Remember the AI-enabled pet door that stops cats from bringing in dead animals? Well, a UK startup has designed and produced a commercial model which money can buy.
The concept remains the same. The OnlyCat Smart Cat Flap, as it is called, uses advanced artificial intelligence vision technology to detect the presence of prey whenever your kitty attempts to enter the pet door.
OnlyCat is able to detect mice, birds, rabbits, rats, squirrels, and other animals large enough to be picked up by its computer vision camera. Within a fraction of a second OnlyCat detects the presence of prey, it locks the cat flap preventing your feline friend from entering.
In addition, it will alert you too. OnlyCat connects to your home’s WiFi and pushes short video clips of your cat’s transits to you, so you’d know when your cat leaves and returns. And it will, of course, alert you when a prey delivery attempt has been foiled.
According to OnlyCat, they have achieved 100% detection accuracy during testing over the summer. But “contraband” detection is not the only thing this smart cat flap can do. It also lets you have full control over which cats are allowed to leave or enter and at what times.
The OnlyCat Smart Cat Flap is presented in a sleek, contemporary design and comes outfitted with an ePaper display for at-a-glance information of where your cats are and two user-configurable ambient LEDs to light the outside path.
The device allows you to automatically share cat clips if you so choose to, and in an event of a power failure, it will automatically unlock (if it is locked at that time), Wait. Will the cat deliberately cut the power just smuggle the contraband in? Just kidding. This isn’t Cats & Dogs.
If you are so inclined, OnlyCat Smart Cat Flap is available to pre-order from Indiegogo for £149 or more (US$176+) with a subscription plan, or £379 or more (US$448+) without a subscription.
All images courtesy of OnlyCat.
