Monty Compost Co.

Smart Compost Monitor

Compost can be confusing and difficult to manage or maintain. Poor management leads to user frustration and compost that is potentially stinky, wet, and awful to interact with. This makes composting unappealing to consumers.

Monty fixes this - the smart little mushroom device sticks into your compost pile, sensing and reporting data for temperature, humidity and organic compounds to Monty Mobile. This application software then provides customised care instructions for your compost that are simple, easy to understand, educational, and most importantly fun to implement. 

CDG Scope of Work

Design team assembly, project management, new business development support, new product development, venture funding advisement.

Design Group Partners

Josephmark
Brand strategy, corporate identity, mobile app development.

Carbon Circuits
Electrical engineering, beta board production, PCB mass production management.

About Monty

Monty Compost Co is a Brisbane-based startup that was founded by local Ashley Baxter to help make composting easy and efficient for everyone through the power of technology.

Their vision is a world where 100% of our organic waste is composted back into our soil. Compost is one of our best solutions to soil degradation, landfill, food insecurity and greenhouse gas emissions. It recycles waste, creates fertiliser, restores soil health and sequesters carbon so we want to build a world where it’s accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Monty makes this possible by transforming the way we compost with technology that makes it more easy, intuitive and efficient.

A World First

The Monty Compost system represents a first-in-world category-creating home compost monitoring product and management service. It’s the first time so many new to world technologies have been platform combined and tested in the harsh environmental monitoring and management of compost. Over the course of 2 years, extensive and intensive bio-reactor life-cycle testing of sensors, electronics, power supplies and materials was conducted during the design and development of the system.

Industrial Design

The CDG design team studied nature and found a perfect solution in the bio-mimicry of mushrooms and fungi.  This relationship semantically allows users to understand how to insert the probe into the compost. 

Colour and finish specifications integrate corporate brand guides and app design experiences, whilst still being appropriate for deployment into often harsh, wet and messy compost environments.   

Down To Earth

The stylish yet structural earth / compost spike penetrates the pile and funnels compost particulates and gases past an advanced array of humidity, temperature and chemical sensors. The onboard electronics are protected from the harsh environment by an IP rated enclosure . A smart modular design allows the battery module to be easily and cleanly removed from the dirty compost spike for convenient battery swap or charging. 

Human Touch

The management application software beautifully humanises the technology making it accessible, understandable and fun to use for everyone; from primary school kids integrating composting into their curriculum, to professional horticulturists, through to community and retirement home garden community members. 

The Android / IOS App intuitively assists with on-boarding users and setting up the Monty Monitor, and is ready for deployment within a few minutes. 

Full Cirlce

At the end of its life the product can be broken down; valued electronics components reclaimed and plastics recycled. Electro-mechancially the engineering, specification, construction and finish of the Monty System represents the highest standards of manufacturing quality and finish. Beautiful inside and out the electronics are superbly specified and laid out whilst being encapsulated by stylish, premium finished engineering grade polymer mouldings.