I set out to automate a chicken coop door to have more control of the times the door opens or closes. The door (pictured on the left) is a unit from Amazon:
It is reasonably priced, and has settings to open and close on time or light sensor, or a combination of time and light. Unfortunately due to layout of coop, the door needed to be mounted on the inside, which meant light sensor wasn’t an option, and changing the time on the unit as days get shorter or longer was going to be a hassle. Enter the Zooz Zen17 (pictured upper right). I just needed a way to trigger the door.
As you can see in the picture, the manual up/down triggers are simple momentary switches (bottom two). Just a simple solder to those momentary buttons, connecting up the Zen17 relays, and setting a few simple rules to open and close using the Astro binding. The only hiccup was the chicken door actually only wakes up (screen activates for about 45 seconds) with the first press of the momentary switch, then activates the door on a second press (sleep mode conserves it’s small internal battery). Easily overcome with rules, and a few parameters of the Zen17.
The bottom right unit is an 88Wh battery connected to a 21W solar panel (not shown). This recharges the coop door internal battery, as well as powers the Zen17. Everything is mounted to a piece of plywood for easy mounting in the coop.