Rugged, no-nonsense monitoring hardware for farms, homesteads, and rural property.
Smith Varmint Works designs and builds connected monitoring systems that keep watch over the things a farm can't afford to lose — and that keep working through weather, distance, and spotty connectivity. Cellular and WiFi connected, solar where it counts, and built to be installed once and trusted.
Everything is designed, assembled, and field-tested in-house — from the circuit board to the cloud that sends you the alert.
Products in field testing now — first releases expected 2026–27
Know the moment your chicken door fails. Mother Hen 2.0 is a cellular chicken-door controller that alerts you day or night when your coop door doesn't open or close on time — no WiFi, no other equipment.
We're looking for testers now.
Know the moment your mailbox opens. RFD Alert is a cellular mailbox alert for rural homes — no WiFi, no other equipment.
We're building a waiting list for RFD Alert. It is expected to ship in the first quarter of 2027, and pricing will be announced in the first quarter of 2027.
Smith Varmint Works is built by Tennis Smith — an engineer with decades of experience building large-scale software and cloud systems, and a homesteader who got tired of finding out about problems after the damage was done.
Every product starts as a real problem on a real homestead, and nothing ships until it has survived months of duty outdoors doing its job.
Nobody Said Take My Money — a seven-part post-mortem of Mother Hen, a smart chicken-coop product that worked perfectly and sold nothing. Read the series →