DIY horse rug monitoring

This is a follow up to this article Is my Horse getting cold? https://medium.com/horse-technology/is-my-horse-getting-cold-9c58080948c8

If you would like to better understand when your horse is getting too hot or too cold, here how you do do your own Rug Trial.

Getting Setup

You will need:

• A temperature sensor for the rug
• A temperature sensor for the ambient temperature or link to local weather station
• A rug
• Needle and thread and a small piece of material
• An app to get the data off the sensor
• A cloud account for processing data (optional)

Where to get a sensor

This is the sensor that was used in the first rug trail and it did the job well.

https://bluemaestro.com/products/tempo-disc-bluetooth-waterproof-temperature-sensor-logger

They cost approx €50 including shipping and take about 2 weeks to arrive (during Covid). Cheaper sensors are available but they all have drawbacks — they need data downloaded every two days, they are thicker with sharper corners.

The rest of the article assumes you are using this sensor, but many other temperatures sensors work in the same way with their own companion app so the general approach should be the same.

When the sensor arrives, download the app and check the sensor is working

Download app from the play store (Android). Search for

Blue Maestro

Or use the QR code

Turn on sensor by pressing the soft touch colour rubber on top of the Device. Depress gently to turn it on. The LED indicator will blink three times when it is turned on. The LED indicator will blink once if it is already on. Please note it should not be depressed with excessive force, since this may damage the Device. This light is very dim and does not show up well in daylight.

In the Blue Maestro App

Setup the sensor

Name the sensor after the horse and set the logging interval to 600 seconds (10 minutes)

To confirm the settings turn the sensor on and off. Turn off by holding down the button for 5 seconds. It will blink rapidly to indicate it is turning of

Sew in the Sensor

A needle and thread and any bit of material to stick the sensor into the lining of the rug. If the rug is new or very clean, then a sail repair tape from the local chandlery may work but only for a period of a few weeks, but stitching is safer.

To attach the sensor put the rug on the horse and ideally let them wear it for a while so it settles into it’s final position. Take a marker and place a mark one hands breadth in front of the hip bone. Now take the rug off and sew in the sensor to the liner of the rug underneath this mark.

A source of ambient temperature is also required. If your horse is outside, then the outside temperature is needed. You may have a weather station or there is one locally. https://www.wunderground.com/pws/overview is a good source of data.

If your horse is inside, then you purchase a second temperature sensor and use that to track inside temperature. The simplest approach may be to get a second sensor and take it in and out with the horse.

Now you are ready to go — put the rug on the horse and wait a few hours to collect some data.

Download the data

Open the app and hold the phone near the horse. You should see their name appear on the list.

Click the sensor name and then click download. It will take up to 30 seconds and will then report success or failure. If it fails just try again with the phone close to the sensor. Sometimes phones can get confused with bluetooth and the phone needs restarting for it to see the sensor or make a good connection (sigh).

Once data is downloaded, click Logs button at the bottom of the screen and upload the data by sending it via email to your whinie account. Eg. spot@whin.ie

You should see a chart like this one that shows the range of temperatures over time. You can now export the data and view it in excel to do you own data analysis.

Note that occasionally the app asks you to log in to your account with Blue Maestro. This is optional.

Sharing Data

We are interested in seeing rug data from different parts of the world, different rugs and different horses. If you would be happy to share your data just contact phoebe@horsetech.ie.