Abstract While networked sensors are becoming a ubiquitous part of many human lives, their applications to the study of wild animals have been largely limited to off‐the‐shelf and stand‐alone technologies such as web cameras. However, purpose‐designed systems, applying features found in Internet‐of‐Things devices, enable more efficient gathering, managing, and disseminating of a diverse array of data needed to study the life histories of wild animals. We illustrate these claims based on our development of a system of networked nest boxes that we created to study nesting birds in urban environments. This system uses general‐purpose processors within nest boxes to perform edge computing to control data acquisition, processing, and management from multiple sensors. A central data‐management system permits easy access to all data, once downloaded, which has facilitated our uses to date of this system for formal university‐ and school‐level education, and informal science education.
