About Us
Open Acoustic Devices designs, supports, and deploys open-source acoustic hardware and software for our user community, as well as our own environmental and wildlife monitoring projects.
Our main product is AudioMoth, a low-cost, open-source acoustic monitoring device which has been used in multiple applications, including automating the search for an elusive insect species, monitoring poaching by gunshot and listening for ultrasonic bat calls.
Our goal is to improve the accessibility and usability of acoustic technology for conservation using open-science.
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Thinking of using AudioMoth in a new project? We consult and collaborate to deliver custom firmware and hardware for unique projects. Contact us to discuss how we can work with you to get your AudioMoth project going.
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You can contact the team at theteam@openacousticdevices.info, and follow what we do on Twitter at @OpenAcoustics.
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Alex Rogers
Andrew Hill
Peter Prince
Who we work with
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We often work with conservation organisations and engineers to develop new hardware and software based on AudioMoth. For example, we worked with Ruby Lee in partnership with Dr. Robin Freeman at ZSL and Alasdair Davies at Arribada Initiative. The aim was to develop a smaller version of AudioMoth (µMoth) which could be used by researchers for animal-borne monitoring.
Ruby Lee
Ruby Lee is an electronic engineer who took on the challenge of reducing the size of the original AudioMoth design to create µMoth, whilst maintaining the same functionality and quality. Ruby enjoys miniaturising PCBs and gets huge satisfaction from even removing just a millimetre from a design, unfortunately microSD cards are not micro enough, so she had to settle with a size of 32 x 24 mm.
Alasdair Davies
Alasdair Davies is the founder of the Arribada Initiative; an organisation created as part of his role as a Shuttleworth Foundation fellow, aiming to encourage open development of and improve access to technology within the field of conservation. Alasdair has provided help, connections, and guidance leading to the establishment of Open Acoustic Devices as well as its continued growth.
How we started
Open Acoustic Devices started as a research project at the University of Southampton, under co-supervision of Alex Rogers, Jake Snaddon and Patrick Doncaster. Andy Hill led the hardware development, Peter Prince the software development, Evelyn Piña Covarrubias the field tests, and Lydia Katsis the sound analysis. Our original project involved monitoring anthropogenic disturbances in the tropical forests of Belize. We deployed AudioMoths to listen for sounds of shotguns that would identify poaching hotspots in nature reserves. You can participate in the analysis of data from that deployment here.
Evelyn Piña Covarrubias
Conservation ecologist
University of Southampton
