dogometer

Fat dogs are everywhere. This is a pedometer that you hang on your dogs collar. It measures levels of doggy activity, and wi-fi reports to your PC how active your dog has been. Software knows the breed, age, weight etc… and gives advice on how long a walk to take pooch for this evening.

The function should be almost passive for the owner, they shouldn’t have to go looking for this information, it needs to land in their email, on their tv, or on the phone / sms. It needs to actively pursue the owner to take the dog out for a walk. People who already walk the dog enough don’t need this – unless they just like numbers (like I do).

mockup.jpg

There are a few products out there giving the basic pedometer distance and calorie counts for pets (notably petometer.com) but none that I can find that take things further.

Optional extra – it could send electric shocks through the dogs collar to make it dance, thereby burning calories!

Optional extra 2 – a locked food bowl which only opens when bowser has done his 20 minutes of exercise for the day.

Optional extra 3 – a pet operated add on ‘leash hook’. This is a wifi enabled hook you place on your wall, it holds the dogs walking leash. When the dog is under exercised the hook drops the leash, prompting the dog to pick up leash, run to owner, and request walkies. Pure fred bassett.

PC Interface options – it could have an icon on your desktop of a fat ugly crying dog when your dog is being too lazy, or a fit excited happy dancing dog if it was doing well. Actually, this could drive your screen saver – so that as you return to your pc you see your sad, lazy dog on the screen and think ‘I’ll take shep for a walk before I finish that report’. For more organised types it would use direct advice – like “dogometer recommends a 20-30 minute walk today”.

The key here is to use cheap wifi to hook into peoples wireless and send messages to a centralised account which monitors the dogs activity. Simple messages are then conveyed back to help promote dog health - taking away the need for the owner to think too much. People don’t seem to like thinking too much. The ongoing messages could even be sponsored, allowing the initial purchase to be the only direct expenditure.

Thanks for the pic of the dog to http://flickr.com/photos/charlesfred/1264976479/

[no sketch pic for this inventoid - until I find that notebook again]

September 1, 2007 | Filed Under ,

 

Comments

One Response to “dogometer”

  1. Taki on September 27th, 2007 9:22 am

    Have you checked SNIF Labs?
    http://www.sniflabs.com

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