Barn Owl: Monitoring for Security & Operational Efficiency
By Maura Keller
With a long-standing history in the U.S. Air Force, serving 20 years as a fighter pilot and test pilot in the F-22, Josh Phifer understands the importance of safety and security in our insecure world. Combining that experience with his extensive ranching background, Phifer developed Barn Owl, a security monitoring solution that meets ranchers’ and remote business owners’ needs.
Regardless of the size of a ranching operation, there are a myriad of monitoring and security concerns – from evaluating the well-being of livestock to monitoring water tank levels to ensuring fences and equipment are secure. Traditionally, this type of monitoring activity requires ranchers and their staff to spend hours each day driving around, ensuring the safety and security of their operations.
Thanks to Barn Owl’s off-grid cameras and smart alerts, now ranchers can keep tabs on critical assets throughout their land and address issues or threats, all without having to spend countless hours behind the wheel.
While Phifer’s original idea for Barn Owl revolved around using drones to monitor activity and issues on ranches, he quickly realized that, while innovative, it did not make good business sense – for Barn Owl or the ranches they serve – due the complexity and costs involved.
So Phifer and his team turned their attention to developing camera sensing systems for critical resources on ranches, particularly in the area of water.
“We actually developed a remote water sensing system for farms and ranches, including stock water, fuel tanks, and fertilizer tanks, allowing ranchers to see their liquid levels all over the ranch,” Phifer says. “And we developed that product and tested it with a number of farmers and ranchers in Wyoming, and they said, ‘We like it. We’d rather just have cameras out there.’ So we pivoted into the cellular camera system at the end of 2017 and that’s really what we’ve been focused on since.”
Indeed, one of the key uses is asset monitoring on ranches, both in warmer months and in warmer locales, is typically water tank levels. Is the water tank full? Is the windmill pumping?
“But we also certainly have a growing use case based on security,” Phifer explains. “People put Barn Owl cameras on their front gates or on the long driveway to their house, to be alerted when somebody is driving down the road.”
Barn Owl monitoring systems are appropriate for any size ranch or farm, but large-scale ranches will undoubtedly benefit from a time-saving perspective. Ranch owners and their staff no longer have to drive to multiple water tanks locations to check on water levels.
“We do have smaller scale customers that may have one camera here and one camera there, as well as customers with dozens of cameras covering large areas,” Phifer says. “Our software is built to manage large camera counts very well.”
Brent, a U.S.-based rancher uses Barn Own daily to check livestock water in remote areas. “It saves me lots of miles and time each year,” he said. “Barn Owl is easy to set up and their customer service are some of the best around. They stand behind their products. I have been so impressed. I will be ordering more of these for remote monitoring.”
Likewise, Brandon, a rancher in New Mexico uses Barn Owl cameras to monitor water levels in hard to get places. “It saves me a lot of time and worry. It gives me peace of mind knowing that my cattle have water.”
Barn Owl’s strong customer support team can help make recommendations for proper placement of cameras and identify critical assets that need monitoring.
And because the environment of many ranches can be challenging with strong winds, damaging rain, and destructive animals, Barn Owl’s cameras are manufactured to be durable and withstand harsh conditions.
As Phifer explains, customers with a prepaid subscription receive access to a lifetime warranty, which includes lifetime replacements and upgrades for a low fee.
“When they do purchase the hardware up front, they have the peace of mind that no matter what happens to the camera, that will be covered and replaced,” Phifer says. In addition, for larger ranches with multiple employees, Barn Owl offers multi-user options that allow monitoring and alerts for more than one person.
“Having grown up driving around for four hours a day on a ranch, looking at the levels of water tanks, I understand the relief of simply pulling up your phone and seeing all your water tanks with the most recent photo from an hour ago,” Phifer says. “This is why the ranching community loves us.”
The Barn Owl system can also be used for security purposes, ensuring high-value equipment and buildings are secure.
“It’s our mission to help ranchers and remote business owners be more secure and more efficient,” Phifer says. “Having my extensive background in the military, security is really important to me. People have the need to secure themselves and feel safe and have peace of mind when they go to bed at night, both due to the efficiency of their operations, but also just knowing what’s out there and what’s happening. And so our vision is to make remote business owners more efficient, more secure, and to evoke awareness through this remote deployment of simple and affordable technology.”
