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I recently got a SureFeed RFID feeder. It can read your cat's microchip or an RFID collar tag. When an authorized kitty approaches, a flap raises and lets the c
by jevinskie 10y ago
I recently got a SureFeed RFID feeder. It can read your cat's microchip or an RFID collar tag. When an authorized kitty approaches, a flap raises and lets the cat eat. I got it to prevent other family pets from stealing my cat's food. It works well for that purpose and seems well designed. The feeder has clear side "walls" and the flap itself acts as a wall on the rear of the feeder, helping prevent food theft during authorized feeding.
I'd like to hack it and add timer functionality. See, my cat is always trying to get breakfast early and is always underfoot from 4 A.M. until I feed him. I tripped over him and broke my ankle last month because of this. I figure, if I can load up breakfast's meal before I go to bed, and only "unlock" the feeder after 7 A.M., my cat may eventually learn to stop bugging me at night. The joke will probably be on me though, darn cats.
I'd like to use an ESP8266 for this so I can also have an IoT feeder that reports usage statistics. =P
- sofaofthedamned 10y agoI've got the same one and it doesn't stop cats tailgating other cats. It was however hilarious during the 'training' phase watching the stupidest of our two barrel towards the flap and go crunching into it. Did have a good idea for gamifying it though - a cat airlock with a camera, $5 a month, getting bored old ladies on Facebook to compare the cat in the airlock and making the decision to let it through or not...
- niftich 10y agoCatptcha-as-a-Service
- sofaofthedamned 10y agoThanks for the branding :D
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- warfangle 10y agoSounds like Reamde... :)
- rconti 10y agoSomeone did this 10-15 years ago with a webcam and a silhouette of the pet.
- steffan 10y agoI think you're talking about the Flo Control Project. Looks like the original site is gone, but here is an archive link: https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20160115204055/http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/flo_control.htm https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20160115204055/http://www.q...
- rconti 10y agoYES, thank you!
- bryondowd 10y agoFor a cheap and simple hack solution, I would imagine you could just get one of those outlet timers. That's assuming the device uses wall power, defaults to locked when unpowered, and doesn't require any user input to resume function when power cycled. Just set it to power on at 7AM and either set it to power off at the time you usually refill it, or just manually switch it off when filling. Not as much fun as an IoT cat feeder, though.
- jevinskie 10y agoGreat idea but unfortunately it is battery operated. I suppose a relay on Vcc might do the trick though!
- ars 10y agoIt would probably be easier to power it via a wall-wart (voltage adapter) and an off the shelf plug-in timer. Just cut off the end of the adapter and wrap the wire around the battery terminals.
- Alupis 10y ago> unfortunately it is battery operated Seems short-sighted on the manufacturer's side. What happens if you go on vacation and the battery dies? It should have a wall plug, and a battery to fallback on for when there's an outage.
- jevinskie 10y agoThe feeder only contains room for a day's worth of food, it doesn't have a "hopper" and isn't designed for unattended use. It's (unhacked) purpose is mostly for multiple pet households to prevent food theft or enforcing special diets.
- astral303 10y agoDon't feed your cat until 7am no matter what. Ignore all foot rubs and meows. He'll eventually learn and give up. Operant conditioning. Watch out though for that extra-hard last ditch effort he will put out before giving up. Stay strong.
- bartkappenburg 10y agoThat last ditch effort is called an extinction burst [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Extinction_burst https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)#Exti...
- iamphilrae 10y agoUntil I read the article, I was imagining this: https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/003/312/014/af9095d403701c14e49f9394d77af050_original.png?w=1200&fit=max&v=1424394523&auto=format&q=92&s=2691a94aa51505e2233603c571e863d0 https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/003/312/014/af9095d403701c1...
- dboreham 10y agoIt you want to see extinction bursts, just watch Trump for a while.
- derekp7 10y agoCats have been known to modify their purring sounds, to include a sub-carrier that is remarkably similar to an infant crying. That in turn triggers an instinctive response in humans which cause them to subconsciously rise out of bed and apply food to the source of that sound. Source: a documentary on Netflix "The Lion in your Living room".
- mschuster91 10y agoWell my cats don't need their (damn loud nonetheless) voices to wake me up... the fat cat (7kg) wakes me up by bashing me with full paw force. Cats are awesome, especially at finding our weaknesses...
- tlrobinson 10y agoI wired up my Super Feeder (http://www.super-feeder.com/ http://www.super-feeder.com/) to a relay and C.H.I.P. (https://getchip.com/ https://getchip.com/). I wish I had multiple animals so I had an excuse to RFID it. So far these are the triggers: 1. I put a hall effect sensor and another C.H.I.P. on his exercise wheel (https://onefastcat.com/ https://onefastcat.com/) so it feeds him every few revolutions he runs (not sure if he's associated the two yet) 2. Alexa skill. 3. Daily 5am feeding to avoid the early morning hungry-cat-alarm-clock. 4. Hacked Amazon Dash button next to the bed (and IFTTT button on my phone) in case the 5am feeding isn't enough to silence the hungry-cat-alarm-clock. So yeah, I identify with this statement "You might say I’ve won this battle. However I just spent 20 hours armor-plating a cat feeder. I think we know who’s really in control here, don’t we?"
- Segfaulter 10y agoDo you know of any systems that portion out food by weight?
- tlrobinson 10y agoSuper Feeder lets you adjust the duration of the feedings, which I think is pretty accurate, but you'll have to calibrate it for the desired weight, food size, etc. I added the relay because I wanted more control. Normally you use a wall outlet relay or timer but then you only have one preset duration, and there's a 10 minute reset interval between feedings.
- shagie 10y agoRather than the hacked amazon dash button, have you seen the AWS IoT Button? https://aws.amazon.com/iotbutton/ https://aws.amazon.com/iotbutton/ That might be easier to work into the system on a future refactoring of the system.
- tlrobinson 10y agoYeah, but the Dash buttons are $5, or free with the $5 credit towards the first purchase...
- kstenerud 10y agoFeed him at 7 pm.
- cm2187 10y agoUntil the dog comes to the machine with the cat (and its RFID) in its mouth.
- derefr 10y agoIf you're giving them an automated feeder, why not just let them eat (from it) at 4AM?
- jevinskie 10y agoBecause the feeder holds a single meal and is designed for access control (multiple pets) and not really automatic/timed feeding. A feeder with a sort of food hopper isn't too useful to me since I alternate dry/wet food for breakfast/dinner. A lockout timer would be though!
- fragmede 10y agoOnly feed them dry for breakfast using the machine; do wet manually at night.
- firebones 10y agoThis. Dry before work. Wet when someone gets home. A little dry later. (Which they don't touch right away because they're satiated.) Wet right before bed. They don't get ticked off unless you sleep in late because the late wet food is so good. Cured the cat clawing at the door all night because we were trying to put them on a human food schedule for the wet stuff.
- brazzledazzle 10y agoI know it sounds cruel and I didn't feel quite right doing it but this is why I walk around my cats like they're not there. After a couple close calls where I almost fell it seemed like it was worth a shot. I do slow down a bit so I carry/push them rather than kick when they're actually underfoot though. It only took a couple bonks to the nose and a time or two of being carried by my foot a few inches into the air to teach them not to do it anymore. And if you're concerned about affection they still rub against me when I'm standing still or sitting.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoIt does feel cruel, but it's probably safest for the cat as well as you--if they aren't afraid to get underfoot, they could be injured if you step wrong and can't stop in time.
- ThrustVectoring 10y agoI've used something similar to teach a kitten I had to not step on keyboards. Just pick them up and drop them on the floor every time they touch the keyboard - they learn that that touching keyboards is How You Fall Off The Desk.
- eric_h 10y agoAges ago, when I was still living with my parents, we had an indoor/outdoor cat that had a habit of going to various high shelves in the house and accidentally knocking things off them. To curb this behavior, one of us would grab him off the shelf and literally throw him outside (onto grass, maybe 6' in the air), thinking that he would associate the unpleasantness of being thrown with his unwanted behavior. He did. He changed his behavior such that he would jump up on said shelves and deliberately knock things off the shelf whenever he wanted to go outside. He was a great cat other than that habit though. Hands down the most social (with humans) cat I have ever owned or met and my sample size on both counts is fairly large. He made everyone he met fall in love with him and had a territory of several square miles given the phone calls from people he encountered who took him in worrying that he wouldn't get home safely (he always did, though one incident when he was gone overnight prompted us to put the home phone number on his collar due to some concerned neighbor who took him in for the night). He also once jumped into a UPS truck that was delivering a package to my parents house - I happened to be looking out the window as the truck was leaving, watched it go halfway up the driveway, stop, and see the driver toss him out of the truck. My parents have since stopped allowing their cats outside due to the murderous relationship between cats and local bird populations.
- pryelluw 10y agoIm not a cat owner and this might seem a bit strange. Why not just out the cat in a cage with food/water/bed before going to sleep?
- akiselev 10y agoI think the vast majority of cat owners would consider that not only strange but cruel as well. Cats need quite a bit of room for mental well being, let alone general health, and locking them in cages at night is definitely harmful. Doing so at night, for a nocturnal animal, is doubly so. Cages are only broken out temporarily for transportation and health reasons.
- pryelluw 10y agoI see. That makes sense. :)
- JupiterMoon 10y agoThis would be a very cruel thing to do to a cat.
- tripzilch 10y agoin all fairness, waking up a human everyday hours before feeding time and all the other things I'm reading in this thread, the cruelty goes both ways. now the human has responsibility because they started it when they brought the cat in. though the cat doesn't seem to mind because hey free food and they get to act however the way they want and the human will think it's adorable. it is so weird. even though as a human I also find cats often to be adorable. this is a reason I would never get one.
- JupiterMoon 10y agoIt is an admirable quality to recognize that you are not an appropriate owner for an animal.
- dkonofalski 10y agoFor some reason, based on the OP's article, I'm imagining your other cats holding the "authorized" cat up to the machine by the neck like a shakedown. :-P Kinda like in DooM when you use a dead security guard's torso to open up a locked door.
- cptskippy 10y agoOr you could just use a $5 lamp timer.
- bitJericho 10y agoYou don't need a special device, just don't ever feed your cat when it's bugging you. You taught him that bugging you gets him food. It's probably too late now for you though lol.