Home Cage Monitoring

Choose the right home-cage monitoring system for your study.

UID builds three home-cage monitoring systems — from single-cage temperature readers to full-plate activity + temperature platforms. Compare capabilities, calculate ROI, and find the one that fits your protocol.

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What is home cage monitoring?

Traditional vivarium monitoring relies on daily manual cage checks — a human opening cages, lifting animals, logging observations. It's labor-intensive, introduces experimenter bias, stresses the animals, and only catches health events at the moment of the check.

Home cage monitoring replaces those checks with continuous, non-invasive instrumentation. Individual animal IDs, body temperatures, and activity patterns stream automatically from inside the cage — 24/7, with time-stamped objectivity. The outcome: earlier detection of welfare events, cleaner data, and dramatically less tech labor.

Mouse with UID implantable sensor inside a home cage — illustrating non-invasive continuous monitoring
Data Stream Decision

Activity & Temperature

Different research questions call for different data streams. Here's how to decide.

AnyCage Family
Temperature Only
Temperature-only monitoring
  • Best for Pharmacology, toxicology, and oncology studies where body temperature is the primary physiological biomarker
  • What it captures Individual animal ID + ±0.1°C body temperature, continuously
  • What it misses Locomotor activity, zone/spatial preferences
AnyCage Lite — single-cage studies · AnyCage+ — rack-scale cohorts
Temperature Activity
Compare AnyCage Lite vs AnyCage+
Mouse Matrix
Temperature + Activity
Temperature + Activity monitoring
  • Best for Activity phenotyping, progressive-disease models, circadian research, and dark-phase activity
  • What it captures Individual animal ID + ±0.1°C temperature + locomotor activity + zone/spatial preferences, all continuously at 100–250 ms
  • Why you need it When activity patterns (or changes in them) are the research endpoint, or when you need to correlate physiological changes with activity changes
Mouse Matrix — plate-based, scales with study size
Temperature Activity
See Mouse Matrix

Not sure? Use the ROI calculator below — it recommends a product based on your study design.

ROI Calculator

Estimate your labor savings

Estimate the labor savings of replacing manual cage checks with continuous home-cage monitoring. Adjust the inputs and see results update live.

Your Study Parameters

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Your Estimated Results

Estimates only. Actual savings depend on study design, facility protocols, and labor structure. Contact UID for a deployment-specific assessment.

Side-by-Side Comparison

All three systems, compared

AnyCage Lite home cage temperature monitoring reader
LITE
AnyCage Lite

Single-cage temperature monitoring for small-scale studies. USB-connected, magnetic or clip mount, up to 8 readers per PC.

Temperature Activity
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AnyCage+ rack-scale home cage monitoring system
PLUS
AnyCage+

Rack-scale continuous temperature monitoring for cohorts of 96+ animals. Controller-based, local or cloud via VivoTraq.

Temperature Activity
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Mouse Matrix plate reader with LED indicators
MATRIX
Mouse Matrix

Full activity + physiological platform. Temperature, locomotor activity, and zone tracking per individual animal at 100–250 ms resolution.

Temperature Activity
View product
Feature AnyCage Lite AnyCage+ Mouse Matrix
Monitors Temperature Temperature Temperature + Activity + Location
Ideal for Single cages, small studies Rack-scale, large cohorts Detailed activity and physiological data
Scalability Up to 8 cages Up to 96 cages per system Up to 48 plates per system
Animals tracked Individual or group-housed up to 5/cage Individual or group-housed up to 5/cage Individual or group-housed up to 5/cage
Monitoring rate Continuous (if connected to PC) Continuous Continuous w/ ea. zone scanned every 100–250 ms
Mount Magnetic or clip mount Magnetic or clip mount Plate under cage
Connectivity USB + PC Controller, Hubs, Readers, PC Controller, PoE switch, PC
Temp accuracy ±0.1°C (30–46°C) ±0.1°C (30–46°C) ±0.1°C (30–46°C)
Activity tracking
Zone / spatial tracking
Microchip UID UCT-2112 UID UCT-2112 UID UCT-2112

AnyCage Lite

Single-cage temperature monitoring for small studies.

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AnyCage+

Rack-scale deployment for large cohorts.

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Mouse Matrix

Activity + physiological platform.

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Not sure which system fits?

Tell us about your study and we'll help you scope the right configuration.

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