Discussion

jagged-chisel: Collars for monitoring and herding. As long as they don’t require The Cloud, they’ll be quite helpful.

yalogin: This is a brilliant idea actually. However if I am right, they are probably building this as a subscription service. Wonder how expensive it will be

nabbed: >As long as they don’t require The CloudGiven that you hear frequently (even on the front page of HN today)- people getting locked out of their cloud accounts and then facing a Kafkaesque faceless bureaucracy- physical products turning into bricks because the cloud account disappeared with the company's failureI would certainly hope that a cloud account is optional.

randycupertino: They're using euphemisms, the "virtual fence" is just shock collars.

akerl_: Is this really that much of a euphemism? It's the same idea as electric fences for dogs, except the range involved is obviously quite different.

shermantanktop: Given the trends elsewhere that seems inevitable. Or are farmers/ranchers particularly averse to those features?

nine_k: They explicitly say that the signals are audio and vibration, not electric shock.

giantg2: Why not use use the cow's body heat?

actionfromafar: What is the Matrix?

t-3: Ok I totally misread the title as "... cow dollars" and thought this was going to be some commodity trading blockchain with a proof-of-livestock scheme. That might actually be able to work using these collars. It would be really cool if the farms of the future were doing something like automated silviculture using robotic judas goats and electronically-controlled gates to herd the animals from one area to another. A roomba-type robot could follow along and collect fecal samples to monitor for parasites and diseases.

hgoel: Thiel's involvement only makes think that this'll turn out to be yet another attempt at evil.

deedree: We don't need Bio-Industry. So yes, this is typically killing the earth evil.

jamiek88: Testing for humans when he’s enslaved all us normies.

Cheyana: Call me paranoid, but a tech bro backing a shock collar company? In today’s political climate?

defrost: It's staged shocking also - cows first hear beeping / buzzing and once used it turn awy from "boundary" then, followed by mild shocking - less than a regular electric fence, then a greater shock.It also reduces physical fencing costs and adds the ability to herd by "moving" the virtual boundaries so that cows can be moved from pasture to pasture.There's more on this on Landline* https://www.thetvdb.com/series/landline/episodes/11325308* https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/programs/landline/2025-09-...

hgoel: That's perhaps a fair angle, but not the direction I was leaning in.

Mond_: So, where can I buy a handful for personal use?

cogman10: I'm someone that has actually worked with cows.Fences work, really really well. And cows are quite easy animals to herd. They have a natural tendency to just follow along with the group. You can literally move hundreds of head of cattle with about 4 people (I've done it).There is some value in collecting biometrics and location information. But the entire "move the cow with a vibrator" thing isn't an innovation I think any rancher really wants or needs.I just have a hard time seeing this as being something that actually solves a need. The "20% savings" seems really fishy. The majority of the labor for a herd is feeding them.

nothinkjustai: Beef is yummy, not evil.

rectang: Oh, IOT shock collars. Hope this company takes security more seriously than most IOT players, or some sick people are going to take it as an opportunity for animal cruelty. :(

nine_k: If the idea takes off, I don's why a DIY approach can't be viable. Produce your own collars (you'd need many thousands, a factory would be happy), plant your own towers with your own transmitters (likely bog-standard LoRa, or similar), write your own open-source firmware for all that, and an open-source control app.It's pretty doable, given enough will.

grosswait: Once you get them together, sure, but it appear from TFA that this is about gathering them from mountain meadow. A herd could be spread over thousands of acres, canyons, mountains, all sorts of places to be out of site.These are operations that don’t use fences. The article mentions this is a NZ company, but the American West would have a similar issue where ranchers can run cattle on land leased from BLM.

defrost: The signals are audio and vibration Backed UP by an electric shock. CHARLIE BAKER: Cows learn that a sound cue and increasing beat is a warning that they're approaching a virtual boundary, and they learn to turn away from that boundary. In the first few days of training, if they ignore that sound cue, they would get a low-energy pulse. That's significantly weaker than an electric fence, but it's enough to give meaning to that sound cue. ~ Landline S2025 E33 September 28, 2025

VladVladikoff: Pretty soon they will release something similar to track humans en mass. They could strap it on your wrist instead of you neck, perhaps call it a “Smart Watch” (because big brother is watching you).

lokar: Using on animals is only phase 1 of his plan.

PierceJoy: Reminds me of https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-indu...

trueno: these big names at the top (thiel, musk, etc) ive really just started to tune them out. they're all bored, have too much money, and obsessed with futurism at all costs. they're p much entirely decoupled from the economic plights you and i face, they just play a different game altogether and any potential gamble for savings is never framed as a "this can make things better for everyone" but more or less just funneled through ... uh, i dont know shareholder opportunity or something.i don't doubt there's plenty of upside in agriculture/farming to be had with technology, i just no longer find it meaningful when people from this social class are trying talking about them. something is really off putting now when silicon valley types try to be authority figures on completely different industries, it's super presumptuous. think they've lost the plot quite a bit here, i dont think anyone should be interested in their ideas of the future at all. they've done enough damage.

Fricken: Possibly you're just not cynical enough to appreciate the need it could solve. Get it working on cows then move on to people. This is Peter Thiel we're talking about.

jasonwatkinspdx: Yeah, any time something farming related comes up here there's a bunch of comments from tech bros who clearly think farmers are just idiots waiting around to be rescued by the tech bros' superior understanding of what farming is and what technology it needs, based on...

cogman10: We put our cows out to pasture in the mountains in the spring/summer.Without the fancy tech it takes about a day to gather them all up.But you have to realize, this is a job we do once a year. Gathering the cows from the winter pasture is easy because it's a lot smaller.This is why I said the location information could be useful. But, we used horses and anywhere the cows can go a horse can go.> These are operations that don’t use fences.Nope, ranchers own (or lease) the land they put their cows out to pasture on. It's all fenced.> but the American West would have a similar issue where ranchers can run cattle on land leased from BLM.I'm in the american west. And BLM land that is used for grazing is fenced. In fact, that's part of what you are paying for when you buy a lease from the BLM is to maintain the fence.

bluGill: Fences need to be maintained and are not always where you want them. Cows are big, mostly they are gentle but they can accidentally kill you without trying. Pasture rotation is a big thing but that increases labor costs.Some ranchers love these because they enable things they should do but won't.

bryanlarsen: It's called a herd for a reason. Usually if you've found one cow you've found them all. In the wild any cow with genes for aloofness quickly got culled by predators.The exceptions are the lame & sick ones, but no fancy gadget is going to bring them in; you've got to take a truck to them.

inventor7777: That's relatively straightforward for more technical people, but I _really_ can't picture farmers going through all that trouble unless someone gets the foundation ready to go.

alterom: > A herd could be spread over thousands of acres, canyons, mountains, all sorts of places to be out of site [sic].Are you.. mansplaining how herds work to a cow farmer, because you've read an article on HN?

aunty_helen: As opposed to the actual fence, which is an electrified wire at 10k volts.

DonHopkins: Maybe Bryon Noem is one of his test subjects, and he was testing out Thiel's human milking machine.

aunty_helen: My brothers a dairy farmer in NZ and uses this.Nz farmers will milk twice a day, early morning and afternoon. In the middle of the day the cows return to their paddock from the morning. In the evening they’re moved to a new paddock.Grass consumption is the aim of the game. If you let cows out on a full paddock for the day they’ll partially graze and then starve themselves (relatively speaking) in the afternoon.This is bad for milk production and also pasture quality for the next rotation.The solution to this is to set a break, a temporary electric fence in the middle of the paddock. So, they arrive to half a paddock then in the morning the farm worker takes it down for the afternoon and sets it up in the next paddock for the night. Probably takes 30-45 minutes depending on paddock size, weather and enthusiasm of the farm hand.x2 for 2 herds, 7 days a week for 8 months a year.Now, my brother just draws a line on a map and it takes care of itself.

cogman10: That could be the big difference. Our herd was for beef which is definitely a lot more hands off vs dairy farming.

cogman10: The herd does fracture and split up. Cows aren't usually alone but they will split into smaller groups.That said, when they see the whole group moving they want to join in.On bigger open ranges you do have to count and go explore to find the two rebels that decided they wanted to be on the other side of the mountain :)

MichaelBosworth: Why do you think that, per the article, one million cattle are wearing these collars?

cogman10: I'd have guessed the biometrics and location information was the most useful part.But as others have pointed out these are primarily for dairy cows, which is pretty different from raising beef cattle (which is what I did).There is a need to twice daily gather the cows to have them milked. And the pasture rotation is much more of an involved process than what we needed to deal with. We just plopped a gaint bale of hay down for the cows to munch on.

akerl_: > It's staged shocking also - cows first hear beeping / buzzing, followed by mild shocking - less than a regular electric fence, then a greater shockYea, that’s basically exactly how the electric fences people have used for dogs for decades work.

defrost: Sure - save for the "live updates of boundaries" part -the worst case fail situation here is likely a boundary being broadcast that was on the opposite side of the planet ("a simple error of plus/minus sign") and the entire herd is constantly(?) being buzzed and shocked.

defrost: I'm also rural.Livestock theft, agricultural gear theft, is a real thing in AU/NZ as I suspect it is where you work.One advantage (but is it economic?) to GPS collars on animals is tracking and warnings should they all suddenly accelerate to road transport speeds.There's potential for heartbeat monitoring to warn of fallen / removed collars or predator takedowns.> this is a job we do once a year.And these collars are principally targeted to dairy operations that move herds about on a daily basis.> I'm in the american west. And BLM land that is used for grazing is fenced.I'm from the Kimberley .. what's a fence?* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5EQ1NZN6A

cogman10: > Livestock theft, agricultural gear theft, is a real thing in AU/NZ as I suspect it is where you work.I mean, I don't want to jinx it, but it's not really been an issue for us. The main theft we've had to deal with is feed theft and that was solved by switching from 50lbs bales to 1 ton bales.> And these collars are principally targeted to dairy operations that move herds about on a daily basis.Yeah, makes sense why it'd doesn't make sense to us. We didn't raise dairy cattle.We did have a couple of dairy cows, but that was more for my family and a few members of the community. Not for any sort of actual real production. I could see how it'd be a time saver in that case as you do have to twice daily gather the cows to get milked.

defrost: Heh - nobody want to jinx anything.On an IT aside, the challenge facing yard, barn, and road security cameras in Australia is parrots .. flocks of several thousand intelligent airborne can openers that follow grain rail lines and rivers and love nothing more than tearing wiring apart.You have to build to extreme anti vandal standards.Changing bale sizes works well to deter casual thieves .. serious shitheads turn up with their own trucks and lifting gear.

nine_k: This is exactly why a startup plans to sell all that to farmers in a neat package, maybe along with a subscription to cover the towers maintenance costs.

cogman10: > flocks of several thousand intelligent airborne can openers that follow grain rail lines and rivers and love nothing more than tearing wiring apart.Lol, oh that stinks. Yeah not a problem in the PNW. We have some woodpeckers that are annoying if you own wood paneled things (like barns and homes) but otherwise there's not a lot of fighting against nature beyond infections.> serious shitheads turn up with their own trucks and lifting gear.It may just be the location and community where I'm from that makes that somewhat unlikely. There's enough people along the roads that someone would see you trying to make off with a giant bale and where I'm from everyone waves at everyone when you drive by :).It's a combination of being rural enough that everyone knows everyone else yet not so rural that you see the extreme sort of isolation that I believe is possible in Australia.