For years, one of the most rewarding projects we’ve shared with the PixCams community has been BirdNET-Pi. What started as a simple Raspberry Pi project that could identify birds by their songs has grown into a worldwide community of wildlife enthusiasts, educators, researchers, and conservationists. Thousands of people have built their own listening stations, discovering birds they never knew were visiting their backyards.
Over the past two months, we have been working on something we have wanted to build for a long time, the next evolution of that idea. Today, we are excited to introduce BirdNET-Cloud.
BirdNET-Cloud isn’t just an update to BirdNET-Pi. It’s a complete reimagining of what an affordable wildlife listening station can become.
Built on the Success of BirdNET-Pi
BirdNET-Pi changed the way many people experience birds. By combining the BirdNET artificial intelligence model with a Raspberry Pi, it became possible to identify birds automatically, twenty-four hours a day, using nothing more than a small computer and a microphone.
The project inspired more than 10,000 DIY installations around the world. From suburban backyards to nature centers, schools, and research projects, people began listening to wildlife in ways that were never before possible without expensive scientific equipment.
BirdNET-Cloud honors everything that made BirdNET-Pi successful while taking it several steps further. Instead of every station operating independently, your stations now connect to a modern cloud platform where detections, recordings, spectrograms, and statistics are available from anywhere in the world.
Your Backyard, Connected to the Cloud
Imagine leaving home for work and returning that evening to discover every bird that visited while you were away.
BirdNET-Cloud continuously listens for wildlife and automatically uploads detections to your personal online dashboard. Every detection includes the species, the exact time it was heard, the original recording, and a spectrogram, a visual fingerprint of the sound.
Whether you’re using a phone, tablet, or computer, you can explore your station from anywhere. No port forwarding, no dynamic DNS, and no complicated networking. Simply log in and your wildlife observations are waiting for you.
One Platform… Four Different Wildlife Stations
One of the biggest improvements in BirdNET-Cloud is that it has grown beyond birds.
Today the platform supports four different station types, each designed to explore a different part of the natural world.
Bird Station listens around the clock, identifying bird songs and calls throughout the day.
Bat Station uses an AudioMoth USB microphone to detect ultrasonic bat echolocation calls that humans cannot hear, revealing the incredible activity happening overhead every night.
Hybrid Station combines both worlds by automatically monitoring birds during the day before switching to bat detection after sunset.
Nighthawk Station listens for nocturnal flight calls during spring and fall migration, documenting the birds that pass overhead under the cover of darkness while most of us are asleep.
Together, these stations create one of the most versatile DIY wildlife monitoring platforms available today. Read more about the BirdNET-Cloud Stations here: https://pixcams.com/birdnet-cloud-stations/
More Than Bird Identification
While BirdNET-Cloud began as a way to identify birds, I designed the platform with a much bigger vision in mind.
Because the Raspberry Pi runs artificial intelligence models locally, BirdNET-Cloud isn’t limited to recognizing birds or bats. It provides a foundation for adding entirely new acoustic detection models in the future.
Imagine stations that could automatically recognize gunshots, chainsaws, vehicle traffic, human voices, or other sounds important to wildlife conservation and reserve management. These capabilities could support anti-poaching efforts, habitat monitoring, and research projects around the world.
In many ways, BirdNET-Cloud is becoming a general-purpose AI wildlife listening platform rather than simply a bird identification system.
Affordable Technology for Everyone
One of the philosophies we wanted to preserve from BirdNET-Pi was accessibility. Anyone can build your own BirdNET-Cloud system!
You shouldn’t need thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment to participate in wildlife research or simply enjoy learning about nature around your home.
BirdNET-Cloud continues to run on inexpensive Raspberry Pi computers with readily available USB microphones and weather-resistant enclosures. Whether you’re a backyard birder, teacher, land trust, wildlife rehabilitator, university researcher, or conservation organization, you can build a station without breaking your budget.
Some of the most exciting discoveries often begin with the simplest equipment.
Build your own system! See our easy to follow step-by-step instructions here: https://pixcams.com/birdnet-cloud-assembly/
Growing a Community
Perhaps the part we are most excited about isn’t the software, it’s the people.
BirdNET-Pi built an incredible community of curious wildlife enthusiasts willing to share ideas, help one another, and contribute observations from around the world. Our hope is that BirdNET-Cloud grows into an even larger community where users can share stations, compare detections, contribute ideas for new features, and help shape the future of acoustic wildlife monitoring together.
The platform is completely free to get started, and I can’t wait to see what everyone builds.
Join the BirdNET-Cloud Community
https://pixcams.com/forum/birdnet-cloud/
The Future Is Listening
Every day, wildlife is communicating around us.
Birds greet the sunrise with song. Bats silently patrol the night sky. Migrating birds pass overhead while we sleep. Soon, perhaps, artificial intelligence will help us recognize many other sounds that tell the story of the natural world.
BirdNET-Cloud is my attempt to make those discoveries accessible to everyone.
This is only Version 1, and we already have a long list of ideas for where it can go next. With the support of this amazing community, I believe we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible.
Thank you to everyone who has supported PixCams over the years, tested early versions, shared ideas, and encouraged me to keep building. We hope you’ll join me as we begin this exciting new chapter.
Welcome to BirdNET-Cloud.
Learn more and create your free account: https://birdnetcloud.com
