Flappie AI Cat Door Stops Your Pet From Gifting You Dead Mice 72
"For those who don't appreciate the 'gifts' your cat drags in, this might be a solution from a Swiss start up," writes Slashdot reader maudlins11. Engadget reports: Finding weird pet-related technology is a CES tradition, and this year is no exception. Take Flappie, for example. The Swiss start-up is showing off an AI-powered cat door that automatically locks if your kitty tries to bring in prey it caught from the outside. On the side of the door facing the outside, you'll find a motion sensor and night-vision camera. Flappie says it has compiled a "unique and proprietary" dataset over the years, with a focus on diversity -- this means getting lots of different kinds of cats as well as prey, filmed in a variety of different lighting conditions. The company says that its AI-powered detection system is accurate more than 90 percent of the time, which means your cat could still get a mouse inside. But hopefully that'll happen a lot less frequently.
There are some manual switches on the inside of the door so you can lock and unlock it any time you want as well as turn off the prey-detection system. Eventually, Flappie says that pets are likely to be trained that they can't enter when carrying something, and when they drop the prey the door will promptly unlock so they can get inside. Flappie also included chip detection in its cat door. So if your pet has been microchipped, you can make it so the cat door only opens for your specific pet. And, of course, there's an app so you can control the door from your phone. But if you're not inclined to hook the Flappie door up to the internet, it'll still work via the controls on the door itself. The product is launching in Switzerland and Germany later this spring, with a $399 price tag. Alternatively, you can pay $199 with a two-year $8.90 monthly subscription to save all the videos the door records of your pet.
There are some manual switches on the inside of the door so you can lock and unlock it any time you want as well as turn off the prey-detection system. Eventually, Flappie says that pets are likely to be trained that they can't enter when carrying something, and when they drop the prey the door will promptly unlock so they can get inside. Flappie also included chip detection in its cat door. So if your pet has been microchipped, you can make it so the cat door only opens for your specific pet. And, of course, there's an app so you can control the door from your phone. But if you're not inclined to hook the Flappie door up to the internet, it'll still work via the controls on the door itself. The product is launching in Switzerland and Germany later this spring, with a $399 price tag. Alternatively, you can pay $199 with a two-year $8.90 monthly subscription to save all the videos the door records of your pet.
Or better yet..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep your cat indoors. The birds will appreciate it. You won't have a flea problem, and your cat won't become prey themselves. Win/win for everyone.
Re:Or better yet..... (Score:4, Insightful)
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> reduce the chances of getting a toxoplasma gondii... migrates to the brain and changes one's behavior.
Are human Presidents susceptible?
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Not if they use a garlic-based shampoo.
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The owner or the cat?
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I find that garlic-based shampoo works well with cats, especially slow-roasted with onions. I haven't tried using it to flavour humans yet...
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> reduce the chances of getting a toxoplasma gondii... migrates to the brain and changes one's behavior.
Are human Presidents susceptible?
That would explain a lot from both major parties, wouldn't it?
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Except Trump is one of the few Presidents who actually doesn't have a pet. There have only been less than 5 Presidents who didn't actually have a pet.
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I think that's why every President has had a dog and not a cat, people with cats are obviously not functional enough to get to that level.
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Except for the cat ...
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If you do this from birth, the cat will never know and be perfectly comfortable living a charmed life. Cars, coyotes, and bald eagles abound around here and will shorten a cat's life considerably.
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Not really, cats that are purely indoors get diseases just as well, unless you give them proper diet of raw food and supplements. They tend to be overweight, they go blind and develop allergies all because they can't catch and eat raw food, they may also start destroying your stuff if sufficiently bored or start attacking humans.
On the other hand, your cat will still give you dead animals if it can, plenty of houses have rodents, bugs and other animals that the homeowners simply aren't aware of, hence why c
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My (parent) cats bring in the prey alive. To teach the kids the hunting. At least the mice.The rats are usually dead already. But if the mother catches a rat inside of the house, she plays with them, just like with a mouse. With the big difference: the rat is fighting back!
The father does not play at all and only hunts rats and mice. No birds, no geckos, no lizards.
The mother hunts everything, except chickens.
The last 14month she got a single bird. Birds are hard to hunt. As they usually have guards on pole
Re: Or better yet..... (Score:1)
The argument "if you do from birth" is like saying "jews have been persecuted for ages, they are used to it, so it's ok to holocaust them".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Outdoor cats live considerably shorter lives than indoor cats. Cars, antifreeze, toxic plants, disease, coyotes and other larger predators--all of them shorten the life of the average cat that comes and goes from a home.
If you really must let them be outdoors, have them on a leash and walk them, or build a catio/kennel and keep them from interacting with wildlife. We built a catio this year and our cats love it. They were apartment cats before, so they've never known more outdoors than a balcony, so this is
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I walk them without a lash.
And the window is always open, so if a hostile dog comes, they jump inside.
If (which is most of the time the case) the parents are outside with the kids: the parents attack anything instantly. The dogs yelp and run before they even get hit.
The little ones are 20 weeks old, they climb everywhere and run as fast as the old/adult ones.
The other issues you mention, we do not have here.
The cats are trained to understand the road as a natural boarder. Was easy as half the dogs of the vi
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While I do understand the sentiment, I disagree that this is a solution. Keeping a cat indoors is just as wrong as keeping your dog indoors 24/7. The fact that you can get away with it, doesn't make it the proper way to treat the animal. Perhaps a better approach is to discourage cat ownership. Where I live, you pay a tax to own a dog, but not for owning a cat - perhaps cats should be taxed as well, to discourage people from owning so many of them?
Yes, cats kill birds. However, cats are concentrated in ci
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Re: Or better yet..... (Score:2)
In my experience, the *far* bigger factor in bird decline is habitat destruction. Having moved to a village in the country, thereâ(TM)s birds everywhere, and thatâ(TM)s despite every house having on average 1-2 cats outdoors. The difference is the number of hedges and trees and places to hide, not the cats.
SchrodingerGPT (Score:4, Funny)
Cats and AI, what could possibly go wrong?
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no corpses left behind (Score:4, Interesting)
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Cats and AI, what could possibly go wrong?
It's clear that none of these AI experts have ever owned a cat... If the cat flap locks on them they'll just scratch at the door until you let them in (with dead critter in mouth), if that doesn't work they'll go to the windows next.
I've no doubt an average housecat could outsmart an AI.
Re:SchrodingerGPT (Score:4, Funny)
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Cats and AI, what could possibly go wrong?
I don't mind the occasional dead mice. But I do have a problem when it brings alive tarantulas and drop it in the kitchen
20 year old dupe? (Score:3, Insightful)
I realize this is a new Whiz Bang solution to spend money on, but...
https://web.archive.org/web/20080913222639/http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/flo_control.htm [archive.org]
Covered on ./ here:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/02/03/25/2121237/image-recognition-meets-a-persistent-cat [slashdot.org]
There's a few other open source solutions out there too, which I came across while looking for this link. Or is "News for Nerds" just "News for people-who-buy-gadgets" now?
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I came here to say this, but I knew in my heart that it had already been said. Also, I never would have been able to dig up that link!
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Or is "News for Nerds" just "News for people-who-buy-gadgets" now?
Given the number of folks here who seemingly use off-the-shelf IOT stuff that they actually allow to connect to the Internet, the answer to your question may well be "yes".
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Call me crazy but I don't think the editors should have rejected the story just because a similar project was posted here two decades ago.
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I never meant to imply it shouldn't be posted.
However, notes about "previous coverage" (especially when it was *twenty* years ago in 2002, with the current summary making the functionality sound novel), "you can also find these other projects doing similar things", or some other value-added content would've provided more context and made it sound less like a slashvertisement.
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Rabbits (Score:1)
OK,, fine. Works for mice. But what about rabbits?
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Re: Rabbits (Score:2)
You jest, but I honestly wouldnâ(TM)t be surprised with one of my cats.
I'm pretty sure this is already available (Score:3)
I've seen products like this offered before. Like 10 or more years ago.
I'm sure the "unwanted extra passenger" detection is getting better... but I don't think this is groundbreaking.
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You are probably refering to a /. post roughly 15 years ago.
A hobbyist made himself a double door (lock) with a camera to keep pets out who carried something in the mouth.
It was extensively discussed here.
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Seems like slashdot comments have changed from discussed to disgust.
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I bet you're right. There's even a post higher up that links to that 2008 story.
Jumping back to the present - it appears this "Flappie" is not the only group trying to get into this space. A quick search came up with OnlyCat [onlycat.com] and Pawly [yourpawly.com]. Pawly is from Switzerland too! Maybe there's a story there...
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But THIS one is AI-powered, so it's WAY better than that old "dumb" pet door!
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I think previous efforts were DIY projects.
I suppose the improvement here is that it "just works", i.e. doesn't need training with your cat and your camera, copes with different lighting and the like automatically.
I'd be worried about false positives though.
As a busy parent... (Score:4, Funny)
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How are my kids supposed to learn to chase mice if my cat doesn't teach them?
Well, you see, daddy, that would be your job as a responsible parent... B^}
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These video games aren't gonna play themselves you know. I mean, except for the auto battlers. But those are for weenies.
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Well played sir!
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How are my kids supposed to learn to chase mice if my cat doesn't teach them?
Your kids are learning to chase dead animals? That's a great way to raise a generation dependent on microwave meals.
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are belong to us (Score:2)
Please tell me that it uploads pictures from the cat door to the flappie cloud so that you get only the best cat related advertising.
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"... prey recognition ... is not outsourced to any external servers."
Cats have shown a decided unwillingness to buy toilet trays, scratching posts and plush beds, so there's no benefit to FOMO advertising.
A picture of a midget psychopath taking home its trophy might reveal the fauna/pest population of the neighbourhood. But again, it's unlikely to drive sales.
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Obviously, if the AI detects that your cat doesn't have a collar then you should get an email about some special collars just for your kitty. AI can see that you need kitty door mats. Kitty wouldn't be trying to bring in so many critters if you bought these great cat toys... AI training doesn't pay for itself after all.
We are almost there (Score:4, Funny)
Teaching cats the wrong thing (Score:2)
The lesson cats will learn from this is to eat your prey first so the door will open, then upchuck the prey inside for their human to admire.
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Just google for "RFID pet door". There are dozens of different models that do exactly that, using the pet's RFID implant, or an added RFID tag in the pet's collar.
How many jobs (Score:2)
- ML engineers
- web designers
- marketing people
- product manager
- product designer
- factory workers who actually make the pieces
This is how AI creates jobs in totally unexpected ways.
It was done before. Simpler. (Score:1)
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Aw (Score:2)
Poor kitties.
Impurrfect AI (Score:2)
How about an automatic cat-butt cleaner? (Score:2)
Cat hosting neighborhood feline party (Score:2)
The objective was to deny entry to other cats - which had previously been a problem.
The problem was that our cat would sit beside the cat door, thus unlocking it and other cats would still come in - FAIL.
Next project fail: squirrel-proof bird feeder.
The cat's review on their website XD (Score:2)
Can it tell a cat from a raccoon? (Score:2)
Flappie: the diverse cat door (Score:2)
Demz ginger cats are all racist
Slashvertisement (Score:2)
Why do we need a frickin' slashvertisement here? Is it because ZOMG!!! AI!!!!?????