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I wish I could find a project that would recognise a cat by its appearance and open / close a cat flap based on that. It could also make a noise or other distra

I wish I could find a project that would recognise a cat by its appearance and open / close a cat flap based on that. It could also make a noise or other distraction at cats that are recognised to deter them from tampering with the cat flap. The cat flaps available on the market use a chip to identify a cat, but this is a terrible method - it doesn't work more often than it does. Many times my cat was attacked by other cats because it couldn't get in and now it is scared of cat flaps.

Auracle 5y ago
Maybe things have changed, but when I was looking for doggy doors I was dismayed nobody made one that would automatically open in case of a fire.
- brimble 5y ago
  I'm no expert, but I can imagine that automatically opening an air vent to the outdoors, when a fire is detected, isn't a great idea.
  - Auracle 5y ago
    What we bought has several flaps (to help with insulation) and a plastic cover we can put over it at night. The flaps would still be there; I just wanted a "cover" that would come off in an emergency.
  - tlavoie 5y ago
    On that note, one that could open in one direction only would let the pet out, but not open inwards. To the extent that this helps though, I'd wonder more about other things that are risky, like flammable furniture foam/curtains. A room and contents fire gets out of hand faster now than they used to, because the old wood furniture and natural materials are much less immediately flammable. Either way, once the heat breaks a window, that room at least will suddenly have lots of air. I did subscribe to a monitored alarm service specifically for the smoke detectors, on the theory that while I have little need for a burglar alarm here, I would really want the fire department sent if something started while I was out. I'm on my local department, and usually home, but the neighbours wouldn't know quickly if something happened while we're away.
nbernard 5y ago
Maybe this could be a starting point: https://joakimsoderberg.github.io/catcierge/ https://joakimsoderberg.github.io/catcierge/ ?
sgt 5y ago
Also looking for something similar. Our cat never comes indoors and therefore has a food bowl on our porch. Several other cats eat her cat food every day and it feels like we are feeding half a dozen mouths, including birds.
MarcScott 5y ago
Use a Pi with a camera module and a passive infrared motion sensor. Take a bunch of photos of your cat and other cats, using the module and the PIR to trigger it. Manually label photos as `your cat` and `not your cat` and then use https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/ https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/ to retrain a model based on your cat's image. Then rig a big enough servo or stepper motor to open a cat door, and a big buzzer for other cats.
lenwood 5y ago
Have a look at Lobe [0]. I haven't found a use case for it personally but it looks promising. The caveat is that this would only handle cat identification, you would need to build & implement the opening mechanism. [0] https://www.lobe.ai/ https://www.lobe.ai/

Auracle 5y ago

Maybe things have changed, but when I was looking for doggy doors I was dismayed nobody made one that would automatically open in case of a fire.

brimble 5y ago
I'm no expert, but I can imagine that automatically opening an air vent to the outdoors, when a fire is detected, isn't a great idea.
- Auracle 5y ago
  What we bought has several flaps (to help with insulation) and a plastic cover we can put over it at night. The flaps would still be there; I just wanted a "cover" that would come off in an emergency.
- tlavoie 5y ago
  On that note, one that could open in one direction only would let the pet out, but not open inwards. To the extent that this helps though, I'd wonder more about other things that are risky, like flammable furniture foam/curtains. A room and contents fire gets out of hand faster now than they used to, because the old wood furniture and natural materials are much less immediately flammable. Either way, once the heat breaks a window, that room at least will suddenly have lots of air. I did subscribe to a monitored alarm service specifically for the smoke detectors, on the theory that while I have little need for a burglar alarm here, I would really want the fire department sent if something started while I was out. I'm on my local department, and usually home, but the neighbours wouldn't know quickly if something happened while we're away.

nbernard 5y ago

Maybe this could be a starting point: https://joakimsoderberg.github.io/catcierge/ https://joakimsoderberg.github.io/catcierge/ ?

sgt 5y ago

Also looking for something similar. Our cat never comes indoors and therefore has a food bowl on our porch. Several other cats eat her cat food every day and it feels like we are feeding half a dozen mouths, including birds.

MarcScott 5y ago

Use a Pi with a camera module and a passive infrared motion sensor. Take a bunch of photos of your cat and other cats, using the module and the PIR to trigger it. Manually label photos as `your cat` and `not your cat` and then use https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/ https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/ to retrain a model based on your cat's image. Then rig a big enough servo or stepper motor to open a cat door, and a big buzzer for other cats.

lenwood 5y ago

Have a look at Lobe [0]. I haven't found a use case for it personally but it looks promising. The caveat is that this would only handle cat identification, you would need to build & implement the opening mechanism. [0] https://www.lobe.ai/ https://www.lobe.ai/