Hamster Wheel Logger

This project logs hamster wheel activity using a hall effect sensor and environmental sensors (temperature and humidity) on a Raspberry Pi. It records exercise sessions, calculates statistics, and posts the data to a remote API.

• Detects wheel rotations using a hall effect sensor (GPIO)
• Logs temperature and humidity at each rotation
• Automatically starts and ends sessions based on activity
• Calculates average temperature and humidity per session
• Posts session data to a remote API
• Designed to run autonomously as a background service

• hamster_session.py — Main script, runs the event loop and handles GPIO
• sensors.py — Utility functions for reading temperature and humidity
• session.py — Session management, statistics, and API posting

• Raspberry Pi (with GPIO and IIO sensors enabled)
• Python 3
• requests library (pip install requests)
• Hall effect sensor connected to GPIO pin 4 (BCM numbering)
• Temperature/humidity sensor available via IIO (see /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio:device0/)

python3 hamster_session.py

1. Create a shell script

   run_hamster.sh:

   #!/bin/bash
   cd /home/cmarques/projects/hamster
   /usr/bin/python3 /home/cmarques/projects/hamster/hamster_session.py

   Make it executable:

   chmod +x /home/cmarques/projects/hamster/run_hamster.sh

2. Create a systemd service

   /etc/systemd/system/hamster.service:

   [Unit]
   Description=Hamster Wheel Logger
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/home/cmarques/projects/hamster/run_hamster.sh
   WorkingDirectory=/home/cmarques/projects/hamster
   StandardOutput=append:/home/cmarques/projects/hamster/hamster.log
   StandardError=append:/home/cmarques/projects/hamster/hamster_error.log
   Restart=always
   User=cmarques
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

   Replace cmarques with your actual username if different.

3. Enable and start the service

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl enable hamster.service
   sudo systemctl start hamster.service

4. Check status and logs

   sudo systemctl status hamster.service
   tail -f /home/cmarques/projects/hamster/hamster.log

• Check hamster.log and hamster_error.log for output and errors.
• If you get a 400 error from the API, check the printed payload and API response for details.

• Edit API_URL in session.py to point to your API endpoint.
• Adjust GPIO pin or sensor paths as needed for your hardware.

Feel free to ask for help with any of the setup steps!