This digital camera disguised as a flower spies on yard wildlife – and I need one

Each time I expertise an uncommon yard customer – just like the time I watched a bald eagle choose a squirrel off my hen feeder – I ponder simply how a lot I miss after I’m not outdoors or close to a window. The Surprise Petal, a flower-shaped yard digital camera by the creator of the Hen Buddy, could also be simply what my backyard must keep away from lacking uncommon yard guests.

Teased at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, the Petal is an upcoming outside digital camera that works with Hen Buddy’s AI to assist acknowledge the creatures visiting the realm. TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff says the digital camera can look a bit like a big orange flower. The Petal has a 1/1.9-inch digital camera sensor that shoots 12MP nonetheless pictures in addition to 4K video. The digital camera then sends the footage to the Surprise app to determine birds and even bugs.

The flower-inspired digital camera sits on a bendable stem. That stem could be caught within the floor or wrapped round a tree department. The digital camera can be paired with an add-on photo voltaic panel to assist lengthen the little digital camera’s battery life.

Just like the Hen Buddy hen feeder digital camera, the Petal will ship the pictures to an app, the place it could actually ship real-time alerts or a every day digest of which creatures visited the yard. The corporate additionally says that non-compulsory lens attachments will modify the digital camera’s view for close-up or huge angle makes use of.

Throughout CES, the corporate additionally introduced Surprise Blocks, a modular system designed for bug watching, together with a bug resort and seed tray. After all, the Petal digital camera can be utilized to watch which bugs go to the modular system.