Farm systems
Parlour PCs, herd software and sensors
The parlour has a computer in it. So does the robot, the feeder, the grain dryer and the sprayer. They all need a network, a backup and someone who isn't frightened of them. Daniel works alongside the manufacturers' engineers, not instead of them.
Sound familiar?
What goes wrong
The parlour PC is older than the bull.
It runs the milking, so nobody touches it. It also runs an operating system that stopped getting updates years ago, on a drive that will fail one morning at 5am.
The herd software lives on one machine.
Records, treatments, breeding, movements, all on a PC in the office with no backup and no way to see them in the parlour or the field.
The robot needs the internet and the internet isn't there.
Milking robots, feeders and dryers increasingly report to the cloud for the manufacturer's support. They need a reliable connection in a building that was built for cows.
You'd like to know the trough is full without walking there.
Water levels, grain store temperature and damp, the fuel tank, the gate. Sensors are cheap now and the radio they use reaches across a farm on a battery that lasts years.
What Daniel does
What he does about it
The IT around the parlour and the robot.
A proper network to the building, a backup of the parlour PC's drive and settings, a spare machine ready if the manufacturer's software allows, and a plan for the morning the old one dies.
Herd and flock software, installed and connected.
Set up on the office machine and the phones, backed up every night, with the manufacturer's support details to hand. Daniel does the computer side; the manufacturer supports the software.
Sensors across the farm.
Long-range, low-power radio sensors for troughs, stores, tanks and gates, reporting to a dashboard on your phone and alerting you before something becomes a problem.
Signal where the kit needs it.
GPS correction, telematics, the sprayer's tablet, the weigh crush's laptop: all need a connection where they are, not where the router is.
Diagnostics kit and the laptops that run it.
Daniel spent years at Omitec and Continental around vehicle diagnostics. He's at home with the laptops, cables and software that talk to modern machinery, and knows when to hand over to the dealer.
Under the bonnetFor whoever in the family checks these things.
The kit
- Isolated VLAN for farm machinery with controlled routes to the manufacturer's cloud services only
- Disk imaging of parlour and robot PCs to a local store and the cloud, with a documented restore procedure
- LoRaWAN sensors and gateway for the farm's own monitoring, with alerts by text and app
- Industrial-grade switches and access points in the parlour and feed buildings, sealed against dust and wash-down
How it’s done
- Manufacturer's support contacted before any change to a milking or feeding system, and nothing done without a backup first
- Changes scheduled around milking, calving and harvest, in writing
- Everything labelled and documented so the manufacturer's engineer can find their way round
Said plainly
What he won't do
- Touch a milking or feeding system's own software without the manufacturer's say-so. That's their support contract and your warranty.
- Pretend to be a dealer mechanic. Diagnostics laptops and connections, yes; a gearbox, no.
Questions people ask
Before you ring
Can you replace the parlour PC?
Often, with the manufacturer's agreement, and it's one of the best-value jobs on a farm: a modern machine with the old one's image on it, and a spare ready for next time.
What do the sensors cost to run?
A gateway on the farm and sensors that run for years on a battery. No monthly radio fees for the farm's own network; a few pounds a month if you want the dashboard hosted.
Which herd software do you support?
The computer side of any of them. Daniel installs, connects and backs up; the software company supports the software itself, and he'll sit on the call with you.
Read first, if you like
Guides that go with this
- Backing up your farm recordsMovement records, medicine books, invoices and photos: the simple backup that means a dead laptop or a fire in the office is an inconvenience, not a disaster.
- How to get Wi-Fi to your barnThe three ways to get a signal from the farmhouse to an outbuilding, what each costs, how far each reaches, and which one suits a stone barn two fields away.
Also
Jobs that often go together
Wi-Fi and networks
A signal in every room and every outbuilding: mesh Wi-Fi through stone walls, and beams across the yard to the barns.
Find out moreThe farm office
Email on your own domain, files you can reach from the field, backups you forget about, and the computer side of MTD.
Find out moreCCTV and security
Cameras that record properly, read number plates at the gate and send a clip to your phone at 3am.
Find out more
The parlour PC, backed up before it's older than the next bull.