Observed arrival · 2026-11-02
A buoy built for the reef data satellites miss
S.C.O.U.T. presents a low-cost, battery-powered buoy design for monitoring nearshore reef temperature, turbidity, and locally recorded sound.
- For
- Reef researchers monitoring shallow nearshore sites
- Worth noticing
- Hydrophone audio is stored onboard and retrieved by hand rather than transmitted over radio.
Field notes
The homepage lays out a battery-powered sampling cycle: the buoy wakes roughly every 30 minutes, records temperature and battery voltage, samples turbidity less often, and appends timestamped rows to an onboard CSV. It describes hydrophone audio as locally stored and manually retrieved, while dissolved oxygen, light, and chlorophyll appear as possible future payloads. The project identifies under $5,000 as a target system cost, not a demonstrated purchase price.
Observed signals
Read the marks
Editorial observations of this landing page, not a rating.
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