The Weirdest Shit Out of Silicon Valley
The Weirdest Shit Out of Silicon Valley is a weekly series from The Bold Italic documenting the bizarre news, gadgets, and developments in the tech world.
I know, I know, there’s nothing any good, kind, mask-wearing person wouldn't do for their beloved pup. Sure, go ahead and buy them that overpriced organic human-grade pet food if you must, but does one really need to pay $99 to learn if their dog is happy, relaxed, anxious, angry, or sad?
If your answer is “yes,” then a new A.I.-powered collar from South Korean startup Petpuls may be for you. The collar uses bark recognition and proprietary machine-learning algorithms to figure out your dog’s emotional well-being.
How it works: The collar uses voice recognition technology to analyze the tone and pitch of your dog’s bark to tell you whether your pup feels happy, anxious, angry, sad, or relaxed. What if your dog doesn’t bark or only barks at the mailman? Not sure.
Owners get alerted to their dog’s state of mind via an Android or iOS app — and overall it appears much easier than, like, looking at your dog in the face?! The collar (available in two sizes) doubles as a doggy Fitbit, with the app’s accelerometer using paw-count to estimate the calories burned that day and how much rest they’ve gotten.
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Petpuls says they trained their A.I. on over 10,000 dogs spanning 50 breeds, so your pet is probably covered, meaning you’ll get an alert that’s “80% accurate” at recognizing their emotional state.
How does one define those five states of mind — happy, relaxed, anxious, angry, and sad? How is that actually determined? Anxiety and sad feel like the same side of the coin, and in dog-landia, what differentiates a lackadaisical attitude and a deep dark depression? Do dogs get depression? I am full of questions.
Anyway, if this rates as a must-have for you, the collar lasts around eight to 10 hours on one charge (so you’ll have to charge it daily via USB) and includes a microphone (for their bark box) alongside a button that pairs the collar data to the app over Wi-Fi.
The collar showcased at CES 2021 and received “honoree” status, which is defined as “a product that scores above the threshold set for a specific category.”
2020 was a tough year, but really?!
