I built something similar for my girlfriend recently. When she's at work, she misses our dog so I built her a device that, when activated, dispenses a few treats, takes a video of Pickles enjoying the treats and sends it back to the sender. She can activate it by either sending an email or, better, picking up a picture frame that I customized. Inside the frame is a sensor that detects her touching the photo and that triggers the process, with the video ending up on her phone.

The main components are a Raspberry Pi to listen and control things plus an Amazon Dash button that I reconfigured as an on/off switch located next to my front door.

Overall, the software itself was relatively easy. The tricky part was building a machine that dispenses a few treats consistently, not 3 treats then 15 then 0.

I've been thinking of writing this up in more detail. If there is interest, that may provide the motivation.