Because reading a radio signal from the chip was too easy?
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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We chose to put AI on a doggie door. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Do those exist? Does seem like an obvious option.
Yes, they are really cheap and the law (here in Sweden at least) requires all outdoor cats to be chipped. So the cat is probably already chipped anyway.
Even if for some reason you didn't want to chip your cat (you should absolutely chip your cats and dogs) it would be trivial to just put a tiny receiver in something that dangles off their collar for the door to communicate with.
Why should you? As a non-cat owner, I am curious about the privacy implecations of it. Also the benefits.
You store your contact information on the chip. Then, if your pet gets out and someone finds it they can take it to the vet to have the chip read. Then they can contact you and give you your pet back.
You could, of course, have your contact details on their collar. But collars can come off or break. And if you're worried about privacy, literally anyone can just read the tag on your pet's collar. Most people aren't going to have the equipment on hand to read a chip.
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They have existed about as long as RFID has been available.
I had one about 10 years ago
Personally don't want to leave collars on my cats, I also don't let them outside much though beyond our patio.
Microchip bro, it's under their skin all pets should have them. Even if they are an indoor pet
Chips are implants that go under the skin. Most civilized places require pets to have them in urban places.
Ah gotcha, they are chipped in that way, I didn't realize you could just use that though for this type of situation. I definitely thought of the chips in the collars lol.
A tag with proximity around the neck has to be the simpler and more cost effective solution. Thats just dumb tech bloat bs.
But what if the neighbors cat reverse engineers the RFID signal and breaks into your house to steal all the cat food. What then?
If it can pull it off, it deserves the treats
If it can do that, it can also wear a mask
Then humanity is over and the new master race of the technocats will rule the earth.
It'll find a bowl the is effectively empty and starve.
My pet door just reads their microchips. You can get a collar tag if they're not chipped.
Can you share your pet door link?
I'm not the person you asked, but I use microchip-based feeders for my cats and the company also sells microchip doors. I've been pretty happy with the feeders, but haven't had any reason to try the doors.
https://www.surepetcare.com/en-us/pet-doors/microchip-pet-door
I have two cats - one is allowed outside and eats all the food in sight, and another that’s indoor only and likes to graze, I have their smart feeder and smart cat flap, which allows me to control which cat is allowed to access what and at what time, setting curfews, and seeing if they’re in or out. Would recommend.
I have one of these too for my cat, and it works really well. Hasn't run out of batteries yet since I bought it several months ago. And it stopped the catfood thieves of the neighbourhoud entering my kitchen uninvited.
Don't hesitate to contact their customer service if you ever have problems with it. They've helped with things no other company would. For example, one of my cats figured out how to open the door when it was locked (they're not allowed back outside at night). I sent them a video of the cat escaping and they sent me a new, modified door that fixed the problem. I couldn't believe they did that.
Thank you!
90% of modern tech is just money laundering and insider trading.
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There’s not a chance in hell this is going to work to be able to differentiate between two black cats.
We had two black cats and Google and Apple photos both get them mixed up despite them being easy to differentiate for us.
Not to mention just how bad facial recognition is on two non-white people, let alone cats.
And even then, I found a cat in my last neighborhood that was a dead ringer for one of our black cats. Which was very confusing the first time he appeared into different places at the same time.
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I wonder how long it will take the local racoons to figure out holding up a picture or video of the owner's pet to the camera should suffice. Imagine that -- racoons lying-in-wait, with stolen cellphone, trying to get something good.
Let me in Summer
Negative
KEEP SUMMER SAFE
Cats from the same race tend to look very similar dont they?
Anyway, this is more interesting than more chat robots.
Myeh sounds gimicky. I doubt it'll be accurate at all.
These magnet collars exist for like 30 years or so
Cats have races now? Do they have classes too?
They're classless, so they got that over us.
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I think some guy did a HackaDay or Instructables about this a few years ago using Arduino. He got it to recognize his cat's face to keep out other neighborhood cats. But to give the software enough time to recognize the face, the cat had to go through a 3-ft tunnel. Our cat door is built into the real door, so I can't attach a tunnel to the outside. But our problem isn't the wrong cats coming in. What I need is to detect if the cat has something in its mouth like a rat, which they love to bring in alive to play with and immediately lose so I have to root them out. Our cats are dumbasses.
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If this could also prevent your cat from bringing in prey to your house, it would sell even better.
Bird in mouth -> door keeps shut
Cats are not dogs no matter how much mine thinks he is
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