When Dan Hall reached for his cellphone to call a farmer and ask if an electric fence was switched on, he says, "it was if a light came on in my head".
At that moment a couple of years back, he got the notion of developing a mobile app which could be used to indicate if an electric fence was alive and the Fence Detective was born.
Months of hard work later and the electronic aid was on sale for $39.95 a week before Mr Hall collected the $5000 Vodafone Innovation in Technology Award during the National Fieldays at Mystery Creek.
The app is made by Mr Hall's new company, Danz Zappz, and although he says sales are slow at present he is confident they will expand as the fence warning system is sold to the world.
The success of the digital development is a change of pace for Mr Hall, 48, who lives on a four-hectare lifestyle block at Kaihu, which he planted in pine trees that are now close to harvesting.
