do not align perfectly either. This will be taken into account for a model.

Ear movements

Although hamsters in particular do not have much research on ear position related to their health, there have been studies showing that mammals and in particular rodents use their ears in communication and will indicate their wellbeing. Since only a difference in wellbeing will be measured, the particular emotions are not necessary to create a model.

Weight model

A hamster starts at their current weight. After choosing the animal species, the user can compare it’s weight to that of a typical member of species. Since any differences are immediately spotted no indication is necessary, the hamsters starting weight at that point can be taken as a starting point.

A hamster's weight measurement can be about 15% accurate to their actual average. This is too large to draw conclusions on since it sometimes fluctuates wildly, so an average over 2 days is taken. This will be compared to the average of the previous 7 days. The hamster is weighed whenever it walks over the scale, which can also differ. However, the average of multiple measurements of the same thing, which in this case is the supposed average weight of the 2 days, has an uncertainty of:

Here M is the mean, σ is the standard deviation and N is the number of measurements. Let's say the weight is measured 5 times, this will be:

This value will continue to get low enough for a consistent measurement of this mean value. However, when many measurements are taken at a time where the hamster has a lower or higher weight, this can still skew the numbers. This could be an issue when the hamster likes to go to the scale after weighing one day, and is measured 10 times, while the rest of the day he walks past twice. In this case the hamster will be higher than the mean, while having a high measurement rate.

After this, the value is compared to the previous value and a difference of also 10% is taken, since that is a significant increase and would indicate a hamster starting for example hibernation. Since no actual testing can be done, this value can not be improved later on, but in an actual product this should be the case.

Movement model

Since movement differs very significantly as well, with little research to show whether there are different changes. A model will likely need to take about a weeks average to give a representative value to taken information from. The deviations can also be fairly impactful, as a single deviation at 0.63 km will throw off the week average by more than a km (taking the 8.3km average as in the study mentioned before), with a 13.2% decrease. A 15% difference will take one such outlier into account and can be a solid starting point.

1. References
   1. Differences in behavior
   2. Hibernation
      • Mason, G., & Rushen, J. (Eds.). (2006). Stereotypic animal behaviour: Fundamentals and applications to welfare (2nd ed.). CABI.
      • Fischer, M., Gebhardt-Henrich, S. G., & Steiger, A. (2007). Behaviour of golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) kept in four different cage sizes. Animal Welfare, 16(1), 85–93.
      • Hanatani, T. (2007). ハムスターの冬眠現象とその作出 (Seminar “Biological Temperature & Water Sensors: Function and Structure”). Cryobiology & Cryotechnology, 53(1), 57–63. https://doi.org/10.20585/cryobolcryotechnol.53.1_57
      • Feoktistova, E. (2019). Winter wonders of the common hamster: Part 1 [PowerPoint presentation]. Zoogdiervereniging. Retrieved from https://www.zoogdiervereniging.nl/sites/default/files/2020-04/P5_Feoktistova_Winter_wonders_of_the_common_hamster_Part1_presentation_2019.pdf
      • Chayama, K., Sato, T., Yamazaki, S., & Hashimoto, M. (2016). Decreases in body temperature and body mass constitute pre-hibernation remodelling in the Syrian golden hamster. Royal Society Open Science, 3(1), Article 160002. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160002
      • https://www.petsradar.com/advice/do-hamsters-hibernate?utm_source=chatgpt.com
2. Body
   1. Weight
      • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roborovski_dwarf_hamster
      • https://www.gbif.org/species/2437847
      • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_white_dwarf_hamster
      • https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/syrian-hamster#:~:text=The%20animal%20is%2014%E2%80%9319,and%20longer%20than%20the%20male.
      • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_hamster
      • University of Chicago. (2019, June 10). Siberian hamsters lose half their weight each winter. Scientists sequenced their DNA to find out how. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/siberian-hamsters-lose-half-their-weight-each-winter-scientists-sequenced-their-dna-find-out
      • Ahloy-Dallaire, J., Mormède, P., & Dallaire, J. (2019). Diurnal weight fluctuations in laboratory mice: A 24-hour study. Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, 58(4), 365–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023677218797974
   2. Running distance
      • Sherwin CM. Voluntary wheel running: a review and novel interpretation. Anim Behav. 1998 Jul;56(1):11-27. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1998.0836. PMID: 9710457.
      • Behaviour of golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) kept in four different cage sizes. Animal Welfare, 16(1), 85–93.
      • © Universities Federation for Animal Welfare.
      • Decreased wheel-running activity in hamsters post myocardial infarction. Journal of Translational Medicine, 4, 51. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-4-51
   3. Ear movements
      • Lecorps, B., & Féron, C. (2015). Correlates between ear postures and emotional reactivity in a wild type mouse species. Behavioural Processes, 120, 25–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2015.08.002
      • Ebbesen, C. L., Schiestl, M., & Féron, C. (2021). Body language signals for rodent social communication in laboratory settings. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 9, 737627. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.737627
3. Model
   1. Weight
      • Gattermann, R., Fritzsche, P., Weinandy, R., & Neumann, K. (2002). Comparative studies of body mass, body measurements and organ weights of wild-derived and laboratory golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus). Laboratory Animals, 36(4), 445–454. https://doi.org/10.1258/002367702320389071
      • National Research Council. (1995). Nutrient requirements of laboratory animals (4th rev. ed.). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
      • → Chapter 5: Nutrient requirements of the hamster. https://doi.org/10.17226/4758

Design

Introduction

The final proposed design is a smart hamster cage monitoring device developed to address the most important user needs identified through the user research discussed above:

1. Monitor their hamster (remotely) through a live video feed
2. Track daily hamster activity through usage of the hamster wheel
3. Track their hamster's weight and be able to compare to past measurements
4. Track environmental conditions in the cage and be alerted when action is necessary
5. Be notified when possible signs of illness in the hamster are detected

The design combines hardware sensors, infrared cameras, and AI-based image analysis to provide real-time information on the hamster’s activity and environmental conditions, and contribute to early awareness about possible health issues. The device interfaces with a mobile application, which consolidates live data and sends health alerts or insights, as well as providing historical data for comparison and tracking, ensuring users can provide improved care for their hamster through data-driven insights.

Each feature was developed directly in response to user requirements and preferences defined in the earlier design research and requirements analysis, as well as with considerations towards the constrains both defined by the users themselves and constrains related to the project format. The following subsections describe each component in detail.

To run the cameras and the sensors, two microcontroller boards (MCBs) were chosen with the described reasoning:

• Raspberry Pi 3
  • The Pi 3 was selected as the MCB for the cameras for its balance between affordability and video streaming capability, which is superior to that of comparably-priced Arduino modules [source]. It is connected to a camera splitter, which in turn connects the top and bottom IR cameras. To maximize the performance of the Pi, the models themselves are not run on the Pi itself but rather on the computer that receives the live feed before relaying it to the user app. This applies to both the tracking model on the top camera feed and the ear-based health model on the bottom camera feed.
• Arduino UNO R4
  • To operate the sensors, encoder and scale, as well as transmit that sensor data, the Arduino UNO R4 was selected. This option offers integrated Wi-Fi connectivity for an affordable price. The processing power and memory are plenty to operate the sensors, and an UNO R3 board could have been used as well, however these don't come with integrated Wi-Fi chips, so the R4 model was chosen to streamline the electronics set-up and reduce complexity.

Features

Physical Features

Infrared Cameras

Upper camera module

Top Camera

The top camera continuously streams a live feed of the cage which can be watched from the user application. Its infrared (IR) capability allows for visibility in low-light conditions, which is critical in the context of hamster monitoring as they are typically nocturnal animals. The height and angle of the camera are adjustable to provide user customizability based on their individual cages. This top camera feed provides the input not only to the user via the app, but also into an AI model which is trained to identify hamsters. These detections are logged and used to provide insights into typical activity times of the hamster. This will be discussed further below.

Fig. A (top) and Fig. B (bottom) of bottom camera module

Bottom Camera

Similar to the top camera module, the bottom camera is capable of capturing IR light, which allows for night-time monitoring and imaging of the hamster. It is also fitted with two IR lights, one on either side, which improve IR visibility for both the lower and the upper camera without disturbing the hamster or affecting its circadian rhythm. The bottom camera is placed right behind the transparent hamster wheel, which allows for a close-up view of the hamster when it is in the wheel or otherwise close to the device. Not only does this allow the user to benefit from cute images of their pet up close, it also allows for improved visual health checks. While the user benefits from improved manual checks through the close-up feed of the camera, a process which may prove difficult trying to hold the hamster still in their hands, the detailed images are also used by an integrated machine-learning model, which is trained on identifying signs of health issues for the hamster based on ear characteristics such as shape and external skin problems, which forms one part of the hamster health model.

Hamster Wheel with Encoder

For this design, a 15-centimeter transparent wheel was chosen. While some hamsters require larger wheels, the 15cm one was chosen to contribute to this proof-of-concept design, which would provide a foundation for larger, expanded designs which incorporate larger wheel dimensions. The wheel is defined most importantly by its transparency, as the bottom camera module must be able to get a clear view of the hamster through the wheel. Via a wheel-encoder connector piece, which is a connecting piece which is connected to the wheel via a (removable) screw through its center and fits tightly onto the head of the encoder, the spinning of the wheel can be quantified precisely by the encoder. This rotational data is then translated to a linear distance covered by the hamster in the wheel, then provided to the user via the companion app. The chosen encoder (HW-040) is a standard rotary encoder with 20 ticks, or increments, per revolution. This provides a distance resolution of

[math]\displaystyle{ dL = \frac{\pi \, d_{wheel} \, [\tfrac{m}{rev}]}{20 \, [\tfrac{ticks}{rev}]} = 0.024\, m }[/math] .

Since this resolution is much smaller than typical daily variations in small rodents' activity, it is able to provide users with reliable and relevant data on their hamsters (available in the app), as well provide data for an additional facet of the health model.

Integrated Scale

To further improve data collection for the user's own knowledge as well as use in the health model, an integrated scale sits in the base of the device, in the front of the wheel. The scale comprises a simple flat, rectangular scale which sits flush with the surface of the base to minimize protruding parts. It has a precision of +/- 1g which is an approximate standard for small kitchen scales, chosen over larger, more robust but less precise scales to avoid missing weight changes of under 10 grams which are frequent for very small animals such as hamsters . When the hamster crosses over the base, including whenever it wants to use the wheel, a weight measurement can be made. As hamsters typically use the wheel multiple times a day, this provides a frequent intake of measurements which the user can access via the app and compare recent measurements to historical data including daily, weekly and monthly averages. Logic on how the weight relates to the health of the hamster is explored further in the health model section below. Users are suggested to regularly place a small treat on the scale or otherwise occupy the hamster briefly while it is on the scale so a stable and reliable measurement can be ensured.

Environmental Sensors

Two sensors are mounted behind the wheel for open-air exposure while avoiding direct contact with the hamster:

• Temperature Sensor (DHT-11):
  • Records ambient temperature to ±1 °C accuracy
  • Data is used to warn user when temperatures fall outside of recommended ranges for hamsters, both in environments which are typically too hot and too cold for the hamster.

• Ammonia (NH3) Sensor (MiCS-4514):
  • Detects ammonia concentrations between 1–500 ppm
  • Provides early warnings of unsanitary conditions via urine detection.

The need for environmental awareness emerged from user frustrations regarding cage hygiene and concerns about cage temperatures in colder months of the year or in regions where temperatures are regularly low, as well as vice versa for conditions where the cage might become too warm. Temperature warnings are sent when cage temperatures fall below 19 or above 23 degrees Celsius (~65 - 75F), a slightly smaller range than the 18.3 - 23.9 degrees Celsius proposed in research as it may take users some time to arrange for temporary fixes to the temperature changes of the cage. The user can also choose to further tighten the range of acceptable temperatures if they would like more conservative warnings. As previously stated, detected ammonia levels of 25ppm and higher will be used as a guideline to notify the user the cage may need to be changed, as described in Smeets et al.. Similarly to temperature, the user can also adjust the trigger level of ammonia sensor readings to below 25ppm to suit their personal needs regarding when to be notified by the device through the app.

[math]\displaystyle{ T_{warning} = 0 \quad for \quad 19 \leq T_{measured} \leq 23, \quad else \quad T_{warning} = 1 }[/math]

[math]\displaystyle{ NH3_{warning} = 1 \quad for \quad NH3_{measured} \geq 25 [ppm] }[/math]

Digital Features

Mobile App Design

To access the live feed as well as measurement data from the device, a mobile companion app is used. The app

The digital part of the design consists of a mobile app for users. Below a proposed design for the user interface of this app can be seen. The app has the following functions:

- The live camera feed can be viewed on the app.

- The daily activity, in distance covered on the hamster wheel, can be found on the app. An overview of historical values can also be found in the app for comparison.

- The weight of the hamster can be found on the app, together with an overview of previous measurements for comparison.

- Shows the cage temperature, along with an ideal reference range given.

- Shows the cage ammonia level, also including a ideal reference value.

- Customizable notifications for which the user can choose which alerts or warnings they want to receive, including warnings about environmental conditions or the health of the hamster.

Current Mobile App

As part of the final product of this project, an app was planned to be made. However, due to time constraints this was only partially realized. The the app, as described in the section directly above, is what the final version of this app would look and function as.

Currently, the app has UI elements only and barely any back-end logic that would normally provide functionality to the UI. The app is currently only provides pseudo-random data for three horizontal bar graphs. One graph shows the amount of rotations per hour for a daily overview, and two graphs show a per day overview with a time span of one week or one month.

Additionally, the app has a "settings" page that allows users to change the breed of hamster. This feature, however, is only cosmetic, and does not change any parameters in other sections of the app. Below a screenshot of the current design.

Despite the elementary functionality, this app was a good learning experience, as app development was something we had not done before.

Current version of the app

Holistic Hamster Health Index (HHHI) Model

Introduction

The health model we have designed provides a data-driven framework for assessing hamster well-being through the monitoring of key health indicators. It integrates weight and activity analysis, and visible ear condition evaluation into a unified Holistic Hamster Health Index (HHHI). By tracking short- and long-term weight and activity averages and statistical deviations from these averages, the model aims to improve user awareness of potential early signs of illness before these health issues develop significantly. This proactive system encourages timely intervention by users, reduces health risks to hamsters, and establishes a data-driven foundation for automated health check alerts.

[Disclaimer: the HHHI model designed for this project is absolutely not a replacement for manual health checks! The aim is rather to improve early awareness of possible issues and provide guidance to the user concerning what potentially important symptoms the model has detected. For more information on regular manual health checks, please contact your local veterinarian.]

Component 1: Weight

In laboratory rodents, a ≥20% reduction in body weight is commonly used as a humane endpoint criterion. To provide early intervention rather than reactive care, our system defines earlier warning thresholds based on the following criteria: (a) a relative deviation of most recent weight measurement of ≥ 2.5% from the 24-hour baseline (b) 5 days of consecutive decreases of 24-hour baseline (c) relative deviation of 24-hour baseline of ≥ 10% from 30-day baseline, or (d) a drop in 24-hour baseline exceeding two standard deviations below the 30-day baseline. This aligns with the ~95% confidence interval typically used in clinical and physiological monitoring. A collection period of 30 days is implemented for the last two factors to allow for data collection and mean stabilization before conclusions are drawn based on this 30-day data. The 'baseline' above refers to the animal's normalized mean weight for the given periods. Additional information on collected sources on this subject are provided below. Citations for each warning criterion have been provided.

• Automated monitoring of mouse feeding and body weight for continuous health assessment
  • Uses automated home cage monitoring to detect changes in body weight […], key signs of sickness behavior that mice cannot voluntarily hide or alter and that can indicate deteriorating overall health
  • Found typical day-to-day changes of around 1.3% in small mice measuring weights multiple times a day, whenever the mice went into a feeder fitted with a scale. Food amounts were kept low to ensure mice returned frequently. An average of the weight measured at different times of the day was taken for each hour, with highest weights being recorded between 21:00-22:00 which was the time most mice would wake up and enter the feeder to get food. There were minor deviations in the hourly measurements, so the averages were used to calculate the expected day-to-day deviations from the mean. To account for these deviations, as well as the possibility of other factors which may affect the accuracy of the measurements such as the hamster having food in its mouth or moving around on the scale, an expected change of +/-2.5% from the average weight in the last 24 hours is chosen to indicate possible sickness.
• Time of death of CNS tumor-bearing rats can be reliably predicted by body weight-loss patterns
  • "Sustained weight loss was predictive of imminent death"
  • "Third and final phase [after initial weight loss due to surgery and consequent recovery] consisted of a period of irreversible weight loss".
  • "[...] determined that 7 or more consecutive days of weight loss in central nervous system tumor-bearing rats correlated well with irreversible progression to death."
    • Since prevention should warn BEFORE "irreversible progression", 7 days is taken as an upper bound. A period of 5 days was selected to provide early warning while avoiding excessive alerting of false negatives.
• Body Condition Scoring: A Rapid and Accurate Method for Assessing Health Status in Mice
  • Twenty percent loss of rodent BW or prolonged weight loss […] are generally established criteria for euthanasia.
    • Since prevention should warn BEFORE there is a reason to euthanize, 20% is taken as an upper bound. A midpoint of 10% is taken to balance early awareness with false positive alerts.
    • Also including:
      • Workman, P., A. Balmain, J. A. Hickman, et al. 1988. UKCCCR guidelines for the welfare of animals in experimental neoplasia. Lab. Animals 22:195–201.
      • Olfert, E. D. 1996. Considerations for defining an acceptable endpoint in toxicological experiments. Lab Anim. 25(3): 38–43.
• On the definition of dermatological disease Part 2: Approaches for defining dermatological diseases
  • “For disease states […] statistical approaches using cutoff points representing 2 standard deviations from a normal distribution are often used.”
  • After a period of data collection personal to the user's hamster, deviations from typical values can be defined by the standard deviation of the data collected in the last 30 days. A period of 30 days was chosen as averages over shorter time periods increase the risk of unexpected variation and not more than 30 days as data should be relevant to the recent state of the hamster and its weight may change at different times of the year and the average should be dynamic enough to reflect these changes.

The resultant mathematical model for indices contributing to weight warnings takes into account each of these factors individually, as well as a composite of the four factors mentioned above, normalized and averaged to deduce a holistic weight index which has a threshold of 0.25. The resultant composite weight index, as well as its individual component indices, are defined as follows:

[math]\displaystyle{composite \; weight \; index = i_w = \frac{i_{w1} + i_{w2} + i_{w3} + i_{w4}}{4}, \; \text{warning if } i_w \leq 0.25 }[/math]

where

[math]\displaystyle{i_{w1} = 1 - \frac{\delta_{24\text{h}}}{0.025} = 1 - \frac{\mu_{24h} - W_{\text{measured}}}{0.025 \cdot \mu_{24h}}, \; \text{warning if } i_{w1} \le 0}[/math]

[math]\displaystyle{i_{w2} = 1 - \frac{n_{norm}}{5} = 1 - \frac{n_{\text{loss}}}{5}, \; \text{warning if } i_{w2} \le 0}[/math]

[math]\displaystyle{i_{w3} = 1 - \frac{\delta_{av,long}}{0.10} = 1 - \frac{\mu_{30d} - \mu_{24h}}{0.10 \cdot \mu_{30d}}, \; \text{warning if } i_{w3} \le 0}[/math]

[math]\displaystyle{i_{w4} = 1 - R_{24h,30d} = 1 - \frac{\mu_{24h}}{\mu_{30d} - 2 \cdot \sigma_{30d}}, \; \text{warning if } i_{w4} \le 0}[/math]

where

[math]\displaystyle{W_{measured} = }[/math] most recent weight measurement

[math]\displaystyle{\mu_{24\text{h}} = }[/math] mean of measured values in last 24 hours

[math]\displaystyle{\mu_{30\text{d}} = }[/math] mean of measured values in last 30 days

[math]\displaystyle{\sigma_{30\text{d}} = }[/math] standard deviation of measured values in last 30 days

[math]\displaystyle{n_{\text{loss}} = }[/math] number of consecutive days with decreasing [math]\displaystyle{\mu_{\text{daily}}}[/math] measurements

Component 2: Activity

While a clear correlation has been established throughout multiple studies, the depth of research identifying decreases in wheel running as possible signs of sickness is not as extensive as it is for links between decreases in bodyweight and worsening health conditions. Rather than many different factors, studies simply showed that consequences of sickness in hamsters could lead to reductions in activity, firstly in deviation from a baseline value over a period of 8 weeks in one study and 21 days another. Another indicator, shown in Haubold et al, is a range of typical weight variations over a period of 21 days for healthy rodents, from which a mean and standard deviation can be extracted. Two indices can be deduced from these factors, one of which is a percentage deviation from an 8-week baseline, the other is a decrease of more than two standard deviations from a 21-day baseline.

• Loss of Cdk5 function in the nucleus accumbens decreases wheel running and may mediate age-related declines in voluntary physical activity.
  • Increases in age are often associated with reduced levels of physical activity, which, in turn, associates with the development of numerous chronic diseases.
  • "These experiments suggest that […] loss in synaptic function and […] [brain] activity may be partially responsible for […] declines in voluntary running behaviour."
  • "We report that decreasing levels of voluntary wheel running between 8 and 14 weeks are associated with declines in (i) MSN dendritic spine density and (ii) gene networks critical for synaptic communication and neuron development, and also that (iii) several transcripts central to these functions are highly correlated with wheel running distance."
  • "Pharmacological inhibition of Cdk5, a molecule central to some of the functions described above, dose-dependently decreased wheel running", the term "functions" referring here to the forming and maintaining of neural reward pathways and mood regulation functions, decrease of which are related to age and ill health.
• Current protocols in mouse biology
  • "The fitness testing paradigm for voluntary wheel running […] has been used to measure endurance in mice with compromised skeletal muscle function [and klotho protein deficiency were] subjected to voluntary wheel running [and showed] running pattern characteristics of repeated bouts of exhaustion. The mice ran at the same speed as wild type controls but spent significantly less time running. Therefore, voluntary wheel running served as a measure of muscle performance."
  • Provides further evidence to the link between health conditions such as skeletal/muscle issues and protein deficiency to decreased wheel activity, specifically stating that "voluntary wheel running served as a measure of muscle performance".
• Reduced voluntary running performance is associated with impaired coordination as a result of muscle satellite cell depletion in adult mice.
  • "Interestingly, satellite cell-depleted animals ran ~27 % less distance and were 23 % slower than non-depleted animals [over a period of 8 weeks]."
  • Study links satellite cell depletion, which has strongly associated with health issues in mice, other rodents, and humans , to significant decreases in voluntary running activity.
  • To ensure the model tends towards preventative warning rather than reactive warning, a slightly conservative approximation of 25% will be used in the model.
• Loss of desmin leads to impaired voluntary wheel running and treadmill exercise performance
  • Loss of desmin leads to impaired voluntary wheel running and treadmill exercise performance.
  • Links absence of a gene called desmin crucial for maintaining the structural integrity and function of muscle tissue to a significant decrease in wheel running distance, time and speed.
  • "Desmin null mice spent less time running and ran less distance throughout the entire duration of the voluntary exercise period compared with wild-type mice"
    • Reduction in or absence of desmin gene is associated with illness such as lung fibrosis and infections which shows a decrease in running in the wheel can be linked to possible decreases in health of the rodent, in our case hamsters.

  • 

    Effect of loss of desmin on activity of mice (Haubold et al.) with estimated means drawn in blue [not part of original results diagram]

  • Average values for sick or healthy mouse groups are not mentioned in the results of the paper, but are estimated from the graph to provide an approximate difference in running distance that can be used in our hamster health model. The darker data series represents the distances run by the healthy mice, and the lighter data representing distances run by the sick mice, with approximate average values of 1.7 km/day and 0.60 km/day. Since the absolute values of distance covered by rodents may vary based on their size, a percentage change of (0.6/1.7)*100=35% will be considered for the model, as well as the variance and standard deviation of the healthy mouse group.
    • It should also be noted that while the Haubold et al. study suggests a 35% decrease in activity, the Jackson et al. study suggests a ~27% decrease, which was chosen in the end as the upper bound as the model's priority is improving early warning rather than providing warnings which are more likely to be correct but are potentially given far too late.

Similar to factors three and four of the composite weight index, a time period will be allocated towards collecting data on the user's hamster for use in the model. In this case, a 21-day period is designated for factor two (referring to the index related to the since the averages taken from the Haubold et al. study were taken for activity measurements over a duration of 21 days. As the 8-week duration of the Jackson et al. study is a significant period of time to wait for data on hamster health, a reduced percentage will be applied after 30 days to provide conservative alerts in the time period until enough data has been collected to apply the study's results. While this may provide some increase in false positives, the model should serve as an early warning system rather than a reactive alert so a conservative estimate is preferred. Users should also prioritize the health of their hamsters to such a degree that some initial adjustments of the model to the personalized data of their pet coming in the form of additional, precautionary health check suggestions is not a problem. The final indices are defined as follows:

• Percentage deviation of 24-hour average from healthy 30-day baseline
  • First stage (30-56 days):
    • [math]\displaystyle{\alpha}[/math] = max. deviation = 20% from 30-day baseline.
  • Second stage (56+ days):
    • [math]\displaystyle{\alpha}[/math] = max. deviation = 25% from 30-day baseline.
• Decrease of 24-hour average by two standard deviations or more from 21-day baseline

[math]\displaystyle{composite \; activity \; index = i_a = \frac{i_{a1} + i_{a2}}{2}, \; \text{warning if } i_a \leq 0.25 }[/math]

where

[math]\displaystyle{i_{a1} = 1 - \frac{\delta_{24\text{h}}}{\alpha} = 1 - \frac{\mu_{24h} - \mu_{30d}}{\alpha \cdot \mu_{30d}}, \; \text{warning if } i_{a1} \le 0}[/math]

[math]\displaystyle{\quad [\alpha = 0.20 \; for \; 30 < n_d < 56, \alpha = 0.25 \; for \; n_d > 56]}[/math]

[math]\displaystyle{i_{a2} = 1 - R_{24h,21d} = 1 - \frac{\mu_{24h}}{\mu_{21d} - 2 \cdot \sigma_{21d}}, \; \text{warning if } i_{a2} \le 0}[/math]

where

[math]\displaystyle{\mu_{24\text{h}} = }[/math] mean of measured values in last 24 hours

[math]\displaystyle{\mu_{21\text{d}} = }[/math] mean of measured values in last 21 days

[math]\displaystyle{\sigma_{21\text{d}} = }[/math] standard deviation of measured values in last 21 days

[math]\displaystyle{n_{\text{d}} = }[/math] number of days since first acitivity measurement

Hamster Image Analysis Model

The final component of the HHHI model is a machine-learning component. This ML model is trained on a dataset of thousands of images and can identify properties of ears which suggest the hamster is sick. A link between different problems with hamster's ears, such as the presence of flaking skin, discharge and other possible sickness symptoms has long been known, with it being generally accepted that checking a hamster's ears is a vital part of performing manual health checks, as detailed for instance in the paper and articles below. More on information on the functionality of the image analysis model is given in the next section.

• Disease Problems of Small Rodents
  • Mentions any physical examination should include "examining first the ears".
  • Types of dermatitis show physical signs "on the dorsum of the pinna", an area at the top of the ear, which may develop into more severe lesions across the larger head area.
  • Melanoma, a type of neoplasia commonly found in aging gerbils, often starts, and is identified on the ear, foot, or base of the tail, are seen.
• Hamster health checks
  • Describes the process of "performing a health check on your hamster" including looking "for any abrasions, or for flaky, crusty, or otherwise irritated looking skin [on the hamster's] ears".
• Signs your hamster is sick
  • "The following symptoms may indicate that your hamster feels unwell […] discharge from the eyes, ears or nose."

The output of the model is processed as a binary value which is added to the final health index. It is added in such a way that if the model detects that the hamster is sick, a warning is immediately sent out regardless of the other two factors, and if it detects that the hamster is healthy, it has no effect on the evaluation of the HHH index, which is then only dependent on the weight and activity indices and may still indicate the hamster is sick even if no symptoms are visible on its ears.

Final Model

[math]\displaystyle{holistic \; hamster \; health \; (HHH) \; index = i_{HHH} = \frac{i_{w} + i_{a}}{2} - \epsilon, \; \text{warning if } i_{HHH} \leq 0.25 }[/math]

where

[math]\displaystyle{\epsilon = 0}[/math] or [math]\displaystyle{\epsilon = 1}[/math] respectively represent a healthy or sick reading from the lower camera's ML model.

AI/ML Image Analysis Models

Hamster Activity Tracking Model

-

Hamster Health Analysis Model

-

Discussion

This section discusses the current limitations to our prototype and further improvements and additions that could be looked into in a future research.

User Feedback

A third round of user feedback was done on the prototype design. Via user interviews and a user survey, users were asked to explain what they think about the physical prototype, the user application and the pricing. They were also asked whether they had any possible improvements in mind. There were 9 responses on the survey and 3 interviews were performed.

physical prototype

8/12 (~67%) respondents, from both the feedback survey and interview, had overall positive feedback about the functionalities of the prototype, 2/12 (~17%) were mostly neutral and 2/12 (~17%) overall negative.​

- comments on functionalities:

• A user would like to know whether the materials are safe for the hamster.

• Extra information should be added on how to charge the prototype and the duration.

• A user would like to see the hamster also being tracked in the habitat.
• A user would like the wheel to be able to go up and down
• 2 users would like to know how silent the wheel is.
• A user would like to know how easy to clean the product is.
• A user indicated that a product like this will cause neglect of the hamster on the user side.
• A user said that wheel size should be indicated and large enough.
• A user commented on that the electronics should be chew safe.
• 2 concerns about whether the scale is accurate enough because of the hamster running around
• A user would like to have the camera separately.

- comments on physical shape:

• 3 users commented the design looked to easy to climb on top of. Which is a safety hazard for the hamster.
• 3 users did not like the aesthetic.
• A user commented that it should be waterproof with non absorbent properties, because of it being peed on.
• A user commented that ideally the edges should all be rounded/no sharp edges,
• A user commented that the weight part should be placed in a part where the hamster grooms itself.

User application

8/12 (~67%) respondents, from both the feedback survey and interview, responded positively about the functionalities of the app, with 4/12 (33%) providing overall neutral feedback.

- comments on functionalities:

• A user suggested an ability to make a downloadable printout of the information captured.
• A user suggested an ability to make manual data entries (e.g. vet visits, medications, food given, etc.)
• A user wondered how the app would differentiate food in the hamster pouches in the weight tracking.
• A user wanted a notification when the hamster is active, to refrain from waking it up to play with it.
• 2 users wanted options to put different units. (i.e. imperial units)
• A user suggested a few more visual charts for things like the weight.
• A user commented on the insights tab that it does not seem to give actual information , so it would be better to compile all the statistics in one list.

- comments on user interface design:

• 2 users suggested being able to customize the color scheme of the app or the fonts. (e.g. light/dark mode, etc.)

• A user suggested short educational snippets about recommended safe levels to inform users on what is ideal.

• A user asked whether there would be a desktop version available for the app.
• A user suggested a full screen function for the live camera feed
• A user suggested a text to speech function.
• A user would prefer one page with tabs you can scroll through.
• A user commented that the bottom bar is too cramped

Pricing

- comments on pricing:

- 2 users commented that 240 euros would be fine if safety and a long functionality/ repair in case of damage can be guaranteed.

- 4 users argued that the price is to high, due to multiple reasons. (i.e. already owning products for some of the functionalities, limited budget, the rest of the cage/ accessories already being expensive enough)

Evaluation

// Introduction

// Requirements/Preferences achieved

// User feedback-based evaluation

// Summary

The team has managed to achieve all the requirements, along with some of the preferences as well

-           Daily tracking of the wheel usage

-           Being able to compare wheel usage to previous data

-           Being able to monitor the hamster through video via an app

-           Phone notifications

-           Price of the device is within the price range

-           Received positive feedback from the users for the final prototype

Future Work

-           Improved health model through

- Extensive collaboration with vets and researchers to improve identifications of health issue symptoms

-   Integration of AI-based behavior analysis based on regular daily behavior and deviations thereof

-   Implement other data points into the model if they are shown to indicate health issues (e.g. maximum speed, time spent on the wheel, body temperature)

-           Product development of entire cage/enclosure with integrated smart device

-           In-person testing with hamster owners and their pets to better understand their interactions and needs from the device

-           User trials for the companion app to collect more detailed user needs information

Appendix

Task Division

Name	Study	Task Focus
Robert Arnhold	Mechanical Engineering	Mechanical design and prototyping
Sietse Bosman	Applied Physics	Simulation & modeling of parts and prototype
Octavian Astefanei	Electrical Engineering	Electrical design and assembly of electrical parts/features
Anne Willems	Electrical Engineering	Electrical design and assembly of electrical parts/features
Kerim Gjergjizi	Electrical Engineering	Electrical design and assembly of electrical parts/features
Lucas Spronk	Computer Science	Programming of digital part systems, companion software

Weekly Tasks

Week 1

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold	7	Three weekly meetings (1h each), Plan sections (4h, Concept Introduction, Objectives, Users)
Sietse Bosman	5	Two weekly meetings (1h each), Deliverables (3h)
Octavian Astefanei	7	Three weekly meetings (1h each), Planning, Milestones (2h), Research on existing technology (2h)
Anne Willems	14	Two weekly meetings (1h each), part of SoTa (12h, read and summarized articles: [6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12],[13],[14],[15],[23],[24])
Kerim Gjergjizi	6	One weekly meetings (1h), Approach (2h), Research and Finding potential features (3h)
Lucas Spronk	9	Three weekly meetings (1h each), other part of SotA (8h)

Week 2

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold	7	Three weekly meetings (1h each), writing interview questions (3h), contacting potential interview participants (2h)
Sietse Bosman	6	Three weekly meetings (1h each), Research and contacting animal testing facilities (3h)
Octavian Astefanei	7	Three weekly meetings (1h each), Research for veterinarian clinics (1h), Writing interview questions (2h), Contacting veterinarian clinics (1h)
Anne Willems	6	Three weekly meetings (1h each), writing survey questions and looking for forums to post survey on (3h)
Kerim Gjergjizi	5	Two weekly meetings (1h each), Survey Questions and Making the Survey (3h)
Lucas Spronk	5	Three weekly meetings (1h each), research for ethical approval and implementation into survey/interview (2h)

Week 3

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold	8	Two weekly meetings (1h each), conducting interviews with hamster owners (1.5h each), transcribing recordings (2h each)
Sietse Bosman	5	Two weekly meetings (1h each), planned hamster interview with LUMC and finalized questions (3h)
Octavian Astefanei	5	Two weekly meetings (1h each), contacting vets (3h)
Anne Willems	6	Two weekly meetings (1h each), looking into data processing methods(1h), assessing survey results and making affinity diagram (3h)
Kerim Gjergjizi	3	Two weekly meetings (1h each), send out the surveys (1h)
Lucas Spronk	5	Two weekly meetings (1h each), research usable electrical components (2h), research health indicators, monitoring, etc. (1h)

Week 4

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold	11	Two weekly meetings (1h each), summarising interviews, collecting useful features and exploring challenges (2h each), designing prototype (1h), creating CAD model (3h) and writing description and features list (1h), editing the Wiki page (1h)
Sietse Bosman	9	Two weekly meetings (1h each), held interview (1h), finalized transcript (3h), researched hamster cage deliverables (3h)
Octavian Astefanei	9	Two weekly meetings (1h each), designing prototype (3h), making drawings (0.5h), research parts (1.5h), research ways of implementing the prototype / code / similar projects (2h)
Anne Willems	8	Two weekly meetings (1h each), adding survey results to wiki (2,5h), moscow list(0,5 h), designing prototype(3h)
Kerim Gjergjizi	4	One weekly meeting (1h), working on a prototype which I could not finish (3h)
Lucas Spronk	9	Two weekly meetings (1h each), designing prototype (1h), starting on app development (6h)

Week 5

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold	12.5	Group meeting (1h), editing wiki page (1h), working with AnimalTA (5h), writing up ATA software analysis section (1h), working with YOLO model (3h), writing up YOLO analysis section (0.5h)
Sietse Bosman	8.5	Two weekly meetings (1h each), researching sound monitoring (2h), researching hamster cage requirements (1h), Designing prototype (3h), revisited researcher interview corrections (0,5h)
Octavian Astefanei	9,5	Meeting (1h), researching sound monitoring (3h), designing prototype (3h), editing wiki page (1h), trying to build sound detector prototype (1.5h)
Anne Willems	7	two weekly meetings (1h each), looking into ammonia sensing (1h), designing prototype (3), editing wiki page(1)
Kerim Gjergjizi	2	Two weekly Meetings (1h),
Lucas Spronk	10	Two weekly meetings (1h each), working with ToxTrac, ezTrack (6h) writing up wiki (1h) prototyping (1h)

Week 6

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold	10.5	Group meeting (1h), training and testing YOLO model (4h), user specification interviews (1h each), transcribing interviews (2h each), creating presentation skeleton (30m)
Sietse Bosman
Octavian Astefanei	10	Meetings (2h), work on wiki (3h), design prototype (4h), research health indicators(1h)
Anne Willems	9	2 weekly meetings(1h), writing up more specific requirements(2h), survey questions and making and posting survey(3h), processing survey results and rewriting requirements based on it(3)
Kerim Gjergjizi	7	One weekly meeting (1h), App development (4h), App design (2h)
Lucas Spronk	7	1 Weekly meeting (1h), Research and test, and write-up on TRex (3h), Wiki work (1h), App dev (2)

Week 7

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold	29	Three weekly meetings (1h each), creating electronic wiring sketch (1h), ordering and wiring electronics (2h), modelling prototype in CAD (5h), writing design section (not in wiki yet, 4h), constructing physical test prototype (5h), adding slides and practising presentation (3h), research and development of health model (6h)
Sietse Bosman
Octavian Astefanei	15	4 weekly meetings (4h), work on presentation (4h), research health indicators(1h), get and test sensors (4h), editing some spelling mistakes on the wiki (2h)
Anne Willems	17	4 weekly meetings(1h each), cleaning up and rewriting parts of the wiki(4.5h), rewriting/summarizing state of the art(2.5h), making and sending out user survey (2h), processing survey results, looking into and adding them to the wiki(4)
Kerim Gjergjizi	22	Three weekly meetings (1h each), Finishing up on the App design and stopped on the development front (19h)
Lucas Spronk	21	3 Weekly meetings (1h each) App development (18)

Week 8

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold		Finishing YOLO model section (), finishing physical features section (2h), writing health model section (3h), finishing AI/ML design sub-section (), correcting wiring sketch for final wiring arrangement ().
Sietse Bosman
Octavian Astefanei
Anne Willems
Kerim Gjergjizi
Lucas Spronk	3	Two weekly meetings (1h each), writing the "current mobile app" section (1h)

Total hours spent on project:

Name	Total Time Spent [hours]	Task Breakdown
Robert Arnhold
Sietse Bosman
Octavian Astefanei
Anne Willems		literature research, Wiki work, user surveys
Kerim Gjergjizi
Lucas Spronk	66	SotA research, Wiki work, App dev

Planning

This was the original planning, however it was not fully adhered to.

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8
Course introduction and formation of the team	Research on the selected topic	Interview possible users	Interview possible users	Work on and test the prototype	Work on and test the prototype	Finish the prototype and do final testing	Finish wiki
Brainstorming and deciding the project idea	Create interview questions for possible interested people	Update the wiki page with the data gathered from the interviews	Decide additional characteristics based on the interviews	Research	Research	Work on the presentation and demo	Final presentation and demo
Research on the selected topic	Decide some of the main characteristics of the product	Decide a possible price target for the project and realistic objectives	Start designing the prototype	Update the wiki page	Update the wiki page	Update the wiki page
Research for alternatives and state-of-the-art	Update the wiki page with interview questions	Decide additional characteristics based on the interviews	Decide on possible architectures and components
Update wiki page with planning, users and literature study

//

OLD Deliverables

To summarize what the product needs to deliver, it is useful to use a MoSCoW list, which specifies the Musts, Shoulds, Coulds and Wonts of the product. This is done keeping the USE-perspectives (User, Society, Enterprise) in mind. The society aspect will be out of scope in this product, since better pet care will likely not be impactful for the whole of society. There can be argued the societal aspect is the increasing of satisfaction of the users, which will be taken into account in the user-perspective. The User aspect will therefore get a lot of attention, as that is what the product will mostly accommodate. The earlier objectives give a solid framework for the list.

moscow list

What does a hamster cage need:

For the following hamster types: Syrian hamster; Djungarian Hamster; Chinese hamster all Syrian hamsters. A hamster cage has to take it's daily activities and needs into account. This results in the following guidelines to make a cage

• Habits
  • Burrow-digging
  • Nest building
  • Active during low-light
    • In lab also daily
• Sensitivities
  • Seasonal changes: Daylight length should be normal
• Needs
  • Human contact regularly
    • When most active
  • Any housing system for hamsters should satisfy the physiological and ethological needs for (Kuhnen G (2002). Comfortable quarters for hamsters in research institutions. In: A Comfortable Quarters for Laboratory Animals. (Eds. Reinhardt V and Reinhardt A), 9th edition. Animal Welfare Institute.)
    • Resting
    • Nest building
    • Grooming
    • Exploring
    • Climbing
    • Hiding
    • Digging
    • searching for food
    • Hoarding (food hiding)
    • Gnawing (biting to trim their teeth)
  • Latrine area on the opposite side of cage to food
  • Hamster cage size needs by European guidelines to be the following (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:276:0033:0079:EN:PDF)
    • Min. 800 cm², 14 cm high
    • As the hamster needs to be visible, multiple levels aren't likely. They would need to be 250 cm² per level.

For the User

The cage and system should contain certain parts to fulfill its purpose:

• Multiple data-collection units to draw data from.
• A processing part to convert the data into useful information.
• A user interface to convey the information to the user

From the users perspective there are extra options for convenience as well. To name a few relevant ones:

• A camera to view your pet
• A robotic interactive display to convey the pet’s situation
• A method to change settings (food amount, lighting, etc.)
• An app to show the current and past behavior of the pet
• A comparison from the hamster with other hamsters in similar situations
• Interactive parts in the cage to play with the hamster
• An option to either follow multiple hamsters, calculate the situation for multiple hamsters or both

Don’ts from the users side will either block the standard parts of a cage or will be a lack of relevant features.

Since the user aspect will be researched, more items will need to be added or edited later in the process, for a more complete image of the end project.

For the Enterprise

Finally to look at the Enterprise-perspective, which also has musts, since the project development has limited work and resources. The project must be done with certain constraints in mind:

• An estimated 840 hours of development
• Be created within 7 weeks, during the timespan of the course
• Have a robotic component
• A wiki page containing all development information
• A final presentation

It should have:

• A selling price affordable for the defined user
• User input and feedback into the project
• A working prototype

There are not really coulds relevant for the enterprise.

The cage won’t be:

• Usable for other pets than specified

Forums survey was posted on:

- Reddit:r/hamster, r/hamsters, r/hamstercare

- Quora

- Www.thehamsterforum.com

- Hamsterclubhouse.com

- Www.paw-talk.net

- Forum.dehamster.nl (dutch site)

Survey Questions:

The following questions were asked the first survey. They are focused on current owners of hamster(s):

0. By starting this survey you consent to your answers being used solely for research purposes. All data will be anonymized and stored up to 10 weeks. (Needs to be answered with "Yes" or "I consent")

1. How old are you?

2. For how long have you been an hamster owner?

3. Which gender are you?

4. What is your occupation?

5. What type of hamster do you own?

6. How many hamsters do you own?

7. How often do you interact with your hamster?

8. Would you find it unethical to have your hamster monitored by a camera?

9. Has your hamster had any health issues?(if so, please state which)

10. Which food do you give your hamster?

11. How often do you feed your hamster?

12. How often do you refill the water?

13. What size is your hamster cage?

14. What type of cage do you own? (Options: Wired, glass tank, plastic, other)

15. How often do you clean the cage?

16. What are struggles you encounter as an hamster owner?

17. How do you deal with these struggles?

18. What products or services would you like to exist to make taking care of your hamster easier?

19. Do you own any gadgets that automate part of the taking care process? (for example an automated feeder)

20. If you could redesign your hamster cage what would it look like?

21. if you were to receive data from your hamster cage about your hamster. Via what kind of user interface would you like to receive this?

Interview Questions: Researchers

The following questions could be asked to researchers working with hamsters, to reveal their interest in smart hamster devices and overall standpoint on such an idea.

1. Do you agree to this interview and agree that these answers will only be used in the research and creation of this smart cage-project?
2. Do you work with hamsters, and if you do, do you care for themquantitativemany)?
3. How many researchers or other caretakers care for the hamsters?
4. How high is the importance of the hamsters being kept alive?
5. On average, how much time does the research team spend on caring for the hamsters?
6. What kind of environment are the hamsters kept in?
7. Describe your current hamster cage/habitat. (size, materials, shape, interior geometry, etc.)
8. Do you typically purchase lower-end, or higher-end pet products? Why?
9. What daily challenges do you face when caring for the hamsters?
10. How do you usually feed the hamsters? (automatic feeder, manually add to a bowl, food stick, etc.)
11. How often do you refill food and water for the hamster?
12. What happens when the caretakers are out of office for a few days?
13. Have you ever been afraid of research results being impacted by your general hamster care?
14. What signs do you look for to check if your hamster is healthy, or what are signs that suggest they are unhealthy?
    1. Answers to this may not be entirely medically consistent ways to check for hamster health, and may not be entirely complete ways to ensure a healthy hamster. These answers should therefore be interpreted somewhat cautiously, although they might be useful for giving insights into user habits and indicators of hamster health.
15. How much information do you keep track of when following your hamsters?
16. How often do you clean your hamsters’ cages? Are there specific challenges during this process?
    1. This is also an important question. If the smart cage were able to make the process of cleaning the hamster cage significantly easier or more efficient, this would be a big problem solved for hamster owners.
17. Are the hamsters ever played or interacted with?
18. How do you measure if a hamster is ill or not fit for research?
19. Do you currently use any "smart" pet devices?
20. How interesting would it be for your to monitor the hamster remotely? How would you want to be able to monitor the hamster? (e.g. just important data, camera feed, etc.)
21. Have you ever had a hamster-related emergency? (e.g. ran out of food, forgot to give water, health issues, etc.)
22. If you could redesign you hamster's current cage to solve your biggest frustrations, what would you change?
    1. This very open question will be asked at the end to allow participants to share any additional, or most important changes they'd like to see made to regular hamster cages. Detailed answers to this question may provide very helpful feedback in designing prototypes to find users' needs.
23. How do you take hamster ethics into account at the research center
24. If there were a product that measures the hamsters habits, what kind of information would you want out of that?

Interview Questions: Hamster Homeowners

The following questions will be asked specifically to homeowners, i.e. participants who own a hamster themselves. Where relevant, justifications have been added to explain further what information or insights each question hopes to gather.

1. Are you comfortable with this interview being (audio) recorded and used for our project?
2. How old are you?
3. What is your gender?
4. What is your current occupation, if any?
5. Do you currently own a hamster, or have owned one in the past? If so, how many do/did you own?
6. How many people live in your household, and what are their ages?
   • Useful in determining how many people the hamster cage would actually be relevant for, if not just the user. In case multiple people live in the participant's household, their ages are also important to better understand the potential needs of these household members.
7. Who in your household is mainly responsible for the care of the hamster(s)?
8. (If relevant) Do the children in your household help with the care of the hamster? If so, in what capacity?
   • This question is useful because, while the hamster cage itself should obviously be safe to use for children, features may be added to specifically benefit younger users by making interaction with, feeding/watering of, and learning about the hamster more fun and child-friendly.
9. On average, how much time does your household spend caring for your hamster? (daily, weekly, etc.)
   • Helps to understand how seriously the participant and their household care for the hamster, and whether they treat it very closely or whether they prefer a more laid-back approach, allowing the hamster to remain alone while just providing necessities for it.
10. What type of home do you live in? (house, apartment, etc.)
11. Describe your current hamster cage/habitat. (size, materials, shape, interior geometry, etc.)
12. Do you typically purchase lower-end, or higher-end pet products? Why?
13. What daily challenges do you face when caring for your hamster?
14. How do you usually feed your hamster? (automatic feeder, manually add to a bowl, food stick, etc.)
15. How often do you refill food and water for the hamster?
16. What happens when you travel or are away from home for more than a few days?
    • This is an important question in understanding how we can help users support their hamsters while they are away. If the smart hamster cage could replace tedious and costly processes such as giving the hamster to a pet-sitter, this would be a good opportunity to solve this problem for participants.
17. Have you ever forgotten about, or are worried about forgetting to feed/give water to your hamster?
    • This question determines how important it is for the cage to provide notifications or other alert forms to remind users to feed or give their hamster water.
18. What signs do you look for to check if your hamster is healthy, or what are signs that suggest they are unhealthy?
    • Answers to this may not be entirely medically consistent ways to check for hamster health, and may not be entirely complete ways to ensure a healthy hamster. These answers should therefore be interpreted somewhat cautiously, although they might be useful for giving insights into user habits and indicators of hamster health.
19. Would you like to know more about your hamster's daily habits? If so, in what format would you want this information?
20. How often do you clean your hamster's cage? Are there specific challenges during this process?
    • This is also an important question. If the smart cage were able to make the process of cleaning the hamster cage significantly easier or more efficient, this would be a big problem solved for hamster owners.
21. Do you or your household members play or interact with the hamster directly?
    • If the hamster is very frequently interacted or played with, the cage should feature easier access to the hamster, and in general be designed in such a way that playing with the hamster can occur seamlessly. Potentially, this would include a feature to play with the hamster through the cage itself.
22. If you could receive notifications from your hamster cage about hamster-related information, what would be most valuable to you?
    • If the user is unsure, suggestions could be made such as just receiving basic information like food schedule, water bottle gauge level, etc. or more detailed data such as wake/sleep times, weight, etc. These various sensors could then possibly be implemented in the cage prototypes.
23. Do you currently use any "smart" pet devices?
24. How important is it for your to monitor the hamster remotely? How would you want to be able to monitor the hamster? (e.g. just important data, camera feed, etc.)
25. Have you ever had a hamster-related emergency? (e.g. ran out of food, forgot to give water, health issues, etc.)
26. If you could redesign you hamster's current cage to solve your biggest frustrations, what would you change?
    • This very open question will be asked at the end to allow participants to share any additional, or most important changes they'd like to see made to regular hamster cages. Detailed answers to this question may provide very helpful feedback in designing prototypes to find users' needs.

Interview Transcripts

Hamster Homeowners: Owner 1, Interview 1 -

Speaker 1 (00:12)

Welcome, this is the first hamster homeowner interviews, as part of research into target user groups. So a bit of background on the project, it's for a course called Robots Everywhere where we're designing a robotic, digital system, where we have chosen to focus on a smart pet enclosure for hamsters. I will be asking you a few questions regarding your experience owning hamsters, as well as details about the hamster enclosure that you currently have and improvements you would suggest.

Speaker 2 (02:18)

Okay, very good.

Speaker 1 (02:20)

As a measure simply for the record, could you confirm that you consent to the interview being recorded and the data gained from the interview to be used in this project to guide design choices and further research?

Speaker 2 (02:47)

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (02:59)

Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:04)

Great, then we can start with some standard introductory questions. This is to categorize the user data that we get in terms of user demographic. Uh, so firstly, how old are you?

Speaker 2 (03:23)

I'm 56 and I had a hamster as a child.

Speaker 1 (03:28)

We'll get to that in more detail in a bit. Gender, female. Current occupation?

Speaker 2 (03:37)

I'm a consultant.

Speaker 1 (03:41)

And how many hours a week would you say that you work on average?

Speaker 2 (03:47)

On average I would say 20 to 30 hours.

Speaker 1 (03:53)

Okay, let's begin. How often do you, or did you, interact with your hamster, or a hamsters.

Speaker 2 (04:05)

Okay. So, it depends on what you mean by interaction. Sometimes it sleeps all day, but there are still things to do so I might access the enclosure to do certain things, such as refill food or water, so I would do some things normally every day and others only every week or more.

Speaker 1 (04:29)

You would do these various tasks once a day?

Speaker 2 (04:40)

Once a day or twice a day.

Speaker 1 (04:45)

And how long have you had hamsters? In total.

Speaker 2 (04:51)

In total I would say, I had one for about 3 years as a child, and then when my children came of age to also get hamsters we had some for 10 years, so I would say 13, maybe up to 15 years.

Speaker 1 (05:16)

How many did you own?

Speaker 2 (05:02)

I owned one in my childhood, and my two children have owned four between them, two of them we got while they both lived at home.

Speaker 1 (05:34)

And this is one at a time at any given moment I assume?

Speaker 2 (05:39)

Yes, a hamster should live alone. It's not good to have 2 hamsters in the same enclosure, at one time, so always 1 hamster, as a child also.

Speaker 1 (06:02)

How many people live in your household and what are their ages?

Speaker 2 (06:07)

There are three now that my oldest child has moved out, who lived here at the time we had hamsters, so four at that time. Apart from him, it's my husband and me, we are both 56 years old, and our daughter [-], she is 14 years old.

Speaker 1 (06:31)

Okay, who in your household is mainly responsible for the care of the hamster?

Speaker 2 (06:38)

In fact, it's me, though the hamsters belonged to the children.

Speaker 1 (06:46)

Do the children your household help with the care of the hamster? And if so, in what capacity?

Speaker 2 (06:54)

Well they did, so I would say things like, [-] did your already feed the hamster, if not, would you give the hamster some food, and also I insisted that we clean up the hamster enclosure together. What I mean by responsibility is mainly that I have the ultimate responsibility for the wellbeing of the hamster, so the kids they did stuff but occasionally there was a reminder, or usually there was a reminder from me.

Speaker 1 (07:28)

Okay, on average how much time would you see the household spends caring for the hamster? So I'd say in a given day or week.

Speaker 2 (07:43)

Okay, there are daily tasks and there are monthly tasks and there are exceptional things. So daily task is you check on the food and the water and you usually give a little bit of food, not too much, and water usually you don’t need to change it every day, but usually you'll take a look and you decide there is a need for action (i.e. to refill or change the water), so this is what you do every day. And then once per week or every 10 days maybe, you'll need to clean the hamster enclosure and then other things concern less common things like going to the vet. So there might be simple stuff, for example, that there are problems with the claws of the hamster and the hamster needs a nail cut, which you occasionally do yourself, but maybe you also want to vet to do it, but maybe the hamster gets sick and then you also want to go to the vet. In total I would say per week, it's not so much time, actually, so on a daily base, maybe maximum 10 minutes, but then cleanings the enclosure, that's a bit more labor intensive, and it takes, I would say more than half an hour, with 2 people working on it.

Speaker 1 (09:18)

Okay, that would be a monthly occurrence then?

Speaker 2 (09:22)

Well, no I would rather say two to three times per month.

Speaker 1 (09:27)

What type of home do you live in so house apartment?

Speaker 2 (09:35)

It's a row house, so we have neighbors on each side, it's a house with three floors.

Speaker 1 (09:42)

Okay, can you describe the current hamster cage or habitat. So for example, size and material, etc.

Speaker 2 (09:52)

So we don't currently have a hamster, but we had a hamster until about I think a bit more than a year ago and the enclosure was about, I would say one meter long and 40 centimeters, or maybe 50, wide and height was maybe 30 to 40 centimeters. I would say that's quite luxurious for a hamster enclosure, I considered replacing it at some point and I checked at the Groenrijk, what they have, and all the hamster enclosures were smaller, which I find a bit sad because it's important that the hamster can move, and exercise.

Speaker 1 (10:42)

What about the materials, the interior geometry, any details about the shape of the cage as a whole?

Speaker 2 (11:11)

Okay, I'm already told you what the size of the cage was, and one feature I liked about it was that there were 2 levels and between the levels were little staircases (small ramps). So the hamster could be on the upper level and get his food, for example, and on the lower level, so this was covered by the upper level, on the lower level, it could have his little hamster hole, as a matter of fact he had one hamster home and another spot where he just rested occasionally and then he also had a toilet. So by toilet, I mean a corner which he could use as a toilet. Also on the ground floor were the exercise facilities and by this I mainly mean the wheel. So that, the toilet, and two houses, I'm not sure what the English expression is, maybe nest, for a bird you would say it's a nest.

Speaker 1 (12:44)

A burrow maybe.

Speaker 2 (12:46)

Yes, though one of them was a simple plastic house, the problem with the plastic house was that the hamster was occasionally snacking…on the house. By this I mean eating the plastic house so that was not good, but that didn't seem to bother him, so that was the plastic house and then there was a nest under the upper floor in a quiet corner, so to speak. So what did the hamster have in terms of exercise facilities, the wheel, but also the staircases, so he was running up and down the staircases, occasionally moving 'furniture', like his bowl for his food and he was running in the wheel. And the last hamster was extremely sporty, so he would accelerate in the wheel a lot and would sometimes jump out a little and land in the cage, he seemed to enjoy this very much. He had to check of course if this was harming him or something. But he would run immediately back into the wheel and start running again. I would definitely say the wheel was very beneficial for the hamsters, but I didn't see other hamsters doing it like this. If you don't believes this I recorded it. I can send you a couple of video clips and then you are going to see it.

[Short break]

Speaker 1 (15:42)

Okay, moving on, would you say that you typically purchase lower and/or higher end products for your hams, or did you in the past?

Speaker 2 (16:00)

Are we talking about the cage or about…

Speaker 1 (16:03)

In general, in cage as well as any other things.

Speaker 2 (16:07)

So the cage we got from my sister, uh, my niece, she had hamsters when she was small, so in a way we inherited the cage and I later looked it up when I considered replacing it, and this particular brand can only be found in Italy, so it was not possible to buy the same type of cage here. So I would say this was a very good, and definitely not lower end product. But I'm not sure if other people would do this, that they would buy such a product for the hamster, but hamsters are worth it, and they need space. So in terms of food, I tended to buy higher end food because like with other animal food, animals get stuff which is not okay for them, and this means that they get like small cookies and I assume these are just leftovers from industry and people don't mind because it looks cute and there are some claims on the packaging saying "well, we put some vitamin D in there" or whatever this but these were not natural products, and I felt that it would be good for the hamster to get some grain, and sometimes dried insects for some protein maybe, and also dried veggies. And nothing which contained sugar. Actually there are products with added sugar, for hamsters, and then, in addition to this grain mix, we also give the hamster, every day, a very small piece of cucumber, sometimes apples or carrots, but Mona (hamster) didn't like carrots, she'd like cucumbers and apples. So I would say, in terms of the food it was very good food, the cage we inherited. Then there's the stuff which you need to put on the ground of the cage. How do you call this in English?

Speaker 1 (18:54)

Sawdust?

Speaker 2 (18:56)

No that's not what I mean. I mean…I'm sorry I can’t remember the word for it, but yes you can use sawdust for this but there are also newer products. This was actually recycled material and it absorbs some of the hamster urine, reduces the smell, etc. Yeah, so these are good products, they are not harmful for the hamsters, they cover the ground well and they have additional benefit that they absorb the urine and then it doesn't smell and it helps you to keep the cage clean a bit more easily. Sometimes we would also buy a little bit of fluff, just soft stuff. We would sometimes but in some things like, not tissues, but soft stuff to help the hamster build its little nest. I think that's about it.

Speaker 1 (20:44)

Okay, then onto any daily challenges you faced when caring for your hamster, so any repeating issues or complaints.

Speaker 2 (20:57)

Okay, so the hamster usually has a (sleep) rhythm, a cycle, which is different from a humans, so this means humans are awake during the day and sleep at night, except if they are teenagers, but let's say adults, and hamsters they usually sleep during the day, maybe they get up around 2 o'clock just to check what's going on, but they sleep again and they are awake again during the night, so you know you'll need to adjust, but if the hamster is sick for example, you want him to wake up during daytime, it needs its medication, and then it's often difficult to get a hamster out of its cage, it's the same when you clean its cage, that's usually during daytime, hamster sleeps, and is a little bit, well, maybe unhappy that you wake him up, so these are some of the practical issues. Also, the cleaning is not so easy. The toilet is in one corner, so to speak, and um, well you need to clean it well, you don't want it to be smelly, sometimes there's also a bit of hamster poo in the nest, and the hamster wants to keep the nest, and you want the hamster to have a comfy nest back and not stop building a nest from scratch. But at the same time, you want the nest to be clean. That's really tricky. That's what comes spontaneously to my mind. And then of course, if you go with the hamster to the vet, the transport is not so easy. Especially in winter, so our vet is not too far away, I would usually cycle, but then how do you keep the hamster warm in winter? And how do you make sure the temperature is right for it in the cage when it's cold? That's not so easy.

Speaker 1 (23:18)

I understand. And how do you usually feed your hamster? So there are, for example, automatic feeders, or you manually add a little bit of food to a bowl every day, there are food sticks, etc.

Speaker 2 (23:38)

Yes, good question. So we put a little bit of food into the bowl, and then the veggie or fruit piece we put next to it, but we usually also have a stick, and the sticks are a particular problem with regard to what I mentioned before, that many of these food sticks often contain things, which in my view, probably are not good for the hamster, like added sugar. I mean, it pretends to be healthy stating things like "honey added", while the honey is in fact, mostly sugar and I don't think it's good for hamster, so there you need to be careful. The sticks are great if you'll go away for a weekend though, for example, ad you couldn't do this with a dog or a cat that you leave them alone but with the hamster its usually okay, you just put some fresh food, water and the stick and it will be okay.

Speaker 1 (24:53)

Okay, and how often you usually refill the food and water, so you said food daily and water, you said every 2 or 3 days?

Speaker 2 (25:13)

Yes, it's not said all the water is gone, but you want the water to be nice and clean. So yeah, maybe twice per week, I would say.

Speaker 1 (25:27)

Okay. So we just went over what happens when you travel or you're away from home for more than a few days, you mentioned a weekend but let's say it's 5 days to a week. What are the kind of steps you take to deal with that situation?

Speaker 2 (25:47)

Well, if you are away for a week, then you need somebody to look after the hamster, I mean, you could probably do this with the sticks, the stick is enough far hamster for 1 week, the hamster has water, but we know a little about hamster psychology and I would say the hamster gets lonely. Hamsters are a little bit loners, as I mentioned initially, you shouldn't have two hamsters, but the hamster likes to interact, especially if you have a more social hamster, so when we left for a week, we usually asked our neighbors if the hamster could go there and then we would transport the cage to the neighbours and all the stuff, the equipment, the food, etc. as well.

Speaker 1 (26:52)

Okay, let's see, have you ever forgotten about or were worried about forgetting to feed or give water to the hamster?

Speaker 2 (27:04)

Umm, normally not, but sometimes I had to travel for my work and then I was not sure what was going on in terms of the hamster, I trusted the people who were staying in household to take care of him, but of course, I was not here so I wasn't directly aware of what was going on with it.

Speaker 1 (27:34)

Fair enough. You mentioned going to the vet of the hamster. What are signs you look for to check if the hamster's healthy, or signs that suggest that they are unhealthy?

Speaker 2 (27:51)

Well as I said, sometimes you go to the vet for, let's call it maintenance. So for example, to cut the nails of a hamster if you don't want to do it yourself, it's a bit tricky to do this yourself. Now, how can you see that the hamster sick? As a mammal, it's often their eyes or the fur which are giveaways, or you can see that the hamster cannot move properly, that can also be a problem. So for example, Mona, our last hamster, when she was old, she started to limp, but often there are issues with the eyes, and then you'd need little drops, which you to put in the eyes of the hamster, also not so easy and also there can be problems with the fur. Mona there were particular issues for the simple reason that Mona got very old, so many hamsters which you buy, you can only keep them for around one and a half or two years, but Mona was four or five, if I remember correctly, which is really a fantastic age for a hamster. But then in the last year you could see that there were more and more health issues. She lost some of her fur, so they were patches where she looked naked, I got a bit concerned about this. She also had a mini surgery at some point. That's the story basically, these are the typical things you would look for.

Speaker 1 (29:48)

Okay, so more about the kind of hamster's daily habits. Let's say there was the opportunity to know more about the hamster's daily habits, are there specific things you would want to know? Let's say for example, the cage can tell you when the hamster is awake, for example.

Speaker 2 (30:24)

Yes that would be extremely practical because it would help you with whole cleaning question, so you could basically adjust basically the timing of the cleaning to the fact that the hamster is awake.

Speaker 1 (30:42)

So that was just one example, but are there more things about daily habits you'd want to know about? Are there specific things that you would want to know about its daily habits?

Speaker 2 (31:04)

I will need to think about this a bit. Of course, I would like an early indication if the hamster is sick so that I don't overlook things, I would also like to understand better the happiness of my hamster. So, for example, when Mona was running and flying out of the wheel, she seemed to tremendously enjoy this, but maybe we were just enjoying it because it looked so incredibly cute and in fact Mona would have preferred to stay in the wheel. So I don't know if technology can help us to figure out such things, but this would be cool. But, on a more basic level yes, being awake or asleep, this would be good, maybe also to have a signal if the cage is dirty and requires cleaning, because I can trust my instincts but I don't unnecessarily see the inside of the hamster toilet. Maybe it's very dirty or it's not so dirty and doesn't need cleaning, but I basically think okay, a week has passed, it's time now, regardless of whether it's strictly necessary or not. So to have a better basis for this would be good.

Speaker 1 (32:29)

Okay, I think we've briefly mentioned this: how often you clean the hamster enclosure, you said two to three times a month? Are there specific challenges during this process?

Speaker 2 (32:51)

Well, you need another space where you put the hamster, as I mentioned often the hamster is still quite tired, maybe also a little bit nervous, as I said, we don't you know very much about how the hamster feels, also when going to the vet, I think this can be scary for the hamster to be in a completely different environment, that's not great and maybe there could be better solutions, same with the cleaning. The hamster is in a different environment, maybe you remove the bottom of the cage, you just take off the top, maybe I should have mentioned this before. There are usually 2 main parts of the hamster's cage, the bottom, which for us was made of red plastic, and the top, which is usually transparent because people want to see their pets of course. So when we did the cleaning, we would take off the top and you remove the bottom, where the house is, the nest, where the toilet is and everything else and suddenly the hamster is outside the nest, in a not-so-pleasant environment, maybe the hamster is a bit cold, maybe the hamster is a bit cold, it's another question if the temperature is right for the hamster. This is also an issue if you go with the hamster to the vet, as I mentioned before, and if its in the winter there might be problems with the temperature. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1 (35:05)

Yeah so just quickly to follow up on during the cleaning process, where did you put the hamster?

Speaker 2 (35:20)

What we usually did was that we removed the upper part of the cage and we basically put the hamster on the table, sometimes covered the table with something, then we put the top on the table, so it was like a transparent plastic dome for the hamster, but it lacked the usual facilities. So we quickly clean some of some items just to put them back under this plastic dome, so that the hamster at something to play with or to hide in while we cleaned.

Speaker 1 (36:10)

Okay, I think maybe we also mentioned this before, but did you or household members a play or interact with the hamster directly? If so, please give some details on as well.

Speaker 2 (36:26)

We haven't really discussed this and I feel it's an important point. So yes, I interacted directly with the hamster and I would say that I probably spent the most time interacting with the hamster, and there are various reasons. When we got Mona, she was extremely shy, so in the beginning, she wouldn't come out of the nest and would run away if a human would appear close to the cage, so it really took a long time with Mona, get her to trust people, first you work with a bit of food, you give the hamster a little piece of fresh food like a piece of vegetable, maybe a little piece of apple, and then, after some time it realizes when your fingers are there, there is nothing be scared about. They might bite you in your fingers and you need to be able to cope with this as an adult. Of course, as a young child, this much more scary. So this was one of the reasons why I did this sort of training period with the hamster, because I didn't want them to bite the children. Then during the daytime, usually [-] (daughter), the proper hamster owner, she was at school and I was mostly working from home at the time, and amongst the waking time of the hamster was the afternoon "walk" to check out what's going on, this was around 13:00 or 14:00. So at this time I came downstairs from my office, and I was sitting on a little bench in the room, and I took Mona out. She was on my lap and basically running around on my arms and my legs and she was a very friendly hamster, we had a very good relationship I have to say. I would say things changed a little bit during COVID, because then the other members of the household were also here. In the evening, I often talk her out together with my daughter, my daughter and I we were sitting next to each other on this little bench and we referred to this as 'playing' with this hamster. Now, of course for a hamster the term playing probably isn't used much but that's what we would refer to it as. I realize now that there is something important which I forgot to tell you.

Speaker 1 (39:33)

Please, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (39:37)

We bought an additional facility for the hamster and this had a base of a synthetic green fabric or cloth, a special fabric, and it was round. It was maybe a total of 70 cm wide with a little fence around it, so the hamster usually couldn't leave, but it had an additional space and we constructed like a paper house, a small structure or box made of cardboard for this environment and a lot of little things, we considered it something like a gym for the hamster. So in the evening, we often took the out and put it in this additional environment and Mona was running around having fun. We put in things like empty toilet rolls or from the kitchen rolls the inner cardboard part and she was running through these tubes, we connected the tubes, so basically she had additional stuff to do, additional fun, I mean we had the impression that she was having fun. How did we detect this? Often the way she accelerated, so first she was a bit slow and nervous, the she was running around a bit, and then she seemed to get interested in stuff, and suddenly she accelerated, she was running around and running through the tubes and climbing around. In the little cardboard house, again, we put 2 floors and a little staircase and she would run the staircase up and down. But to come back to the problem side of things, sometimes we had problems getting her out from this second floor of the little cardboard house, of course we also couldn't see what she was doing while she was inside.

Speaker 1 (41:57)

Makes sense, okay. So to continue, let's say you had an app through which you could receive notifications about your hamster through your hamster cage, about hamster related information, maybe the habits that we discussed earlier and such. What would be most valuable to you, I mean, would you use these notifications? And if so, what would you most like to be notified about?

Speaker 2 (42:39)

Maybe I would need to think about this a bit longer, but it would be good if the app, and what's behind it, so to speak, would help me get a better understanding of the hamster, it's life and its needs. What I already mentioned is a good indication of when the cage needs cleaning, maybe not for us but for other people a reminder that food or clean water is needed, maybe also if this could be technically done in any way, help me see what's going on and where the hamster is, this would be valuable, like the situation I described when its in the second floor of the cardboard house and I can't see what's going on, maybe also to give me information on if the answer is awake or sleeping, this would also be good, so these are the things which come to my mind.

Speaker 1 (43:59)

Okay I understand. And do you currently use any, or did you when you had a hamster, use any smart pet devices?

Speaker 2 (44:10)

No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (44:12)

Okay, would you say it's important for you to monitor the hamster remotely? And if so, in what capacity would you want to be able to monitor the hamster? So for example, just reading important data, or having a camera feed, for example, what features would you find useful?

Speaker 2 (44:49)

Okay, that's an interesting question, because in a certain way with a hamster everything is remote. It's not like with a dog, sitting with your dog, touching its wet nose, seeing it up close, being able to tell if its healthy. With a hamster, you don't have so many direct interactions, so it's more tricky and maybe you need more support in that regard. So, in a way, the things which I described earlier, they are already remote in a certain way, most things don't involve you actually directly interacting with the hamster. And also, maybe people go to work and they would like to know that the vital signs of the hamster are okay, but it's the same if you're in the house or if you are at your neighbor's, or you are at work in a way, you are usually removed from your hamster. There is maybe something which can be added to this, I already mentioned that sometimes the hamster is brought to our neighbors when we were travelling, so in this case it was not essential stuff but they sent us little clips showing us what the hamster was doing, and they also liked to build additional stuff for the hamster, or a hamster 'gym' which I already mentioned. And then we just enjoyed seeing these little clips of hamster Mona running around or interacting with things in the cage or other enclosure, so this was absolutely lovely and we didn't do it in a systematic way, but I liked this I have to say, this would be fun to have always.

Speaker 1 (47:05)

So as a more specific follow-up, let's say you are not able to access the cage at that moment, let's say you're travelling for example, in that situation would you want to be able to visually monitor the hamster through a camera, or is it more just that you want basic information on whether the hamster is awake or has enough food? What kind of monitoring capabilities would you want if you were not able to access the cage at that time?

[Short break, new recording]

Speaker 1 (00:00)

So to continue, we just have a few questions left, is there anything else you wanted to add before we start?

Speaker 2 (00:12)

Actually yes, there is something I would like to add, we just talked a little bit about the specific needs of the hamster and of course this should be our starting point. What does a hamster need, and one aspect which I forgot to talk about is light. Of course, a hamster sleeps mostly during the daytime and doesn't want to have a lot of light around him. Because, in nature, the hamster Earth lives underground and as the nest there, so in a way, the cage also needs to imitate these conditions to some extent, so just to add this. It's also an important thing for us to know, and this is something which was good in the cage which we had, with the 2 floors, because on the ground floor it was protected also in terms of direct light. Another thing which came to my mind, before we come back to the interview questions, is that, while this is not directly related to the app and maybe not relevant for your exercise at all, but I wish that people would be better educated about animals and pets. As a child, I had a book about hamsters, it was written like fiction, but there was a little annex with advice for keeping a hamster. What could be a typical schedule, a daily schedule, for the hamster for example, what's suitable food, what isn't suitable food and things like this. Buying a hamster, it's very cheap. Actually, if you want to keep the hamster and do it properly, it is not so cheap anymore, so, for example, a minor surgery at the vet. Is quite expensive, but buying the hamster only costs you maybe €12 or something like this, so people might be tempted to buy a hamster, maybe give it to somebody as a gift, and people are not necessarily educated on how to keep one. I just wanted to add this.

Speaker 1 (02:55)

Okay, so we were discussing monitoring the hamster remotely, and if you would want to be able to see data about the hamster, such as see if it's awake or not, or have a direct camera feed, for example, or other ways to monitor the hamster while you are not able to access the cage. Would you like to expand on that?

Speaker 2 (03:24)

So I don't like things which are overly complex, I don't like to receive a lot of [data/notifications], only stuff which is relevant to me, but here with this hamster app, there is also the aspect that hamsters are extremely cute, and as I already mentioned before, I loved it when we received little videos, hamster videos, from our neighbors when we were away. So the camera idea, this seems to be relevant for me and my needs, so to speak, and then I would like to receive some basic data. What you described so far, it's more on the supply side meaning is there enough food, for example, is there enough water, is light okay, things like this. Of course, as a hamster owner, I would also like to hear about the 'demand side', so to speak. How does the hamster feel? Is a hamster healthy? So this is, of course, a bit more difficult and I'm not sure if it's worthwhile, if it's too complicated, but that's of course also interesting for the hamster owner.

Speaker 1 (05:08)

Okay, then going back to just a quick question about the whole taking the hamster to the vet and hamster health topic in general, has there been a hamster-related emergency? It doesn't necessarily have to be that it was very sick, but maybe that it ran out of food while you were away or that there were some health issues or that it was missing certain things, and that led to it being sick or unhappy, maybe?

Speaker 2 (05:49)

Well every time the hamster is sick, it seems like an emergency. It makes you really unhappy and I mean you cannot communicate with it. You cannot talk to an animal, but talking or communicating to a smaller animal is even more difficult than if you have a cat and a dog, and you understand these bigger animals well. There werenoany food-related emergencies, but there is something which we haven't mentioned so far which can become an emergency, and I'm not sure if it's relevant for you. So we take the hamster out and say it's in your hand or it's on your knees or something like this and you let the hamster run, I think many children like to do this. But if you're not careful and the hamster is not in an enclosed space, it is quite likely is that the hamster escapes. They are very, very fast and their body shape allows them to squeeze into a tiny, tiny spaces and it can be very difficult to get them out. And if you can't, if you don't find them and it's around the household, there are accidents that can happen in the household, including related to electricity unfortunately, because the hamster of course doesn't know what to gnaw on and what not to, so just speak.

Speaker 1 (07:41)

Okay, then if you could redesign the hamster cage, or habitat, to solve some frustrations for you about having a hamster, caring for a hamster, issues that you face caring for the hamster, how would you redesign it to suit your needs and what would you change?

Speaker 2 (08:24)

So as I already told you, I think the hamster cage Mona had was quite luxurious, so she was lucky and we were lucky. Also, we had the extra space outside of the cage, the 'gym' area, and many hamsters don't have this, I wish they would. So it would be great if they could have larger cages which have all these functions, sleeping, toilet space, staircases to run up and down, etc. I forgot to mentions that our cage also had tubes, these plastic tubes on top and basically it was like the hamster going outside of the cage by going through the tubes, it was also extremely cute because tubes were transparent and you could see the hamster really well. So there were lots of opportunities to explore, and basically having more space and having a 'gym' for the hamster, as well as these tubes, I think this is really, really good. In terms of monitoring, changes to this might be nice. I haven't seen this in practice yet, that's okay. Where is the main frustration? I would say the main frustration was cleaning the cage. Here first of all, to know what is dirty and what needs cleaning, and then if there could be a better mechanism to do this. To pull out the dirty parts or something, if there would be a better way to clean it, a more efficient way, this would be extremely welcome.

Speaker 1 (10:11)

Okay, I'd say that wraps up the questions that I have for this interview. Is there anything you would finally like to add or anything you feel should still be discussed?

Speaker 2 (10:26)

Hmm, well, just maybe a little piece of information about the type of hamster that we have. They're not sold any more in the Netherlands. We heard it's because the children would take the hamsters out at an inappropriate time or something, and this means that this idea actually could make a contribution to solving this problem, and it could be possible to have this type of hamster again.

Speaker 1 (11:09)

Could you specify which type of hamster it is you're referring to?

Speaker 2 (11:12)

A Siberian hamster? I forgot exactly what they're called. Some kind of dwarf hamster.

Speaker 1 (11:15)

Russian perhaps.

Speaker 2 (11:46)

I mean just to say that your work would really help solving a practical problem because they were absolutely lovely. But now it's not possible to buy them anymore, and it's illegal.

Speaker 1 (12:04)

Okay, well, thank you anyways for your time and your input, and I will get back to you regarding some follow-up questions.

Speaker 2 (12:10)

It was a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (12:11)

Thank you.

//

Hamster Homeowners: Owner 2, Interview 2 -

Speaker 1 (00:00)

So, welcome, we're here for interview two of the hamster homeowners target user category, part of the target user group research.

Speaker 2 (00:25)

Hello!

Speaker 1 (00:29)

Just a quick rundown, the purpose of the interview is to gain some insight into the interactions between homeowners of hamsters and small pets, as well as limitations of current technology for the pets, and needs of the target users, in this case, the homeowners when caring for their hamster, and what they would like contributed to the hamster owning experience. Just for the record, the interview is going to be recorded and the data gained from the interview will be used in guiding the design, potentially, of a smart hamster cage or device to aid in the caring of the hamster. For the record you consent, to the interview being recorded?

Speaker 2 (01:49)

Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:50)

Very good. So we have a set of questions that I will go through, and if you have anything to add that's outside of the scope of the question, feel free to just go ahead and add whatever you feel is relevant. So we're going to start with a few standard questions. How old are you?

Speaker 2 (02:15)

I am 14.

Speaker 1 (02:17)

Gender?

Speaker 2 (02:18)

Female.

Speaker 1 (02:20)

Your current occupation? None, I guess, let's say student. I'll start with this: have you own a hamster in the past? And if so, how many?

Speaker 2 (02:36)

Oh yes, I've owned 4 hamsters in the past.

Speaker 1 (02:40)

And this is at separate times, correct?

Speaker 2 (02:43)

Correct, not simultaneously.

Speaker 1 (02:44)

Okay, how long in total have you had experience with hamsters?

Speaker 2 (02:52)

Around 10, 11 years, I believe.

Speaker 1 (03:01)

How many people live in your household and how old are they?

Speaker 2 (03:06)

Me and 2 other people, my parents. They're in their 50s.

Speaker 1 (03:30)

Okay, and who in your household was mainly responsible for the care of your hamster?

Speaker 2 (03:34)

My mother, but sometimes I also helped.

Speaker 1 (03:41)

Okay, and as the child in the household at the time, can you describe your responsibilities and your contributions to the care of the hamster?

Speaker 2 (03:54)

Well, are the hamster was in my room, so I'm kind of had to deal the noise of the hamster? In addition, I helped occasionally with the cleaning of the hamster cage, with the refilling of the water, I refilled the food, and occasionally I also gave the hamster tissue paper and such to build its nest.

Speaker 1 (04:18)

Okay, and on average, how long did you and your household in general, spend caring for the hamster? Not necessarily directly, but in general, the whole process of caring for it, so daily weekly monthly.

Speaker 2 (04:40)

Would this include fun time with the hamster and enrichment or?

Speaker 1 (04:44)

Yeah, definitely. So just in general, everything from feeding to directly interacting with the hamster.

Speaker 2 (04:50)

Perhaps 1 hour a week?

Speaker 1 (04:52)

Okay and per day, how long would you say you spent dealing with things related to the hamster?

Speaker 2 (05:01)

I'd say around 5 minutes for refilling the food and then depending on the day, maybe taking the hamster out, that could take a varying amount of time, sometimes less, sometimes more, up to perhaps 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 (05:17)

Okay. And specifically regarding cleaning, how long would you say that that took on average?

Speaker 2 (05:24)

I think it was 2 hours every 2 weeks or so.

Speaker 1 (05:31)

Okay. What type of home do you live in? So house apartments etc.?

Speaker 2 (05:39)

House.

Speaker 1 (05:41)

Can you describe the hamster cage that you had for your hamster?

Speaker 2 (05:48)

It was relatively large, around one meter by 50 cm and around 40 cm high. In addition, it had tubes that stuck out of the top that the hamster could go up in inside the actual hamster cage. There were 2 levels, at the bottom there was a layer of…pet pellets? Or hamster pellets? And the hamster's nest was there, as well as a place where the hamster went to the toilet and the wheel and then you could walk upstairs with a little ramp and there, there was the water, the food and the entrance to the tubes going out of the cage.

Speaker 1 (06:46)

Great, and would you say, as a household, you typically purchased lower or higher end pet products?

Speaker 2 (06:58)

I would say somewhere in the middle usually, but we also had some higher end products such as the fluff for the hamster nest and the cage.

Speaker 1 (07:09)

And the not-so-high end?

Speaker 2 (07:11)

The pellets maybe, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (07:16)

What about the food?

Speaker 2 (07:19)

I think the food was like, medium, medium to high.

Speaker 1 (07:22)

Okay. Did you face any daily challenges or recurring challenges when caring for the hamster?

Speaker 2 (07:37)

Not especially, no.

Speaker 1 (07:39)

Okay. How did you usually feed the hamster? So, for example, with an automatic feeder or manually adding food to a bowl?

Speaker 2 (07:52)

We had a small bowl where we would put food, and in addition we would usually give the hamster vegetable scraps perhaps once every day, or every two days.

Speaker 1 (08:02)

Okay. And for example, a food stick was that, was that also present?

Speaker 2 (08:10)

Oh yes, sometimes we did it in combination with the food from the bowl, but we did it especially if we were travelling, we would leave the food stick up for the hamster to eat.

Speaker 1 (08:24)

Great, and how often would you say you refilled food and water? So you said food you refill daily, what about water? How often would you say you refilled that?

Speaker 2 (08:37)

Definitely when we clean out the cage, so that's once every 2 weeks, or whenever it looked empty.

Speaker 1 (08:45)

Okay, so whenever it seemed to be running out, and then when you cleaned the cage also?

Speaker 2 (08:53)

Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:56)

So you mentioned adding the food stick, but let's say you were travelling, you were, as a household, away for a few days. How would you go about caring for the hamster?

Speaker 2 (09:07)

Depending on the duration of the leave, we would definitely leave the food stick and fill the water bottle, and on a longer vacation, say longer than a week we would try to find someone who could check on the hamster, perhaps also refill the water and stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:25)

Okay, and have you ever forgotten about or worried about forgetting to feed or give water to the hamster? Or was this not really an issue?

Speaker 2 (09:44)

No, not really.

Speaker 1 (09:45)

Not really, okay. Are there any specific signs that you look for to check if the hamster is healthy or are there any signs that you know of, that you would recognize, that suggest that it is it's not healthy?

Speaker 2 (10:02)

So usually hamsters have like glossy and full fur, they don't have like any missing patches, also sometimes the hamsters, they will walk strangely, so like lean more on one leg. In addition, sometimes the hamster can have eye problems and then the eye can be, not really opening and sometimes it can be swollen. Sometimes the hamster is also getting injured more frequently, that could be a consequence of its illness.

Speaker 1 (10:42)

So things like itching or scratching, for example?

Speaker 2 (10:49)

A bit of scratching can occur in a healthy hamster. If it's like, scratching a lot, however, that could be an indication that something is wrong.

Speaker 1 (10:56)

Okay. Then let's see, let's say you could get information on your hamster's daily habits, is there anything specific you would like to know? So one example being when it's awake and when it's asleep, are there are there other things that you would like to know? Maybe you get a notification or something?

Speaker 2 (11:30)

Waking and sleeping would definitely be nice to see, it would also be nice to see how much it exercises, like how far it runs. Maybe also when it eats foods so you know when to refill the food.

Speaker 1 (11:47)

Okay cool, and is there a specific format you'd like this information in? So, for example, in an app or let's say on the cage, you know, you have a little display, for example, that says these things or maybe an app with some graphics and some notifications, what kind of format would you want?

Speaker 2 (12:14)

I think an app would be nice.

Speaker 1 (12:16)

Okay, that you can access from wherever, let's say?

Speaker 2 (12:20)

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (12:21)

So you mentioned you cleaned your hamster's cage roughly every 2 weeks, are there any specific challenges during this process that you faced?

Speaker 2 (12:36)

Yes, well, it took quite a while usually, it was pretty hard to clean, like the tunnels, let's say, above the cage, obviously it had to be taken apart, but even then they were quite long, and then a lot of the pellets on the ground had to be replaced. It was also difficult having to clean like the hamster's nest because you don't really want to be taking away all the hamster's hard work, but also make sure, like all the poop gets out, those are the main things I can think of. Oh, yeah, also, you need to make sure to not use any chemicals, anything that could be harmful to the hamster.

Speaker 1 (13:18)

Okay, interesting, and did you or your any household members directly play or interact with the hamster physically?

Speaker 2 (13:33)

Yes, mainly my mother but I also interacted with it.

Speaker 1 (13:40)

Okay, and that would be outside of the cage?

Speaker 2 (13:43)

Yes, we would lift the hamster, perhaps stroke it, and for a while we had a second enrichment area where the hamster could also like walk around and have other enrichment options compared to the cage.

Speaker 1 (14:01)

All right, we touched briefly on the notifications, are there any other things that you think, besides the daily habits that we discussed, any information that would be valuable?

Speaker 2 (14:22)

Perhaps the temperature inside the hamster cage, to make sure it's a good temperature.

Speaker 1 (14:32)

Okay, so various conditions in the cage basically?

Speaker 2 (14:39)

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:42)

And did you or do you currently use any smart pet devices? Did you at any point?

Speaker 4 (14:49)

No.

Speaker 1 (14:51)

Okay, and how important is it for you to monitor the hamster remotely? So, you know, for example, you're travelling for a weekend or something, or you're at school, how you know would you want to be able to monitor the hamster?

Speaker 2 (15:16)

Well, I think for short periods of time, I don't think it's that important to monitor the hamster, but if aren't seeing the hamster for a while it might be nice to be able to see what the hamster is doing and see videos of it.

Speaker 1 (15:32)

Like with a live camera feed?

Speaker 2 (15:37)

Yes.

Speaker 1 (15:41)

All right. Has there ever been a hamster-related emergency, health-related for example? Maybe that you forgot to feed it for some period?

Speaker 2 (16:02)

Once the hamster escaped, it didn't get very far, only like two meters away from the cage and there was someone in the room who managed to catch the hamster and get it back in the cage. I think they were like some medical issues, but none of them were particularly short notice.

Speaker 1 (16:24)

Okay, so they were rather an extended kind of thing, not an immediate emergency.

Speaker 2 (16:33)

Yes.

Speaker 1 (16:34)

For the last question, if you could redesign your hamster's currents cage or the cage that your hamsters used, how what you change about it? Let's say, addressing frustrations that you had with it, or improving it in your view?

Speaker 2 (17:01)

Well, I think what might be nice is, hamsters, they like having a very thick layer of bedding to burrow in, but perhaps to have um, a specific kind of layer, where there can be extra thick borrowing, a smaller layer so that you can have like a lot of pellets there, and the hamster can really dig in there. And then having like another layer with like a bit thinner layer of pellets because you do need quite a lot of pellets, like in the old cage, the whole bottom, to fill it like really deeply for hamsters to burrow in would have been like, very expensive and would have taken a lot of cleaning and effort, so maybe to have like a small area where the hamster can like get extra pellets to then be able to burrow in them much deeper.

Speaker 1 (17:51)

Okay, so rather than covering the entire floor with this extra thick layer, separate an area where it has more depth to burrow in?

Speaker 4 (18:07)

Yes.

Speaker 1 (18:08)

What about the physical cage itself, anything else there? I mean let's say, in the design or the features of the cage itself?

Speaker 2 (18:27)

I think, in general, it was quite a good cage, it was nice and big, I think a lot of kids who own hamster have issues with that. I'd say the bars I think that at some point got a bit dirty and rusted a bit in some places, so I guess bars which are easy to clean and also like rust-free I guess.

Speaker 1 (18:54)

Okay.

Speaker 2 (18:56)

And to make sure the bars at the top are not too widely spaced because the hamsters can like, try to escape and stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:06)

I understand. Well that wraps it up for the questions that I have. Is there anything that you feel can still be added or anything that you still feel should be mentioned?

Speaker 2 (19:22)

I think one of the most important things for keeping hamsters so make sure they do have like quite a bit of space just so they can like, feel comfortable in their enclosure.

Speaker 1 (19:33)

Yeah. Okay, well, thank you for your input, and we'll be getting back to you about the data for the interview and perhaps some potential designs for an improved hamster cage.

Speaker 2 (19:49)

Ok, sounds good.

//

Hamster Homeowners: Owner 1, Interview 2 -

Speaker 1:

Okay, welcome to the follow-up interview concerning the smart hamster care device. Today the main objective of the interview is to explore a few potential features of the product to hear your thoughts about whether you think they would be useful, whether you would want these included in the product, why, and kind of go into a bit more detail about what you think is useful about it, how you would use these features more specifically, what you would expect from them, and so on.

Speaker 2:

Looking forward to it.

Speaker 1:

So just again for the record, since this interview is being recorded and the information gained during the interview will be used further in this project, you have to consent to this information being used. Do you consent?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I do.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful, then let's get right into it. We have some main features into which we'll go into a bit more depth, and then a few preferences mentioned by potential users via surveys and interviews previously, each of which we can then have a brief discussion about. So beginning with the potential main features, we have a hamster wheel which tracks activity. So the integrated hamster wheel may able to calculate how much the hamster runs, when the hamster runs, how often, and track a total distance, let's say, per day or per week for example. You can then use that information either just to track activity out of personal curiosity or for example to help you keep track of the hamster's health.

Speaker 2:

So is the wheel and the movement on the wheel used like a proxy for overall movement? Because some hamsters prefer the wheel but not all do, so our assumption is basically that it's a hamster who enjoys using the wheel and spends a sufficient amount of time there, correct?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I mean for this feature specifically that would be the assumption. Ideally there will also be a mechanism through which the hamster's activity can be tracked around the cage outside of the wheel, but for now we would assume that. Specific to the wheel, what are your thoughts on this feature and what would be your perceived benefit from it if you do think it's useful?

Speaker 2:

Well it depends really on the hamster, but once you establish that the hamster likes the wheel, uses the wheel, I think this would be a good feature, yes. It's nice to have it, but when I want to have information about my hamster, I usually know if the hamster uses the wheel just by observation.

Speaker 1:

The idea is not just to check if the hamster uses the wheel but actually track how much it uses it, but fair enough, to some extent that can also be verified manually. Now let's say you have this smart hamster wheel as part of the product, in what context would you want to review this information? Would it be more of a curiosity for you how much the hamster runs every day or every week, or let's say if it's part of a more general picture of how fit the hamster is, what would be your main use for it, and would you want to have daily updates or just be able to check the available information on the fitness of the hamster?

Speaker 2:

It depends a little bit on the question of what else you have in terms of information, so I think yes, in general it's nice to know. I understand that we use movement on the wheel as a proxy for fitness, so this is good to know, maybe to have comparative data over a couple of weeks and months and lifetime of the hamster. Maybe it's also a hamster with social media followers, I mean hamsters are cute, I think in this case the friends of the hamster would also like to have this information. I mean maybe more locally, so to say, that could also be something shared within the family or let's say your household so that whoever wants to can be updated on that. I think that would be a good aspect to it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, then something that we also discussed last time is tracking when the hamster is awake or asleep, and you mentioned briefly last time that you would use that to kind of guide how you interact with the hamster and at what times, so I'm assuming you stand by your point that it's a useful feature, can you go into some more depth as to how you would use this feature and kind of what function exactly you want from this feature.

Speaker 2:

So we are basically moving away from the hamster wheel now, correct?

Speaker 1:

Yes, we're going from feature to feature.

Speaker 2:

Okay, very good.

Speaker 1:

We can circle back afterwards.

Speaker 2:

Okay, very good. All right, yes, I still think that this would be a particularly useful feature because that's a bit of a problem for hamster owners. You want to interact with your hamster sometimes just out of curiosity because you want to spend time together or there could be a particular need because maybe the hamster has a checkup and you consider when is the best time to take the hamster out of the cage and normally you don't know it, you don't see the hamster, but you don't know what the hamster is doing, if the hamster is awake or if the hamster is sleeping, so I think this would be useful for every hamster owner.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and would you want also to be able to track that as in having comparative data over a month, for example, to measure changes, for example, or other aspects?

Speaker 2:

Well, this is something maybe for you guys to consider further because for me as a hamster owner what is important is, is my hamster healthy? Is everything okay? Yes, so if you tell me you could provide this comparative data and then this would translate into information about the health of my hamster, then I would say yes, by all means, please do this.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so for you the main objective there would be to guide at what times you can interact with your hamster.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And secondarily, if there is that possibility to have that information also inform about the health of the hamster.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we might also have other indicators for how healthy the hamster is and then we can come back to the data and use that as an additional piece of information.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. Next we have the live camera feed, something that we also discussed in some detail. Would this be, I mean, you mentioned this last time as well, so I'll let you maybe explain a little bit as to what exactly, what aspect of this function would be useful to you or useful in the sense that, not just 'useful' in the technical sense, so to say, but also enjoyable, for example.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And also, in what format would you want this? I mean, since they're nocturnal animals, the activity is going to be mostly at night, so is it that you would just want to be able to check in at some point in the evening maybe to the live feed if you're not there, or maybe you would want to watch back the activity from the night before, for example? Let me hear your thoughts in general on this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, it's enjoyable to see the hamster. Also, as I mentioned before, if your hamster is active on social media, then the followers want to see what the hamster is doing and how the hamster is doing, also within the household or wider family this can be shared. Now, there is one particular situation which might not be that frequent, but in this case it would be very useful, this is if the hamster has an injury. So, it occasionally happens that you look at the tiny paw and you see something isn't right, and then you would want to know what actually happened. Did it squeeze the paw or maybe it fell or something like this, and it would be really, really great if you could go back, see the situation, and then make conclusions and decide if you go to the vet depending on what has happened.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and in terms of, for example, being able to save video clips, obviously if, for example, an injury occurs, that would be useful, but would the motivation also be, for example, let's say you look through the previous night's activity, there's a very cute video, and this should be shared, for example. Is there that function as well or is it do you feel that there is not much use to it besides the health aspect?

Speaker 2:

Well, it would be both. I mean, you would want to share the cute stuff and in case of an injury, you might want to check what has happened. You wouldn't need to store things, apart from a few particularly cute and important hamster videos. Maybe you want to put a little film together on the hamster's anniversary or a person's anniversary with some highlights, but that's it. Apart from this, you wouldn't need to store this information. Did I answer your question or was there a different aspect to it?

Speaker 1:

I think that is fine for now.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Moving on to the next one, we have weight tracking. So, this would be through an integrated scale over which the hamster walks to get to the wheel, for example, or maybe to get to its food, something like this, which measures the weight of the hamster. In what way do you think this information would be useful to you? Again, in terms of health or maybe general curiosity, and in what kind of format would you want to receive that information? Let's say, through the app, maybe with a notification if it's overweight or underweight, or maybe just a graph of this month, the last 30 days or something like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so under normal circumstances, I don't need this information. So, maybe there could be the option of, well, you could ask for this information through the app if you need it I guess, yeah. It could be a feature which you activate and deactivate because also you don't want to have too much information. Of course, we want a user-friendly app, but if the hamster is sick, then it might become important, or if the hamster is overweight and you are a hamster weight watcher, so to speak, then you would want to know, and then you would want a graph where you can see how the weight develops.

Speaker 1:

Okay, but I mean, for you personally, would you want that? So, let's say, for example, the hamster gets sick, or for example, the weight is a component in a monitoring system with early prevention, let's say, or early warning for the health of the hamster. Would that be a use case for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would like to get a warning if my hamster gets overweight or severely underweight. So, there might be a bit of a complication here, because, you know, the hamster, oh, I forgot the word in English.

Speaker 1:

Hibernates?

Speaker 2:

Exactly, normally the hamster hibernates, and then towards the end of this hibernation period, the hamster is usually underweight, yes? So, it's not the same weight as before, it's clear, and this would need to be considered.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the idea would likely be that if this were to be implemented, there would be baseline values for the weight hamster, like a weight range at different parts of the year, based on averages from the last week, month, etc., which then take into account the weight decrease over the hibernation period.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, maybe you quickly check if all hamsters in captivity hibernate. I think some do, but maybe not all of them do it, yeah? [Yes.] Okay, but yes, this would be good, to come back to the starting point, it would be good to have an early warning if the hamster is overweight or underweight.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and part of that early warning system, let's say, could also be the activity tracker, for example, that that then plays its own kind of part in forming a general idea about the health of the hamster.

Speaker 2:

Do you want to provide a kind of information which helps the hamster owner to assess or to put into perspective the information? What I mean by this is, hamster owners might not always know what to do with this information. So, for example, you know that most hamsters have a rather short lifespan, you know, something like two years, if you're lucky, maybe three years, at some point they get old, and there will be health issues, and well, the app could provide information like, okay, your hamster is a bit slower now, there isn't so much movement, but let's say she is now two years and two months, it is not uncommon for hamsters of this age to move a little bit slower because of her age.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so again, like the weight, there would be a standard value set, which would then be used to kind of guide these expectations, that's it. But I think for the most part, it would also be, as for the activity, and maybe also the weight, that it compares an average of the last so-and-so many days or weeks, perhaps, to the most recent values. And then if it sees a sharp drop, a sudden drop, or maybe a sudden increase in weight, that then kind of suggest that something happened in that shorter time period, for example, the hamster is sick, or something else.

Speaker 2:

Can I say something? If it's not relevant, you can always take it out, but last time we also talked about the fact that a good cage is comparatively expensive, but hamsters are usually very cheap, and I'm a little bit concerned that people might not attribute the right amount of value to the life of their pet. So when I now mention this additional information, I was also thinking about ethical issues, a part of the app or something that helps people understand that animals get old and still deserve love and care.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, so this was discussed in another interview as well, basically a page with, let's say, educational content?

Speaker 2:

Yes, this would be nice.

Speaker 1:

Okay, then those are the main features, we have a few other suggestions which we'll quickly go over, and then at the end, if there's anything else left, any other ideas you'd like to mention, we can finish up with those.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

So a proposed feature, for example, is that for all the information that's processed by the product, you get a daily overview on your phone. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 2:

I like this, but it needs to be very simple. I don't want something which is overly complex, because life is complex enough, and if the hamster is healthy, then I don't need huge and complex charts, and this is not what you want as a hamster owner. You would like to have, well, you open the app, and there might be a picture of your hamster, which makes you smile and happy, and then basically you have like three to five key data, and a little green smiley or whatever it is, yeah, telling you everything is okay, and that's what you like to see, and then if there's a problem, you get an early warning. If there's a problem, you get a notification, if there's no problem, you don't get a notification, you open the app for a moment to check on it and you get all the relevant information.

Speaker 1:

Okay, great. We mentioned last time also the temperature sensor, so this is about getting a notification via the temperature sensor when the temperature reaches a point that's outside an acceptable range.

Speaker 2:

Excuse me, this is the hamster temperature?

Speaker 1:

No, the temperature in the cage.

Speaker 2:

In the cage, okay, thank you.

Speaker 1:

So, again, so you said now you don't get a notification when the hamster is fine, but let's say there's kind of an environment aspect to it, for example, the temperature is too low or too high, would you want to be notified?

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, great, then we had humidity as well, how do you feel about that? Do you think that's necessary?

Speaker 2:

I mean, if the hamster cage isn't next to a pool or something, then no. In our case, this was never necessary, no.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we mentioned also last time feeding reminders, you said last time that was maybe not necessary for you, do you stand by that, do you have any other thoughts on that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I don't think that it was necessary for me, but hamsters are often pets for children, and I think if the child is supposed to care for the hamster, this is important to have the reminder, yes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, another thing, this is a little separate, but you mentioned last time that you had your cage already, or as in you-

Speaker 2:

We got the cage from the kids' aunt, my sister.

Speaker 1:

Right, now if this product were made, would you prefer for it to be an entire cage with these features integrated, or a standalone unit?

Speaker 2:

An entire cage would maybe be better, because otherwise, I mean, you have a couple of features where you would wonder if this is applicable only to the add-on unit, or to the cage overall. So, for example, if you talk about temperature, your device where you measure might be warmer than other parts of the cage. So, from this perspective, I would say that in principle, for some features, a full cage would be better.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Then, let's see. We had another option which we discussed already, this kind of educational aspect to it, the owner being provided information on the basics of taking care of hamsters, how often it should be fed, how much, and so on.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you could consider this. I don't know how detailed your work on the app is at this stage, but in an advanced stage, I mean, you would also need to consider how this is provided in a kind and playful way that the owner feels like an expert. There should be lots of positive reinforcements. It's not like I'm calling the police because you didn't change the water frequently enough, but that you have positive reinforcements which make it more likely that people do the right things with their pets.

Speaker 1:

Yes. Okay. Then for the most part, that is all the specific features we have so far. Do you have any additional thoughts, any kind of additional suggestions for features based on the ones that we discussed already?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, one thing we discussed was the whole topic of cleaning the cage, and this was one consideration that the app might indicate when the cage needs cleaning. This then also supports the point that it might be better to have a smart cage than to have a smart unit because if it's only the smart unit and the cage is dirty outside the unit, you don't receive this information.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So, I think that is a fair point, although I do believe that for the scope of this project, a standalone unit will be the option that we go with. Maybe also due to a lot of users discussing how they already have a cage, and a lot of them have a kind of large glass cage already, or like a habitat, let's say, which they don't want to replace entirely. So, for a lot of them, something that they can just place into that cage rather than replacing the entire cage was, let's say, more requested.

Speaker 2:

In this case, it might be a good idea to have a smart wheel plus a smart box. So, the wheel is an important feature, and the wheel cannot be easily integrated.

Speaker 1:

What do you mean by box, exactly?

Speaker 2:

By box, I mean, well, the wheel is clear, and the wheel cannot be easily integrated into a box, and now I explain what I mean by a box. So, you need things then which you put into an existing cage, correct? And you want to put something which helps you get vital information from the hamster, for example, on sleep, and this requires some consideration under which circumstances the hamster likes to sleep, and the hamster likes to sleep in a smaller, closed environment, something like a box would be good, and then hamster can build a nest in this box. So the box would then be like a mini-habitat in the larger environment.

Speaker 1:

I understand what you mean, although while I do think that is true, there would be no way to guarantee that the hamster makes its nest there, and for a lot of these cages, the ground layer, the bedding, let's say, is very thick, and it allows the hamster to burrow within the bedding/soil at the bottom of the hamster cage which allows them to use that as their preferred environment. Now I do think that that obviously depends on the cage, but I don't think you can assume that the hamster will consistently nest in this area provided. I also think, as you said, the sensors should as much as possible represent the conditions in the whole cage, isolating them in such a way would be counterproductive regarding the function of the sensors at least.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you cannot guarantee it, that's true, and yes perhaps they prefer burrowing and building their nest elsewhere, I see what you mean.

Speaker 1:

Okay, apart from that, was there anything else you'd want to add, any specifics, anything we haven't mentioned yet?

Speaker 2:

Not for now, if anything comes to mind I will get back to you.

Speaker 1:

Sounds good, then if that is all and there are no further comments, I'd like to thank you for your participation as always and we will get back to you in the following stages of the project.

Speaker 2:

Of course, and thanks to you and your team. I think this is in important project because sometimes people forget about small pets but they give their owners so much joy, and I think there is a lot of potential to make important contributions to this topic of helping people care for them. Looking forward to hearing from you.

//

Hamster Homeowners: Owner 2, Interview 2 -

Speaker 1:

Okay, so welcome back to this follow-up interview. We will be discussing a few of the potential features this product might have, the one that we discussed in our previous interview, and I want to try to understand better if you want these features, and if so, how exactly you would want to use them. So what I mean by that is, what specifically do you hope to gain from these features, and in what kind of context, let's say, would you use them? So for example, if I say one of the features might be an integrated scale to weigh the hamster, do you want daily updates, or just a storage of this information, maybe to show the vet, things like this. So think about how you would use it and how you would want to expand on that, let's say. Just again, for the record, the interview will be recorded and the learnings from these interviews will be used in this project that we discussed previously. You consent to that?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I do.

Speaker 1:

Great, then let me begin with a question about hamster wheel activity tracking. The product may have an integrated hamster wheel in it, which is able to measure how much the hamster runs in the wheel, essentially. So walk me through if you think this would be useful, what information would you hope to gain if you had this feature, and given you have some data about the activity tracking, would you want it just out of curiosity or for other purposes, would you want it graphed, would you want to compare different days, things like this. I'll just let you start and we can follow up if necessary.

Speaker 2:

Well, probably just out of curiosity, it might be nice to see how much the hamster is running. I think it could be an issue, you said it was integrated into the cage/device, because hamsters, they do use the wheel a lot, so if that's something that is used daily, it would have to be easily replaceable if it does break. But I think that would be a nice idea, and I think people would probably use it more just out of curiosity.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and let's say for example, an alternative would be to track like the health of the hamster, to give like an indication about the health of the hamster. What do you think of that?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it would be that useful to be tracking the health of the hamster, but I think you would have to still check the hamster yourself, especially like, considering there are a lot of other things that you can see, like as signs for an unhealthy hamster, when you check yourself, I think that would still be most important for measuring its health.

Speaker 1:

That is true. If implemented, it would be used in combination with other factors definitely, and only if it's proven to be correlated to the hamster's health. So out of curiosity, the information about the wheel usage, would you want to see that in an app, would you want to see, okay, the hamster ran this much today, or would you want a graph of past values, anything like this?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think just in an app, maybe a graph would be nice, but like, not too complicated.

Just to the display the information.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Then, next up, we have tracking the waking and sleeping cycle of the hamster. We discussed this last time as well. In what context would you want to have this information? Again, would it be out of curiosity? Or would it be a health aspect? Or would it be, you know, guiding you in what times you can interact with the hamster, for example?

Speaker 2:

It would probably be a combination of curiosity and what you said about guiding when you would be spending time with the hamster. I think it would be a nice feature to have.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Let's see...And then again, in the same way you would want to display data this in the app, with a graph or just stating the information clearly there somewhere?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Then, onto the live camera feed. This would also be a potential feature, and the question here is, would you want this, how would you use this and what specifically would you expect from the feed? Does it have to be a high definition feed? Would you want to watch back saved clips? How would you use that feature? Would you check in on it during the day? Or maybe you want to watch back things that happened during the night?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it might potentially be nice to use it to check in. I think of course, it would be a lot of video footage so it's probably unrealistic to be like, watching it at night. It would probably be nice to maybe be able to save clips, but like, I don't think that should be the default considering the amount of footage it would be recording.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So it would be to watch back on what happened during the night, and then if possible to save specific clips, but that's not a priority.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It could of course be linked to when the hamster is awake. If you're measuring that, you could be filming only when the hamster is awake.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is indeed an idea. I mean, the camera would have to obviously run to detect when the hamster is awake or asleep, but for example, similar to like some home security cameras, there could be markers where something happened and then that specific clip might be saved or like, then you can watch back those clips where it was active.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

I mentioned briefly at the beginning, the weight tracking. So in theory, this is also more for providing health statistics, to detect if it's losing a lot of weight or gaining a lot of weight, you know, things like this. Would you want that as a feature? How would you use this data and how would you want this information communicated?

Speaker 2:

I would probably just want a basic overview for that, no more than that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, then let's see. There's some additional features here and we're just going to quickly go through them. These were some additional preferences that some users who responded to surveys and interviews mentioned. So I'm just going to go through them one by one and you tell me your opinion about them, whether you would find them useful or not, etc. So yeah, obviously the information being processed to be summarized in a daily overview on the app, that would be the first thing.

Speaker 2:

I think it would be more useful to see the data over time for a certain statistics instead of seeing as a daily overview.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So rather than "the hamster ran this much today", "the hamster weighs this much today" and so on, it should be more like comparing to the past month or something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so temperature and humidity sensors. This goes along with environmental notifications on the phone. You can answer those separately if you like.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think temperature might be useful, humidity, I think less so.

Speaker 1:

It's a bit over the top, you think?

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and then a warning on the app if the temperature gets out of a range, for example?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that would be useful.

Speaker 1:

Okay. We also discussed last time the reminders to feed the hamster. I think you mentioned that that would be useful, right? Is that correct?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

There are various other sensors, but last time we talked, you mentioned temperature was in your view sufficient, is that correct?

Speaker 2:

Yeah that's correct.

Speaker 1:

There is an additional question which I would like to ask, which is that if you have the option between this product being integrated into a hamster cage and being a standalone unit, what would your preference be there and why?

Speaker 2:

Um, well, of course, if it's a standalone unit, if there are like any issues with it, it could be replaced more easily, so I think that would probably be my preference. But of course, if it is a standalone unit, it has to be made sure that it fits with different hamster cages.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay

[Short break]

Speaker 1:

Onto a few final things, starting with light level control. Just to clarify I think you did also mention this last time, a light sensor?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you stand by that, that you think that that would be useful to include?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and light level control. So assuming it's a full cage unit, you'd have shutters or something like this that would like be able to control the light levels.

Speaker 2:

Um, maybe perhaps that could be useful, but of course it could maybe also be bad for the hamsters circadian rhythm, or be confusing for it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so possibly, but it would have to be very... established let's say, or tested.

Speaker 2:

Yeah

Speaker 1:

Okay. Then, for the last one from this section, being provided with information, educational information, on taking care of the hamster. Uh, so let's say this would also be through the app, for example, that you have a section on details or tips on how to care for the hamster.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it could be nice for first time hamster owners, but I think it really depends on like who has the cage, so I think it should definitely be something that could be like turned on or off.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's say, should be included, but not necessary to engage with.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Okay, perfect, then that is the main list done, I want to do a quick check on any additional kind of comments on features, maybe things that you think I missed that you felt are important?

Speaker 2:

I suppose like, if you are like putting anything like electrical, of course you have to be very careful with like the wiring, make sure it's out of reach for the hamster. I think that would be something that would have to be a very carefully like watched.

Speaker 1:

Another question briefly, just to get a bit more specific feedback on a direction that we're thinking of going in. Let's say we focus more on the health of the hamster, right? So measuring the activity through the wheel for example, and it's weight with the scale. We are working on being able to identify a sick from a healthy-... distinguish, sorry, a healthy from a sick hamster, through an object detection model, so this would be put together into an integrated model that helps owners get data on the health of their hamster, in additional to manual checks of course and being able to also receive warning or notifications through the app if certain metrics are off. Is this something that you would use that you would think is useful? Give me some thoughts on what you think of that and whether you would use it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it could be nice, especially if, for instance, you're on a short vacation, or just to have some peace of mind about the hamster. Yeah, I think in addition, if you're like monitoring the health, you could also be checking like how much the hamsters eating and drinking. But I do really like that idea especially for when you are not currently with the hamster and want to check on its status so to say.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So that is indeed a good point about the eating and drinking, although it was discussed in previous surveys, and a lot of users responded that they enjoy the time to manually feed their hamster because it gives them a kind of a moment of interaction with their hamster, and that a lot of them spread the food across the cage rather than have it in one bowl. That was on the topic of an automatic feeder at least. So we have thought about this and I think for the food it would be possible if you have a food bowl integrated which is also weighed, but it makes sense that a lot of users use scatter feeding instead so this wouldn't benefit them. Users for the most part also wanted the water to be separate, but I do think that maybe there is a possibility to have, for example, a little hook on the device where they can put the water bottle on and then you can also weigh that but that is something that maybe can be looked further into beyond the scope of this project, but it is a good point that it would be interesting also to measure the intake of food, if possible. Anything else based on the health aspects? I mean, for you personally, would you use it to monitor the health and the activity of the hamster? Are there specific needs that like you would want this product to achieve, specific metrics, you know, for example, daily weight measurements or weekly updates on hamster health, things like this.

Speaker 2:

I think being able to check these things for yourself on the app would be nice for like most data, but for something that's kind of time-dependent, something like the well-being of the hamster or temperature, it would be nice to like receive a notification. But I would definitely check on this information for myself on the app and when I get a warning also do additional checks in the cage.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so for things which are a bit more time critical you would want to get a notification and then for the rest, rather than let's say weekly update notifications, for example, you would just be able to see, "this is the hamsters last seven days", "last 30 days", and so on, on the app whenever you want to check on those.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Well then, I think for now that concludes what we need for now. So we have gotten a bit more information on how exactly users want to interact with these features and what exactly it is they're looking for in these features and these specifications will then help us move towards a product design. So, thank you very much for your time as always, see you next time.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, see you.

//

Hamster Homeowners: Owner 1, Feedback Interview -

Speaker 1:

Welcome, let's begin. Just a quick consent check and then we'll get started with the questions, I'll show you some pictures which are relevant to the questions as well. To begin with, we have a design ready and we want to essentially get your feedback on that design, what your thoughts are generally on the design and on its individual features essentially. I'm going to send you these images now and I'll just give you a minute to take a look at each of them. While we're doing that, I also want to ask you about your consent for this interview. Obviously the data from this interview is going to be used in our project as well, in part to guide our sections on future work and what can be improved if we were to continue this project or someone were to pick this up in the future. Do you consent to that?

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome. I've sent you some screenshots. Two of them are renders of the design, one is labeled so everything is clear, I hope, where everything goes and such. We'll start with the physical design and then we'll also talk about the app, app interface and health model. Let me know when you've taken a look. I have also description here which will explain everything in a bit more detail. The device is essentially, as you can see, this kind of rounded base which is set up in any corner of the cage that is best for the user. The idea is, and this will be reflected in other features which I'll explain in a second, that it's as customizable as possible for each user's cage because obviously they have different cage geometries and things like this and different locations that they want to use for the device. The hamster wheel, which is attached, tracks the daily distance covered by the hamster. This will be used later on to allow the user to compare the current activity to that last week or last month, for example. Historical measurements as well as the recent measurement data is then also used in the health model, which I'll go into in a little bit. The top camera is used for the live camera feed, so the user can monitor the hamster at any time. This can be accessed by the user through the companion application, and it also tracks the times at which the hamster is active, so you can get some guidance on when to schedule hamster interactions if you so please. Then, behind the wheel, there's a second camera, which is used to provide close-up footage of the hamster, so that's both for the user and for an image analysis tool, which helps detect signs of sickness in the hamster, which is the next part of the health model. Then, as you mentioned, the sensors for temperature and ammonia, the temperature is obviously to kind of make sure that there's no critically low or high temperature in the cage, and the ammonia level will be given a certain threshold to suggest cleaning is necessary in case the user misses it, in case the user is not cleaning regularly, for example. There's also a scale on the base of the device, which weighs the hamster when it gets up to use the wheel, and this should provide a steady supply of weight measurements, which can be used for the user to compare to historical values as well as being used as the final component in the health model. The warnings that are provided are, of course, not a replacement for manual checking, but they do aim to improve early awareness of possible issues, and that's through a data-driven approach, so to provide data to help detect early signs of health issues. That's a rundown of the prototype as a whole, so let's go through each feature one by one, and you just tell me how you feel about it, any comments or questions.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, very good. Well, overall, I think this looks pretty neat. Please, give me a moment.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Can I ask you a question? I would like to ask you about the material, because you might remember from your own hamster experience that hamsters, they like to gnaw on the material, so if you have a little plastic house, for example, then this is something which is quite likely to happen, so what is the kind of material you are going to use for the different parts of the device?

Speaker 1:

This is something we've considered, but for this prototype, we haven't implemented specific kind of hamster-proof materials, let's say, so the idea is that it's made of plastic, probably. If we expand on this, I think that edges could be, or the material as a whole, could be replaced with, for example, an aluminium sheet on top to protect the hamster from ingesting plastic, for example, but maybe it would be better to provide a softer material, because the metal would maybe ruin its teeth, so that's a trade-off that we would have to look into if we were to continue on this project. But around the base, the edges have been reduced as much as possible, so there may be issues, for example, with the wheel itself, or with any edges on the base, but there has been an attempt to reduce those to minimise risk of the hamster chewing through various parts.

[Brief pause due to technical issues]

Speaker 2:

So, this would be a good topic for further research. Aluminium, as you rightly say, is also quite soft, so I would be a little bit concerned that the hamster might be able to bite a little bit off from the aluminium, and this would be, well, problematic for its health. So, this needs some careful consideration, but I completely understand it goes beyond your current project, and this could be a good topic for a follow-up project and follow-up research.

Speaker 1:

Okay, very good. So more on each feature, maybe we can just go through them individually quickly and you tell me a bit about how you feel about each of them.

Speaker 2:

Yes, why not.

Speaker 1:

Starting with the upper camera module, the height and angle are adjustable, and it slides on this back rail, so you can adjust the height on that, and that provides the kind of continuous monitoring requested by many potential users, and it uses infrared imaging, so at night the hamster is still visible, and it doesn't disturb the hamster. There's also an image recognition model, which essentially looks for the hamster in the cage, and as soon as it sees it, that's kind of like the start of the activity time, and then you'll see the hamster active for a few hours, let's say, and then when it's no longer active and it stops recognizing it, that's the end of the activity time. Or the active time, the typical active time. So, those are the functions of the upper camera. Do you have any comments on that?

Speaker 2:

Not really, that sounds fine, maybe one question, could you zoom in? So, for example, if the hamster has a wound or something, or the fur doesn't look so good, could you zoom in with the camera, or is it just a device to capture its general movements, and then more detailed pictures would come from the second camera, because I understand there's also a second camera.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the idea is that the second camera also, because it's kind of on ground level, provides this more detailed imaging. I assume that if you get the feed itself on the app, you will be able to zoom in, but you won't be able to increase the resolution, so I think to go for this more detailed imagery, the bottom camera will be used.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, very good. One follow-up on this, I think it's also concerning the lower camera. I think it would be good if you have images in which you can also see the eyes of the hamster. This is something we discussed before, that if the hamster is sick, if small animals are sick, you often see problems with the eyes, so this would be good, but my understanding is that this would also come from the lower camera, correct?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so obviously we cannot specifically target, in that sense, certain body parts. It's more like when the hamster is near the base or on the device itself, you will be able to kind of look for those things yourself. So as the user, a lot of people also mentioned that they have their own kind of ways of checking for the health of the hamster, that is possible. If you look for things in the fur or in the eyes or in the ears, that is all possible through this camera feed and whatever the user wants to do with that feed, that is up to them.

Speaker 2:

Okay perfect, let's continue.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so next thing is the hamster wheel. And this is set up with an encoder, which essentially measures the rotation of the wheel, and that is used to calculate the total distance travelled of the hamster in the wheel. So this, along with the image recognition model and the weight, is one of the three components of the health model. There's research to show that when the hamster gets sick, the activity drops by a certain amount. The model essentially looks for that kind of decrease, and determines if it should send the user an alert about this. There's not much more to the hamster wheel, I think.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I think it's important. There could also be another explanation, but in any case, it would be important for the hamster owner to check. So there could also be a physical problem with the wheel. Let's say some of the food or parts of the nest of the hamster might interfere with the movement of the wheel, but also in this case, it's important for the owner to check what's going on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the idea is with the warnings also not that you give any definitive kind of statement. It's more that it's a suggestion to check on the hamster and/or its environment. And that is, you know, it doesn't actually replace the manual checking of the hamster.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1:

We've discussed the lower camera module and its functions, I think that's fine. And yeah, the temperature and ammonia sensors, I mentioned briefly before, I don't think there's too much there to discuss. Those are more environmental factors. So temperature in the cage, and also if it detects urine beyond the threshold level, that might suggest then that the user should clean the cage.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So, yeah. This is a little bit tricky, because as we discussed often the hamster toilet is in a particular part of the cage. But still, if we say that the main function is basically concerning temperature and environment more generally, it's a nice add-on. But obviously, you remember that I proposed like, a little manual or advice to hamster owners, or also statements concerning ethical behavior, and of course, it's a responsibility of the owner to keep the hamster cage clean.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so there are tips integrated in the app, but it is also, because it's one integrated device and not an entire cage, you're not able to specifically check, okay, what's the ammonia levels on the other side of the cage for example. But you can in the app also manually change the threshold. So if it is further away and you want to set the sensor to be more sensitive and notify you at a lower threshold, you can do that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's a good idea I think.

Speaker 1:

So we already discussed the scale feature last time and not much has changed there, do you have any comments or feedback about that?

Speaker 2:

No, not so far.  I believe we will mention how this links to the health of the hamster later on?

Speaker 1:

Correct, that will also be discussed in detail. Let's return for now to the annotated image, and just to check I believe we have gone through all of the main features listed here. Then I think we can move on to some general feedback, you can discuss anything you want to mention.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I mean firstly I'd like to say I would definitely use this product if it were developed further concerning a few details, but I think you guys have done a really good job, also because its very customizable and makes good use of the space it takes up, especially for people who have a lot of stuff in their cage this does not take up too much space and allows for a lot of features to be taken advantage of. Especially also the fact it goes into the corner because a lot of users have stuff in the middle and around their cage so this would not disturb as much. It's good that you have thought about how to set up the camera for different cages, although I think the rail at the back itself should be maybe design differently, otherwise if the back is too long for the user's cage, you cannot adjust it to fit. Just to clarify, regarding the scale, the hamster has to go over the scale to get to the wheel, is that correct?

Speaker 1:

Yes, that is correct.

[Short break due to technical difficulties]

Speaker 1:

Okay, so we talked briefly about the camera module, the fact that the device was in the corner of the cage and that it makes good use of the space that it takes up. Where do you want to go from there?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so just to confirm, I really like the device. I can imagine how we would put it in our hamster cage. And this was an important discussion we had before is that you said, look, not everyone will be able to buy a full smart hamster cage, for a lot of people it's much better to have it like an add-on and people can keep the hamster cage, I thought that was a very reasonable comment. Meanwhile, we had a discussion over here, so the previous hamster co-owner [husband] is sitting next to me and we both had, each of us, one additional idea and I'm going to present them to you and then it's up to you to decide if you feel this is something which can and should be addressed now or maybe could be a topic for further research and projects in the future.

Speaker 1:

Okay, sounds good.

Speaker 2:

So I thought a little bit about the upper camera and in terms of the space, this is, in my view, the most tricky part. So if you remember the cage we had, it had two levels, which we liked because it gave the hamster more options to run around. But this, let's call it the stick, to which the upper camera is attached. This is a little bit of an issue because we cannot put the device on the lower level because all the corners are covered by the second level. If we put it on the second level, on the upper level, then it's okay apart from the stick, so to speak, on which the camera is adjusted. And there are different solutions for this. You could have the option of taking it out, you could also have the stick itself as a telescope. So I think already now you can move the camera up and down, but the stick itself could be telescopic so that you adjust the height of it depending on the features of the cage. So this should be an option. A, to take it out, or B, to have a kind of telescope and make adjustments in case the cage is not high enough. So this is topic number one. And topic number two, last topic from our side, is the scale. The hamster co-owner mentioned that there might be other solutions for the scale topic. So we discussed the graph, and it looks as if the scale, the corners, the front corners of the scale, go a little bit beyond the steps of this kind of staircase, which leads the hamster to the wheel, and the co-hamster owner said that another technical option could be to integrate the scale into the wheel, and to do this by using the shaft, and basically the shaft measures the weight of the wheel, and then additionally the weight of the hamster. So it deduces basically from the delta what the weight of the hamster is, and then it can also deduce what the changes in the weight of the hamster are, if you see what I mean. Because the hamster co-owner said, in a way, the scale thing might also be a little bit messy because the hamster isn't always clean and may bring dirt onto or under the scale. This, of course, also applies to the wheel. So if the hamster drags some stuff onto the scale, I don't think that this would really happen, but If it would happen, the same could happen in the scale. But in any case, it's an interesting idea to say, could we integrate the scale into the wheel by working with the shaft, so to speak. So I leave it to you, to the project team, to say, well, this is something we want to consider right now, or is this an idea we would share for further research and projects in the future.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so actually that's something that we have considered, and something that will be mentioned in the future work section already, to improve the integration of the scale. The issue with this shaft integration is that you'd need to probably attach a load cell to the wheel setup along with an amplifier, and then that measures the weight of the hamster to kind of reduce any kind of intrusive aspects of the scale.

Speaker 2:

Okay, understood.

Speaker 1:

Okay, moving on, anything else that you wanted to comment on regarding the physical prototype?

Speaker 2:

No, those were our comments.

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome. Then let's move on to the app. I've shown you some interfaces, these are kind of based on initial renders and coding of the app so far. And yeah, as you can see, you have an overviews on stats, current and historical, including the live camera feed. Let me know your thoughts on what you're seeing. The functions, just to kind of clarify them, are the viewing the live camera feed, seeing the daily activity, so the distance covered on the hamster wheel, including the historical values, then the same for the weight measurements, along with the cage temperature and ammonia level. And this also includes customizable notifications, so users can actually choose which alerts or warnings they want to receive. Yeah, I would say that that about sums it up. Any initial thoughts or comments?

Speaker 2:

I have it in front of me, Nibbles, I assume that this little picture in the yellow bubble there would normally be a real photo of small individual hamster.

Speaker 1:

Correct.

Speaker 2:

So I quickly looked, see six pages here, I would say I like it all. I like that it is simple and intuitive. I wouldn't be in danger of getting lost in too many functions, etc., so this is cool. My only advice would be to maybe make it a little bit more emotionally engaging. So what I like is, for example, Hamlet tip. That's cute. But people who have hamsters, I think they will not only use this for the data, the data is great, but they also have an emotional attachment to the hamster. And once you come to marketing your product, then you need to consider probably this emotional attachment to appeal to these users. You have the picture of the camera here, you have the hamster here, you have the live camera feed, but also on the other pages maybe you could have something small which provides an emotional connection, I don't know what this could be. You could talk with a marketing expert. Or this is also something for further consideration. So overall, I like the app. I like the level of information which is provided. Not too little, not too much. You could improve it further by making it a little bit more playful and to cater to the, let's say, emotional needs of an attached hamster owner. This is something which maybe could still be done.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Yeah, definitely, I agree. So I think that will definitely be mentioned in the future works, that as you said, a lot of the appeal behind it is, like behind the whole tracking and caring for the hamster is an emotional connection. So I think you're right to suggest kind of, I'm not sure if 'personalize' is the right word, but to kind of to make it a bit more emotional, and I think that developing the camera feed will also improve that in the sense that then maybe at some point, we would be able to add features like saving images or videos automatically or to make highlights for the users as you suggested. I mean, you can already right now take a snapshot of the current feed, but then maybe to have tracking on videos and then be able to save those videos, be able to watch back and save the videos from last night in a more streamlined way, etc.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I agree with this. So it would be a mixture between provision of data and the data has a very clear purpose in terms of hamster health and well-being, but also the emotional side of things and hamster memories, etc. And then you give it a little bit of playful touch. I mean, something which we haven't discussed, if you allow me to raise this topic now, is the cost of the device, and I don't know if you already have ideas or information on this, do you?

Speaker 1:

Yes, we do. So I was actually going to get to this just after discussing everything together that we have so far, but I mean, we can move on to that now, unless you had something left to comment on the app?

Speaker 2:

No, this was my immediate reaction. I mean, I like things which are neat, and it is really neat. I can see basically, I can easily get the information, and this is something I really, really appreciate, and something which annoys me about many apps, that they are messy and stuff, which I do not really find interesting or engaging. So I like it, very positive reaction from my side.

Speaker 1:

Okay, great. Then, moving on to the cost of the device. Given your evaluation of the entire product, there's an estimated cost of around 240 euros, all-inclusive...

Speaker 2:

Believe it or not, this was around what I was guessing. I was thinking between 220 and 250 euros.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so this is kind of on the upper side of the price range that we had set for ourselves as a target. But what are your thoughts on that? Would you, for this price, consider buying this product? And do you have any comments on that?

Speaker 2:

I might, but you really need to think about this very carefully. We had this topic before, when I told you that a hamster costs maybe 8 or 12 euros. But in any case, when I looked last time, it was less than 20 euros. So for many people, it's a very cheap purchase. And it doesn't reflect the value which we might attribute to the hamster life and the pleasure it gives to us. The hamster we had

[Short break due to technical difficulties]

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry about that, let's continue. We were at the price tag.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly. So, I think we will not go into the economic details between cost and price [as in, cost to manufacture vs. selling price], etc. As a potential user, I can talk a little bit more about the price side of things. So, we stopped at the fact that the hamster itself is very cheap, which in a way is a bit problematic, I would say. But that's the situation. And then it's up to you.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, just to stop you quickly there. The target audience of the product is really people who are at least somewhat enthusiastic hamster owners, so we do work with the assumption that people want to provide the best care they can for the hamster. Now, obviously, we wanted to keep the device kind of as affordable as possible, but it is obviously the idea that people want the best for their hamsters, and that's what we're hoping to provide. We're aware of different hamster owner groups, and again, the aim is to cater to the needs of owners who are willing to invest into the improved well-being of and interactions with their hamster. The question is more about you personally, would you consider buying this product, given the price tag, and what we've discussed about the features of the app? And if not, why, please justify your choice.

Speaker 2:

It depends a little bit on my circumstances because now, my kids are nearly grown up, but let's say, 10 years ago, the kids were smaller, the hamster was in a way a proper family member, I would consider buying it, yes, it would be an option. It's not that I say, no, this is totally out of question. The price tag, we would say it's a lot, yes, but also, we had hamsters who were with us for a much longer time than you could normally expect from a hamster, we try to take good care of the hamsters, we love them, they are family members, so I think for them it would be worth it for us. If my kids would be small, we would consider buying this device, yes, I would consider it. I wouldn't say definitely. So, on a scale from one to five, with one being "no, I wouldn't' and five "absolutely, yes", I would give it a four, a three-to-four at least. There is something which would make it more likely for me to buy the product, and this is outside the engineering work, but it would really make a difference, and that's if there is a kind of social factor. So, let's say you make your product a little bit more expensive, five euro more expensive, and you market it in such a way that you say, from each sold device, five euro will go to a social project supporting well-being of children and interaction with small animals or something, you see where I'm going with this? So, function-wise you have the connection to the hamster topic, but there is clearly also a social purpose. This would make it a lot more likely for me to buy the product. It would move my inclination to buy the product from a 3.5 or 4 on our five-point scale to a 4.5.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I mean, yeah, obviously that's something that would be kind of outside the realm of the engineering component of this project, let's say, but this is quite an interesting thing to mention, and I think we will maybe go on to mention this in the future works aspects regarding topics which are outside of the engineering field.

Speaker 2:

I think that would be good. I mean, you are the engineer, but you also, well, you are part of the team, and you don't need to dwell on that, but I think it's a significant piece of information because if it makes somebody so much more likely to buy the product, it's something which should also be considered. Any other questions from your side?

Speaker 1:

No, just lastly, I was going to ask about if you have any general final comments or things you'd like to mention?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I would like to thank you and your team for picking up this topic. I mean, not everyone might immediately see this as a, people might say, well hamsters, small animals, that's a bit funny or strange, they don't see it as a worthwhile topic maybe. But I do, and if you look around the country, many, many households have small animals like mice or hamsters, and often I think it's families who are not so well-off who buy them for the reasons which I mentioned. So for me to look after the welfare of these animals and just to contribute to the debate, I think that's really important. So I really, really like it. I like the technical solution which you came up with, of course, there are always additional ideas which you can mention, but I think you all did a very good job, and it would be nice if you could also convey this to the team.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. Will do. Thanks as always for your input, and maybe we will just follow up quickly later on once the project has been completed and discuss some further points on this topic.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we are looking forward to it, good luck!

Speaker 1:

Sounds good, bye, and thanks again.

Speaker 2:

Okay, bye Robert.

//

Hamster Researchers: Interview 1 -

Transcript teams. Translated to English, interview was held in Dutch.

Sietse: Firstly, I want to ask you (again) if it is okay if this will be transcribed?

Interviewee: Yes.

Sietse: We will also not share the visuals and those will also not be recorded, only what is

said will be transcribed. Do you want the interview in Dutch or English? I’d recommend

English, since that can go directly into the report, if you would not mind?

Interviewee: I’ve just started everything in Dutch, since all three of us are Dutch. The

transcriptions will also be in Dutch.

Sietse: Then Dutch will do, that is fine. Let’s start the interview.

Sietse: We are as TU/e students obligated to work neatly with personal data, and to do this

interview anonymously. Are you agreeing to this interview and that we keep you anonymous.

Interviewee: Yes.

Sietse: Good to know. Now the questions about the hamsters will start. What is you task, at

the university? Are you caretakers, do you have a leading roles?

Interviewee: I am responsible for the animal testing center. My other interviewee is Manager of operations

for other departments. We would have liked to have our general caretaker with us, but he is

on holiday.

Sietse: That sounds good. How many hamsters do you have to care for approximately?

Interviewee: That is a difficult question to answer. We order them per 12, the amount I

wouldn’t dare to say.

Sietse: Could you give an approximation of scale? Like tens, hundreds or thousands? Per

given moment.

Interviewee: We have about 24 per day, but per year that would be more.

Sietse: How long do you keep the hamsters for approximately?

Interviewee: A few weeks.

Sietse: So you care for them for multiple weeks. What are the most important tasks for

caring for the hamsters?

Interviewee: The task of a caretaker is mostly caring for the animals. That means cleaning

the cage, checking the animals for their wellbeing and giving animal food and water. That is

the most important. A bit of registration also, to keep track of the animals.

Sietse: When you have around 24 hamsters, that should take some time then. Between

cleaning the cage, giving food and drinks, what takes the most time?

Interviewee: What do you ask exactly?

Sietse: How much time does it take to care for them.

Interviewee: It takes about half a day. Cleaning the cage is the most work, it takes about half

a day. Animals get standard food, each week the animals will have food continually, and

water is being renewed weekly.

Sietse: Do they live together or do they have their own cages.

Interviewee: For the hamsters, are kept with two per cage.

Sietse: What kind of cage do they have? What size does it have?

Interviewee: The size I do not know. We have a Type III IVC blue line cage from Tecniplast

Italy.

The cage gets written down, so the cage name gets repeated

Sietse: You need a budget for this. So you likely have a budget only to care for the hamsters,

and also a budget for the cages. Do you have any money to invest in more care?

Interviewee: I need to specify, the animals are well taken care of.

Sietse: Sorry, that was not the meaning of my question.

Interviewee: Our researchers make use of the hamsters and pay a price per day per animal.

That also goes for mice we keep, but also for hamsters. That also includes the price of their

material.

Interviewee: And if you mean, what are the costs? The financial structure of the university

and medical center is fairly complicated. I cannot explain that in 15 minutes or so. We are

financed by education, by the research. Housing within the university and energy use are all

combined so that is too difficult for now.

Sietse: It is fine for now, thanks. For now, the general hamster-caretaker is away. The

hamsters still needs care, so who takes over that job?

Interviewee: We have internally many animal caretakers and everyone knows how to take

care of animals. They all have the right diploma’s that are necessary. They divide the tasks.

Sietse: How many animal caretakers are there?

Interviewee: Currently about 25

Sietse: OK.

Interviewee: There are many strict rules for people who work with hamsters and animal

experiments, due to the laws on animal testing. In a zoo or a petting zoo that work would be way

different.

Sietse: For you the rules will be more strict then. You said when caring for the hamsters you

look for their general health, what exactly do you look for? Behaviour? Looks?

Interviewee: Their coat, their posture and their behaviour. Everything will tell you how they

are feeling. Everyday someone is looking for that.

Sietse: And does something go wrong sometimes?

Interviewee: There can always be something wrong, but since we have a very strict

governance and rules we always keep a good eye on that. We do so with our researchers

and the vet we have employed. When we see any type of wellbeing issues, we ask our vet

for help, and we can look at a solution.

Sietse: I’m not sure what can go wrong with hamsters, but something like hamsterfever or

so, what is a recurring problem with the hamsters?

Interviewee: Only diarrhoea sometimes happens, but that is over in 1-2 days. Other illnesses

I don’t know.

Sietse: How do you keep track of the wellbeing of the animals? Do you keep track of that on

paper, or just let it happen?

Interviewee: That is a good question, we have a wellbeing diary, so every animal is

registered and has a log on the computer, so yes that is on a database. The moment we see

wellbeing issues, we look into it and it will be registered neatly.

Sietse: Neat. Do you have any interaction with the hamsters of any kind?

Interviewee: With hamsters less, but rats are trained more often to get them easier to handle. I am not

sure what they do with hamsters exactly, to make them more open. We see them every day,

so that helps, and they also have some playing material.

Sietse: Do you have a hamster wheel? And what other things do they do?

Interviewee: We do not always have a hamster wheel, since it is somewhat small for our

hamsters. However we have one always available. They also switch around with other toys

like a basket. I think it is ordered by law that they get that. They have nesting material (Bed-r’Nest) and playing material (fun tunnel).

Sietse: Are there any smart toys or tools you use?

Interviewee: No.

Sietse: Would it be of any use for you to see your hamsters remotely, like a livestream? Or

notifications on the wellbeing or health of the hamster?

Interviewee: It could be a supporting feature,

What could be of interest to your group is that there are a lot of parties in the world looking

into digitalization of animal wellbeing. In Italy they have a company that makes A digitally

ventilated cage, that registers sound, temperature, humidity, which is of good support to the

hamsters. However for us, we already see them daily, because that is issued by law. During

the weekend, christmas, and all other public holidays. It cannot replace any workers, but it

can be an add-on.

Sietse: That is the case for any company, educational instance and medical centra that do

animal testing?

Interviewee: Yes.

Sietse: Do you sometimes forget to give food or anything, or to clean the cage?

Interviewee: No, at least that I can remember. If it would be the case there will be a

colleague seeing them daily. And monitoring is very strict, so they always have enough. The

odds they will be left hungry is practically zero, but not impossible, to stay real. So also

during holidays we check.

Sietse: That sounds good. If you had any way to improve your cages, like making them

larger or adding something, what would you like?

Interviewee: Well the cages are good enough now. For rats we are looking into double

decker cages, which are higher. They can stretch and move more. We are certainly looking

into improving animal care, however those things are very expensive also. It is difficult, but

still good for the animals. Also, the cages are less handy, since the hamsters should always

be visible.

Sietse: Then a bit of a farfetched question, but would having a camera on the animals, or

something of that kind be concerning to you, regarding the animals privacy?

Interviewee: Privacy for animals is too farfetched. We don’t need to be that woke, Sietse!

Sietse: Certainly it was a bit farfetched.

Interviewee: A problem might be with a camera in the room, that all cages have a name on

them of the researchers. However their privacy is very important and showing that would be

an issue. But for inside the cages it’d be fine.

Sietse: That is true. Last question: If we were to keep track of how the hamster is feeling,

what would be useful to be told? That the hamster is stressed, how it looks or its general

behaviour.

Interviewee: I think it is important to tell a difference with the standard behaviour. It is what

would be caught be a camera the quickest. However if you’d need 24 camera’s that would

be highly improbable, since it’d be so expensive. Maybe for mice that could work.

Mice have a very different behaviour pattern and differences in sound could be measured. If

there is a different sound pattern, then there might be a new nesting in the cage. That could

be monitored and could be interesting. However it wouldn’t take over our obligation to care

for the hamsters.

So indications of sound and behaviour are most important. That shows issues in their

wellbeing, and could be useful

Sietse: Thank you. Do you have any questions to me?

Interviewee: I just want to say something, if you really want to bring something to the market,

there are two things for mice on the market, but the market for hamsters is small. Financially

you would need a great plan to make a profit.

Interviewee: Let’s hope you enjoy yourself during the project.

Sietse: Thank you, I think that will be the case.

Introduction

Having completed interviews, as well as surveys, with multiple potential users from two different user groups, the data collected can now be used to help guide the designs of prototypes for the chosen user group, which is discussed in more detail below. Requested features, along with reoccurring challenges faced by users will be taken into account, while maintaining an appropriate price range and adhering to designs that can be used in a wide range of hamster enclosures, as many differ in their size, shape, and interior features. Research on the viability of various features detailed in the section above will be taken into account. The RPC list and research above will later be used to evaluate the design prototypes along with feedback from the target users. This will be done via a Pugh matrix, which is a matrix comprising a list of requirements, preferences and constraints for a design, along with a weighting based on their importance and viability. Each design then receives a final score, with which an objective conclusion can be drawn on which design is most relevant for the user.

Chosen User Group: Hamster Homeowners

(Justification and discussion on what this means for the focus of the final product.)

Prototypes

Prototype 1:

Design prototype 1

General features:

• Measure the water and food quantity;
• Measure the weight of the hamster with a weight sensor near the water bowl;
• Measure the temperature, humidity and air quality around the cage;
• Monitor the hamster using the camera.

Building characteristics:

• In order to measure the amount of water and food remaining, we can measure the weight by attaching a scale in a metal casing to the bottom of the bowls;
• To avoid cables that can be damaged, sensors could send the information to the Arduino using eps32s;
• Case of the camera can have hooks for metal hamster cage or suction cups for Plexiglas or glass cases; the case can contain the camera and the main Arduino, while the sensors and the scales can send the information either using cables, or using wifi or Bluetooth via eps32;
• The box is attached to the glass panels of the cage with suction cups
• Integrated hamster wheel for activity.
  

Smart features:

• Water and feeding reminders;
• Tracking behavior and activity of hamster;
• Tracking the amount of food and water left in the bowls;
• Tracking hamster weight over time and compare it with normal weight of similar hamsters;
• The owner will receive notifications if the quantity of the food or water is low (reaching a threshold set by the owner);
• The owner will receive notifications if the air quality / temperature / humidity is poor (reaching a threshold set by the owner);
• The owner will receive notifications if the amount of activity of the hamster is poor (reaching a threshold set by the owner).

Bill of materials:

Item	Quantity	Price [€]	Source
Raspberry Pi 4	1	60	https://www.tinytronics.nl/en/development-boards/single-board-computers/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-4gb
Scale	3	30	https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Digital-Portable-Electronic-Sensors-gemodule/dp/B07F6WZ4H9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=21QPRFXNPBI9J&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.LJGcpA7hoJRU2ku0QSu2sexOAjbdy2wFu4ovae3KE2IakwuXQU-ladhOCbK9G7oJoaBFvCuHXyhlMPlWCUq_1yNN8PQPeL5fAgzsrtvM1UkwHVC4Mj2nfXqDw3gAnpbC-s1pQrsWcJPDvkdUol7mkBkDgfH5m7UL2iaEaVrQtnlFYc1CCfq3C1UjUC93O_WhhunLbGeQIR8Do9bc3iqbk5pjWq_rtlQqSMPYC9HagGvCbKLEPj5C3YGnfIEtCvtD9wVPoNLU4qyH3t3MAyV1Fw_-HLKi4cCWM0Fq9ggvjR4.hpFM2ifyNi9npahCSIQa53GR55DkUGCYrM_ZSKrz-H8&dib_tag=se&keywords=arduino+scale&qid=1759127073&sprefix=arduino+scale%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-1
Camera	1	18	https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Logitech-Widescreen-Correction-Noise-Reducing-FaceTime/dp/B01BGBJ8Y0/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2JOUQK94UGZV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.16dohCqDdhZS-8g-GUzFS8qG9xM9OGTwCFbKf7Kr8cltkOEIWaOD2uN5927FVe8lnBsFlNBKCeiA9E7KlGOpoS-kJ_ccboU2PlVSDQgs9sJi4TEwZv1LOswAj69_Cv_W1bEEKcXduhB-q0pE7f5TwduQcmwuthJrMGWRlcggtjgMi81P7u5vfOEbsDsIx8U77R94293x7egg-h7UDwTH6duwVAxCJQEwRq8Gw4b2vtfNFB9dLtOSAUvscp-1wnRYZNyuD5KjpCol3gP1Xad4XkcmyG2VK1zb0Bv01FMfYcQ.hTxJIiP6gP-Ri_vXjSe40uta6394gbv0TpByGX5oTIw&dib_tag=se&keywords=webcam&qid=1759127105&sprefix=webcam%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1&th=1
Case	1	30	3D printed / other form of manufacture
Glass cage	1	60
Hamster wheel	1	62
Air quality, temperature and humidity sensor	1	10	https://www.tinytronics.nl/en/sensors/air/pressure/bme680-sensor-module-with-level-converter-air-pressure-air-quality-humidity-temperature
Total		270

Prototype 2

design prototype 2

General features:

- a single board computer (e.g. raspberry pi 4 model b) will be used to process all the data from the sensors.

- a weighing sensor consisting of a load cell, an amplifier (e.g. Hx711), with some sort of casing around it to ensure the hamster cant chew, it will be used to keep track of the hamsters weight. This will be placed at the spot where the drinking bottle/ feeder of the hamster is put, because that is a spot were the hamster will be stationary for a longer time. A micro controller (e.g. esp 32) will be used to communicate the data to the single board computer via a communication protocol (e.g. wifi).

- an ammonia sensor (e.g. MQ137) will be added to sense, whether the ammonia level is above a certain threshold, to indicate whether the cage needs needs to be cleaned.

- a temperature sensor (e.g. DS18B20) will be added to keep track of the temperature in the cage.

- a camera will be added to monitor the hamster.

- a hamster wheel is added, because the hamster will need some activity to engage in for the activity to be tracked.

Smart features:

- The app will give notification at regular times, to remind the owner to give food/ refill water. the user can indicate themselves at which times they want this reminder.

- Via the app the owner is able to view the hamster.

- The owner will be notified once the ammonia sensor reaches the threshold, thus that the cage needs to be cleaned.

- The owner will be notified once the temperature sensor reaches the threshold, thus that the cage is too cold/warm.

- The app will track the hamsters activity.

- Via the app the owner can track the hamsters weight.

Design choices:

- The cage itself is a glass cage, such that it doesn't promote climbing behavior from the hamster.

- The camera is stationed in center front at the top of the cage to have the best range of view for the hamster. It will be diagonally pointed to the lower back of the cage. This is done with the assumption that most hamster cage gadget (e.g. hamster wheel, hamster house/hideout, etc.) will be placed more to the back of the cage, such that the hamster cant hide behind them, blocking the view of the camera.

- As can be seen in the image of the design the ammonia sensor the temperature sensor and the camera are attached to the top of the cage on the front size, this is done to make sure the hamster cant reach these parts and chew on them. These parts will either be attached via hooks or suction cups. Most glass cages have some sort of raster at the top of the cage to accommodate fresh air and that is where the hooks can be attached, suction cups will be attached to the glass.

-The cage will be larger than 120 cm by 60cm to ensure the hamster has enough living space.

- The sensors (except weight) will be attached to the single board via wires.

- A normal camera is used in this protype design, but depending on the availability this could be an infrared camera, to also include night vision.

Bill of Materials:

item	quantity	price
glass cage	1	60
load cell and amplifier, microcontroller and casing (e.g. hx711)	1	30
camera	1	15
ammonia sensor (e.g. MQ137)	1	18
temperature sensor (e.g. DS18B20)	1	5
hooks/suction cups	6	2
single board computer (e.g. raspberry pi 4 model b)	1	65
hamster wheel	1	15
total:		210

Prototype 3

Isometric and Top View of Prototype 3

Design Description:

The design shown above is a small platform of outer dimensions of approximately 150x150mm with an adjustable height. At the base of the platform, there are two small steps leading up to a ceramic food bowl (volume is about 12cm^2) which is removable and is refilled manually. It sits in a small slot in the base which helps prevent it from moving or tipping over. A thermometer, humidity sensor, and light sensor, as well as an infrared-capable camera are enclosed in the top casing, the height of which can be manually adjusted along the back rail. In the top casing, an infrared LED is also mounted, which helps illuminate the cage at night (IR is invisible to the hamster and thus does not affect its sleep cycle or well-being. The feed from the camera, as well as the sensor data, is collected by a Raspberry Pi 3, which sits in the base of the prototype along with any additional electronics such as step-down converters to help power the sensors and camera. This data is sent via WiFi connection to a mobile app, from which users can then access remotely to check in on their hamster.

Features List:

• Removable food bowl for manual feeding
• Wide base to ensure stable structure
• Live-feed camera
  • Recordings from previous night can be stored and replayed
  • Live feed can be watched from anywhere
  • Infrared capability allows for observing even in low-light conditions
  • Supported by an IR LED which improves night-time visibility
  • Adjustable camera height for optimal positioning for each user
• Sensor array
  • Thermometer
  • Light sensor
  • Humidity sensor
• Sensor and camera data is processed and transmitted via an embedded Raspberry Pi for high-quality, reliable video feed and sensor data

Possible Improvements:

• Second camera at the bottom of the back rail to get close-ups of the hamster eating/better view of ground level
• Steps leading up to food bowl can be equipped with a small scale which weighs the hamster whenever it eats to track weight
• Product can come with optional suction cups or other fasteners to ensure stability
• Option for automated feeding via mechanism in base

Prototype 4

Prototype 4a

prototype 4b

Design description:

Design 4a as shown in the image above consists of a infra red camera which is attached to the cage via an adjustable clamping mechanisms which is attached to the glass of the cage via suction cups.

Design 4b as shown in the image above consists of a infra red camera which is attached to the cage via a rotatable camera holder which is attached to the glass of the cage via a suction cup.

They both can be attached high up in the cage where the hamster cant reach. The difference is that for 4a the camera can also be put in the middle in the cage but can be rotated in less directions than 4b. And in 4b the camera can rotate in more directions but can only be attached to the glass walls.

Features list:

- The camera data from the Infra red camera is processed and transmitted via a Raspberry Pi for a reliable high quality video feed. The user will be able to watch this video feed via an app.

- The camera data is processed to do activity tracking, which will also be able to be monitored by the user.

- The attachment of the camera for both design a and b is adjustable/adaptable to different cage sizes. It is however limited to cages with solid walls, because of the suction cups. The majority of the survey responders had a cage with solid walls so this design would still be viable for the majority of hamster owners.

- An infrared camera so the user will also be able to watch the hamster via the app during night time or when its dark.

- Spotting where the peeing places of the hamsters are via infrared the infrared camera.

- The app will also include daily feeding reminders.

Possible improvements:

- Make a design which also can be applied to wired cages.

- Add other sensors for the activity tracking, for example encoders for the hamster wheel.

-Add a second camera to improve vision range, to ensure the hamster is always within vision of the camera.

Bill of materials:

prototype 4a

item	amount	price
suction cups	2	1
tubes	2	8
bolts	1	4
infra red camera	1	30
rasperry pi	1	65
Total		108

prototype 4b

item	amount	price
camera holder with suction cup	1	15
infra red camera	1	30
rasberry pi	1	65
Total		110

Prototype 5

Prototype 6: A prototype with multiple perspectives. (lengths in cm)

Prototype 6 focuses mostly on the environment for the hamster: Does it have enough space, room for movement and burrowing and is it visible. Wiring and camera will be behind glass and take less priority, to not disturb the hamster.

This prototype takes the general requirements:

• Activity tracking (movement, wheel distance, play)
• Awake/asleep status monitoring
• Camera feed for live monitoring (strongly supported, no opposition)
• Scale for weight monitoring
• Cage design: safe, chew-resistant materials

However the general price range exceeds €250 slightly, for a more pet-friendly cage. The hamster has it's own cave for sleeping, which is combined with a weighing scale to know whether the hamster is sleeping, along with keeping track of its weight. The toys and hamster maze create room for more interesting video's and a friendlier cage for the user. It takes the following preferences:

• Short video/photo updates for engagement
• Modular/easier-to-clean cage components (since the cage parts are clearly apart, they can be easily removable without annoying the hamster)
• Designated deep-bedding area for burrowing (if not present throughout entire cage)
• Integrated “gym” or external play area option

Other notes:

• The entire cage has bedding, parts that have specified bedding have a larger amount for sleeping and burrowing.
• Apart from wooden constructions are toys self-bought.
• The maze is made from 3d-printed PLA to be see-through, for camera visibility
• The camera has blind spots at the cave and hamster wheel, so the cave uses weight differences (when the hamster enters or leaves) to note whether the hamster is there, the hamster wheel has a colored part to show the camera how often it turns. It has to be a little in the view of the camera to work.

item	amount	price (€)
camera holder with suction cup	1	15
Camera	1	15
rasberry pi	1	65
hamster wheel	1	62
glass cage	1	60
3d prints PLA in kg (maze)	1	25
Scale	1	15
Wood for cave and play	1	5
Bedding	1	15
Total		277

state of the art - article summaries

A low-cost automated apparatus for investigating the effects of social defeat in Syrian hamsters

Relevant points/summary:

The article is about an automated apparatus that can used to investigate the effects of defeat in hamsters. They use low power lasers and laser detectors to keep track of the position of the master. A computer measures three things using the lasers\detectors: average position, frequency of visits to each chamber and the duration of these visits, and the frequency of changes in direction of travel in each chamber. The data collection program they use is MEDPC for windows.

An Open-Source, Automated Home-Cage Sipper Device for Monitoring Liquid Ingestive Behavior in Rodents

Relevant points/summary:

Common approaches for measuring liquid intake:

-       Computer-tethered lickometers

-       Video based systems

-       Measuring or weighing the liquid

In the article they made a photobeam-based sipper device.

Advantages:

- battery powered (battery life of > 2 weeks)

- fits in vivarium caging

- quantifies the intake of two different liquids simultaneously

-  low cost and easily constructed

- provides data with high temporal resolution (allows for detailed analysis of drinking patterns)

- open source

Disadvantage

-       Animal interactions that are picked up by the sensor are not limited to licks

In the article they use the device to measure the volume of liquid ingested, whether there is a preference for chocolate milk vs water and confirm that the sipper device can be successfully integrated with in vivo measurements.

A System for Monitoring Animals Based on Behavioral Information and Internal State Information

     Relevant points/summary:

     In this paper, a monitoring system for animals using video image analysis is used. It  extracts features related to behavioral information and the animal internal state via mask R-CNN. These features are used to detect typical daily activities and anomalous activities. This way it can detected when the hamster behaves in an unusual way. The system also combines a new feature extraction method using deep neural network technology and an anomaly detection method.

The systems consists of 4 parts:

-       Signal measurement: a digital hi-vision video camera

-       Feature extraction: mask R-CNN and color information detection

-       State discrimination: one class SVM

-       Display: PC with an HDMI capture device

To test the system a loud sound was generated and the hamsters reaction was measured.

The discrimination rate of non-daily activities did not have a high level of accuracy. Mainly because the hamster shrank during the daily activities and the direction vector was often inverted because of the noise caused by the hamster’s shadow. The training data also includes infrequent situations in daily activities, which makes it possible that the discriminative boundary was not accurately determined

Design and Development of a Smart Pet Feeder with IoT and Deep Learning

Relevant points/summary:

Automatic pet feeder was developed using internet of things technology and deep learning to address feeding challenges. The system makes sure the pet receives the right amount of food, regardless of whether the owner is available. This makes sure the animal stays healthy, because an owners busy schedule can often lead to inconsistent feeding, which can cause malnutrition or obesity. It is also offers pet owners convenience and peace of mind by enabling the feeding process in their absence. 

The system architecture:

-       Weight sensor (Tecneu HX711): determines pets weight and food weight

-       Camera: detects which species

-       Ultrasonic sensor (HC-SR04): measures distance to the pet from the feeder.

-       Servo motor: controls dispensing mechanism

-       Arduino (mega 2560): micro-controller that handles all the actuators and sensors.

Areas of improvement that were mentioned:

The system could learn from a pets’ eating patterns and adjust feeding schedules and portion sizes over time and adding other pet identification, since only dogs were used to train this system.

A Novel Automated System Yields Reproducible Temporal Feeding Patterns in Laboratory Rodents

Relevant points/summary:

In this article the aims was to develop and validate a reliable method for supplying crushed diets to laboratory rodents in consistent, relevant feeding patterns for prolonged periods.

They used 2 different feeding patterns:

-nocturnal meal-feeding

-nocturnal grazing

The cumulative food intake for both methods was the same.

PiE: an open-source pipeline for home cage behavioral analysis [11]

Relevant points/summary:

In this article PiE is introduced, an open-source, end-to-end, user configurable, scalable, and inexpensive behavior assay system. It has a custom-built behavior box to hold a home cage, as well as software enabling continuous video recording and individual behavior box environmental control. The PiE system reduces environmental and experimenter disruptions by providing fully remote control and monitoring of home cage behaviors. The system was tested on mice. The sensors and actuators that were used were  a ceiling mounted, downward facing, infrared (IR) video camera (Pi NoIR) to allow both daytime and nighttime video recording, (2) white and IR LEDs to illuminate the behavior box (Note: to match the Pi NoIR camera sensor, 940nm or shorter wavelength IR LEDs are preferred for optimal nighttime illumination), (3) a temperature and humidity sensor, and (4) a circulating fan for climate stability, which were controlled by a raspberry pi. Desktop software, called VideoAnnotate, was used to perform behavioral analysis.

CageView: A Smart Food Control and Monitoring System for Prototypical Research In Vivo [12]

Relevant points/summary:

The article introduces an automated and smart system (named CageView) used to monitor a mouse, detect motion, and control access to food in accordance with experimental schedules. Cageview accomplishes it food control and activity monitoring via:

1. An actuator for linear displacements of the food access door controlled by a custom-designed interface to set the feeding and fasting schedule;

2. A vision unit with visible and near-infrared cameras and a near mid-infrared LED for day and nighttime monitoring, which forms a video streaming and data transmission system using wireless or wired communication networks; It also uses a a Raspberry Pi single-board computer.

3. A trained convolution neural network (CNN) that detects the animal position in the image which enables movement measurement.

The feeding mechanism is designed to be mounted on conventional cages used in most research centers and has a sliding mechanism that can enable or disable the animal’s access to food. Activity measurement is done via making an activity heat-map and distance measurement.

The CageView technology has been disclosed in the Maddahi Y. and Maddahi A. Methods and apparatus for monitoring, feeding, and checking animals. United States Patent. US 63/321,368, 2022

Feeding Experimentation Device (FED): Construction and Validation of an Open-source Device for Measuring Food Intake in Rodents [13]

Relevant points/summary:

In the article they provide a description of a solution for measuring food intake by mice,  FED. FED is an open-source system that was designed to facilitate flexibility in food intake studies. It is compact and battery powered so it can fit in standard home cages.  The mice are fed using food pellets. When a mouse removes a pellet, a photo-interrupter sensor sends a signal to the micro-controller and the time-stamp is logged on the onboard secure digital (SD) card. A new pellet is dispensed via the motor. The feeding can be limited to specific times of the day. The limitations of the FED:

-       SD card can be a cumbersome means to track and store data from many FEDs

-       Pellet jams could occur

-       Users should never leave mice with FED as their only food source without checking FED's functionality daily

A single FED can be assembled for approximately $350.

An open source automatic feeder for animal experiments [14]

Relevant points/summary:

In the article they describe an open source experimental feeder using an Arduino micro-controller. This feeder can be used for most sizes of dry food pellets with the potential modification of a single component;  They also describe the building procedure of the feeder. They tested it on pigeons, monkeys and cats. The cost for building this feeder is less than 200 euros.

The Promise of Automated Home-Cage Monitoring in Improving Translational Utility of Psychiatric Research in Rodents [15]

Relevant points/summary:

In the article they describe three of the most commonly used approaches for automated home cage monitoring in rodents and review several commercially available systems that integrate the different approaches. Automated home-cage monitoring records rodent behavior in their home cage over extended periods using minimal human contact.

Approaches:

-       Operant wall systems: detect nose pokes using an infrared beam and deliver food pellets or liquid in response to learned behaviors. Behaviors are directed by light or tone cues controlled by the operand wall.

-       computerized visual systems: CVS monitor behavior at high temporal resolution over extended periods including the dark and light phases of the circadian cycle, and trainable software are publicly available. The trainable nature of CVS allows for extensive flexibility in terms of the behavioral phenotypes it monitors. Limitations of the CVS include the requirement for adequate contrast between the rodent and its background and the need for most systems to house animals individually

-       Automatic motion sensors: use motion sensors to assess locomotor activity.  AMS generate data about distance traveled, velocity, and time spent at specific locations within the cage. They are unobtrusive and are not affected by lighting conditions, allowing for reliable data collection during the dark cycle on locomotor activity and sleep behavior

LocoBox: Modular Hardware and Open-Source Software for Circadian Entrainment and Behavioral Monitoring in Home Cages [16]

This article introduces LocoBox, an affordable, open-source system combining hardware and software to control light–dark cycles and monitor loco-motor activity in home cages—ideal for circadian rhythm research. LocoBox empowers circadian researchers with a flexible, scalable, and budget-friendly tool. It allows for custom entertainment experiments and long-term behavioral monitoring—all using open-source solutions that can be easily adopted or adapted.

Key Features

• Hardware: Each LocoBox is a light-sealed Plexiglas enclosure equipped with:
  • An LED (with heat sink and diffuser) for programmable lighting
  • A passive infrared (PIR) sensor for detecting animal movement
  • A silent ventilation fan and real-time clock (RTC)
  • Managed by an Arduino Mega 2560 and daisy-chained power design for easy scalability.
• Software:
  • Arduino-based firmware ensures accurate timing and control of light phases.
  • Python GUI (using Tkinter and pySerial) allows users to define up to 12 sequential lighting “phases”, including flexible T-cycles (non-24-hour cycles), simulate jet lag, seasonal variations, etc. — and replicate schedules across up to five boxes per controller.
• Data Logging & Visualization:
  • Activity and light state are logged every minute in TSV format.
  • Built-in tools enable generation of double-plot actograms and spectral heatmaps to visualize power spectral density and phase angles over time.
• Accessibility & Scalability:
  • Replicable with common, low-cost components (~USD 100–150 per box).
  • Entire system (hardware blueprints, Arduino and Python code) is freely available on GitHub.
  • Suitable for long-term and parallel experiments, democratizing circadian research even in resource-limited labs.

Automated Home Cage Monitoring of an Aging Colony of Mice—Implications for Welfare Monitoring and Experimentation [17]

Overview

This study leverages Home Cage Monitoring (HCM) using a Digitally Ventilated Cage (DVC) system to track activity patterns and rest disturbance indices (RDI) in an aging colony of male and female C57BL/6 mice, offering insights relevant to both welfare and experimental design Frontiers. This research demonstrates the value of high-resolution, long-term automated monitoring of mice. It reveals dynamic changes in activity and rest behavior with age, responses to cage handling, and capability to flag welfare-related behaviors—underscoring HCM’s promise for humane, data-rich research.

Generally not that interesting on the hardware side, as it is too different from what we want to use. Instead this article can be used for reference for psychological and behavioural data collection and processing.

Methods

• Mice were housed in DVC systems and monitored longitudinally up to 18 months of age.
• Used statistical models (linear mixed models) to assess habituation, aging, and effects of cage changes.
• Stereotypic behaviors were identified through visual inspection of activity spikes Frontiers.

Key Findings

• Upon arrival, mice showed high activity and RDI during the light phase and reduced activity during the dark phase, normalizing to typical circadian behavior after several days.
• Age-related changes: Activity decreased from 5 to 14 months, then rebounded toward baseline levels.
• Stereotypy detection: Cages flagged for stereotypic behavior exhibited sustained activity spikes, especially pronounced during the dark phase.
• Cage changes caused increased activity and RDI during the light phase, but did not significantly affect the dark phase—this pattern was consistent over time across ages Frontiers.

Implications

The findings:

• Illustrate how HCM can detect distinct behavioral changes across aging stages.
• Highlight the potential of automated monitoring systems like DVC to detect early welfare concerns (e.g. stereotypic behavior).
• Support the use of HCM for improving experimental rigor and animal welfare in long-term studies Frontiers.

Rodent Behavioral Assessment in the Home Cage Using the SmartCage System [18]

This system termed SmartCage measures rodents’ behavior in their home cages as a significant endpoint. The SmartCage system consists of multiple instrument platforms that interface with ordinary rodent home cages. Each SmartCage is comprised of multiple sensors including a floor-vibration sensor, an infrared (IR) matrix and flexible modular devices. This system is noninvasive and allows the animal to be tested in its home cage that has bedding, food, and water, making it appropriate to monitor animals for days or weeks. The automated measurements include wake and sleep/inactive states. The active parameters include locomotion, rearing, and animal movement patterns, for example, rotations (cycling).

The Promise of Automated Home-Cage Monitoring in Improving Translational Utility of Psychiatric Research in Rodents [20]

Type & Scope: Mini-review highlighting the potential of automated home-cage monitoring (AHCM) for psychiatric research.

Key Points:

• Problem addressed: Traditional behavioral tests for psychiatric phenotypes often rely on brief sessions (<10 min), are sensitive to environmental and experimenter-related factors, and yield poor reproducibility and translational reliability.
• Solution proposed: AHCM enables continuous, minimally intrusive monitoring within the home cage, generating large datasets that span circadian and estrous cycles, reduce human influence, and increase sensitivity to behavioral changes.
• Approaches reviewed:
  • Operant Wall Systems (OWS) – Sensors for nose pokes that deliver rewards; suitable for tasks such as timing and working memory.
  • Computerized Visual Systems (CVS) – Video-based tracking for locomotion and exploration.
  • Automatic Motion Sensors (AMS) – Infrared or motion detection to capture activity levels.
• Commercial platforms such as IntelliCage, PhenoTyper, Actual-HCA, and Chora Feeder integrate these methods for group- or individual-housed rodents.
• Advantages: Better reproducibility, high temporal resolution, social-context cued behavior tracking, and improved translational validity.
• Conclusion: AHCM offers a more robust alternative to brief traditional tests, with recommendations to integrate, validate, and expand use of these systems in pre-clinical psychiatric research.

Comparison of automated home-cage monitoring systems: emphasis on feeding behaviour, activity and spatial learning following pharmacological interventions [21]

Relevant points/summary:

This study assessed the effectiveness of three different observation systems as methods for determining strain and pharmacological induced differences in locomotor activity, feeding behaviour and spatial learning.

The test subjects in this study were mice.

Observation systems that were used:

-       PhenoTyper: utilises video-observation to record movement of individual subjects. In the test they measured the total distance moved in hourly bins following drug treatment and the time spent in the food zone

-       PhenoMaster:  relies on infrared sensors for the detection of horizontal and vertical activity. In the test they measured the food consumption and the total distance moved in hourly bins prior to and for the 12 h following drug treatment. It has weight transducers, for food and water measurement.

-       IntelliCage: does the monitoring and registration of activity of micro-chipped animals via antenna-containing tubes for entry into activity corners. In the test they measured the number of visits to rewarded corner in hourly bins prior to and following drug treatment and the total number of visits to all corners.

The benefit of using different home-cage observation systems is that in addition to assessing exploratory activity by way of different tracking parameters each system has distinctive recording features which could be used to complement one another and facilitate characterization of mice and pharmacological induced changes.

Development of Eight Wireless Automated Cages System with Two Lickometers Each for Rodents [22]

Relevant points/summary: In this article they present a low-cost alternative for a lickometer system that allows wireless data acquisition of licks from eight cages with two sippers each.

They present three development and validation steps:

All prototypes consisted of an Arduino MEGA, used for the analog/digital conversion (A/D converter) of the sensor’s signal, a Secure Digital (SD) card module to store the data, a realtime clock module (DS3231) to precisely time the licks events and a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) 16 x 2 to show the number of licks and date/time of occurrence.

Prototypes:

1. light dependent resistor (LDR): was discarded, did not have adequate stability because of environmental luminosity.

2. photo electric: precision was 77.02 6 11.69%

3. capacitive (touch): precision was 91.14 6 5%

The prototypes did not statistically differ, the capacitive prototype was chosen.

-        translation to wireless transmission and validation with emulated signals

 The in silico validation step with simulated licks at extreme and typical rates was proposed. It is important to verify whether other wireless equipment is turned off to avoid loss of information.

-        in vivo validation using mice drinking in two-bottle lickometer cages.

Limitations to system:

- The device does not measure volume

- manufacturing the lickometer and installing the software requires knowledge beyond behavioral neuroscience

My friend MIROSLAV: A hackable open-source hardware and software platform for high-throughput monitoring of rodent activity in the home cage [23]

MIROSLAV (Multicage InfraRed Open-Source Locomotor Activity eValuator) is an Arduino-based tool for continuous, non-invasive monitoring of rodent activity in their home cages.

MIROSLAV's key features include, but are not limited to:

• Easily customized for different environments and experiment needs
• Minimizes data loss and reduces disturbance to animals
• Includes modules for data preparation (Prepare-a-SLAV), cleaning (TidySLAV), exploratory analysis (MIROSine – MIRO The Explorer), and statistical analysis of circadian rhythms (MIROSine – StatistiSLAV).

Applied in a rat model of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, MIROSLAV detected circadian disruptions and altered responses to routine stimuli like bedding changes.

In short, MIROSLAV is a flexible, open-source system designed to aid long-term behavioral and circadian monitoring in rodents, with minimal intrusion, robust data collection, and a complete analysis workflow.

Most preferred light color of female Syrian hamster during day and night

This study evaluated the instinctual light color preferences of 18 adult female Syrian hamsters under controlled conditions.

The experiment exposed hamsters to four different light colors - blue, red, green, and yellow - under identical irradiance during both day and night phases.

The time spent in each light zone was recorded and analyzed using chi-square and mixed model type III analysis. Results showed a significant preference for blue light during the day and red light at night.

These preferences align with the physiological needs of hamsters, confirming that previously established light conditions in laboratory settings inadvertently matched their natural inclinations.