Cat Automatic Sprayer | Hacker News Reader

Cat Automatic Sprayer

fabidouille.com

120 pointsCHO775 comments

I remember circa ~2000 an engineer had a website that described a project called "Flo-control": His cat, Flo, constantly brought live animals into the house, so he built a simple image detector to only open the cat door if she was not carrying something. It doesn't appear to be online anymore, but it used traditional image analysis methods and ingenuity rather than the TensorFlow SSDMobileNet sledgehammer, which is also fairly inaccurate in a real-world application.

EDIT: Found it on WayBack...

http://web.archive.org/web/20000229222350/http://www.quantum...

Seen a similar project on github described here: https://link.medium.com/VTkd11UH7ib, also based on SSDMobileNet.

Raspberry instead of tower PC and no more serial cable, impressive improvement over just 21 year. We have arrived at a level technology that we have only seen in “The Jetsons”.

I've used SSDMobileNet for real-world applications, it's absolutely terrible for general use. It is just a technology showcase. But it is interesting we can lego-together a neural net fairly easily these days.

And the Cat is often tempted by a plant which is not good for him.

The science behind the reasons for cats eating grass and other plants is not yet unravelled completely, but I don't think there is a general consensus the eating nor (supposedly consecutive) regurgitating is actually bad for the cat. Just bad for the owner :) Research does show it is very common behavior though (like 1/10 cat owners have never seen their cat eat plants).

There are toxic plants for cats. I'm not an expert so I won't link to anything here but you can look it up on your favorite search engine.

And yes, they want to eat those plants anyway. And they are often stubborn with this.

Why would you leave the toxic plants in places the cat chew on them, though? Or if you can't keep them out, why have the toxic plants? I mean, I have a mint plant that can irritate them, but between it being inconvenient and the cats having very convenient and safe plants of their own to chew on, it is no issue.

And as a sidenote: It is always best to look up every plant you want to bring around your cat - at least a few, you might consider not having. Easter lilies, for example, have pollen that is toxic to cats. They don't have to eat it for it to kill them.

I'm not arguing with this, though you can end up in a situation where you get a cat after having a plant for a long time, or someone not aware offers you a plant, and depending on your house or apartment, it's often not easy to find a place for your plant that your cat can't reach.

And yes, you should look up your plants for cat toxicity and the solution is often to give your plant to someone else…

That's an interesting point; I think it depends on the situation though. Especially houseplants could pose a risk here, in which case it's probably easier to just not get them, but oustide the situation seems to be different; I have the impression that when there's a decent amount of plants cats don't go for the toxic ones. Purely anecdotal but having lived on the countryside for decades with tens of cats and about 50 species of vegetation which are confirmed toxic to cats I have never seen a problem. Nor have people I know.

I have two cats, and they show good judgment on what plants they nibble on. They only show interests in the grass that I grow for them (in general any kind of grains, e.g. wheat, barley, etc.), and they never touched my other house plants. This is anecdotal, but at least in the case of my two cats, they seemed able to distinguish edible grass from toxic ones with no prior learning.

Yeah, it looks like there is a spider plant in the video, which cats tend to like to chew. Apparently it drugs them a bit and isn't toxic to them.

https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/toxic-a...

It's easy enough to provide them their own grass.

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/pet-greens-...

Most grocery stores have wheat grass that is cheaper and larger than what the pet stores offer. It's worth a look.

they eat grass when they feel sick. sort of a self medication thing.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to buy a ssscat?

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/petsafe-sss...

Far less fun though! I regularly spend at least as much if not more doing some project myself instead of buying an off-the-shelf solution. I do it because I enjoy it, can make it work exactly the way I want it to, and don't then suffer from potential vendor lock-in.

I’ve seen this before, but it’s essentially a compressed air subscription service.

> Replacement cans are easy to use, 80 to 100 sprays per replacement

Regular air duster cans work just as well and are significantly less expensive than their refill cannisters.

After a few times the cats avoid the sprayer, so you don't churn through them as fast as you'd think.

Compressed air sold in stores usually contains bitterants and skin-dyes and other chemicals to deter abuse by people seeking to use them for getting high. If you're worried about an animal's health, spraying it with those added chemicals might not be congruent with your initial anxiety.

This appears to just be motion-activated, as opposed to being activated specifically by pets?

This is great.

One of our interns built something similar for warding off rabbits in his garden this summer (it triggers a bluetooth speaker to scare them off when it detects them): https://blog.roboflow.com/rabbit-deterrence-system/

He trained a custom model which would be a good next step if you need to detect something that's not in the list of pre-trained classes (or you're getting false positives/negatives with your camera/environment -- or at certain times of day/night).

I mean, I just make sure my cats have safe-to-eat green plants to eat (generally parsley or cat grass). I put it in places really convenient to them and they tend to leave other plants alone. And no issues with regurgitating.

This attempt to use a raspberry to change your cats behavior seem to be repeating pattern for a certain it-affine group of people: https://link.medium.com/LTbefNZX6ib

Cat regurgitating a plant on the zoom call isn't as bad as a mouse. Yeah that happened.

In France, most florists sell small tubs of "cat grass" which cats love, just a euro or so. I've never seen this in the UK, they are missing a trick, regular small-time trade, gets people used to coming in the shop etc.

What exactly is cat grass? My cat eats grasses outside and I’d like to plant some for her

Just regular grass in a small tub, same size as for watercress.

The one in the kits from the supermarket is typically wheat. But the spiderplant that our psycho on the interwebs is keeping his cat out of is actually nontoxic and cats like it.

Usually either Oatgrass, Barleygrass, Wheatgrass, or Ryegrass.

In the pet store a suitable species will be labeled just "cat grass." You can buy seeds and you can buy it fully grown (and ready to eat)

Do you mean catnip?

That's the best way to get them to eat grass safely and get high at the same time.

There is also sprouted-grass for cats which is sometimes also sold like a chia pet: add water and the cat grass (note: not its scientific name) sprouts and then the cats eat it.

Cat grass is also a thing, literally grass that's safe for cat consumption. Catnip isn't a grass, it's in the mint family, beyond that, many cats don't actually consume the catnip, they also just rub on it and roll around in it. I have one cat that eats it, and one who just rolls around in it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_grass

Oats, Rye, and other grains

https://www.rainbowseeds.ca/apps/search?q=cat&view=mobile

Cats don’t really eat catnip; cat grass is a different thing.

um, my cat wants to have a word with you. i grow fresh catnip outside, and my cat is a wake-n-bake type of cat. he wants his nip before his breakfast.

Interesting. All I've personally seen is cats just obsessing over it, rubbing against it, snuggling with it, licking it, or completely ignoring it but not actually eating it. Live and learn!

it needs to be fresh. the dried stuff isn't tasy looking like the fresh green leafs

I bought my single catnip plant at the same time as my herbs and veggies for this year's garden. the cat sniffed all of the plants honing in on the catnip.

What I've been thinking of making is tiny little proximity devices that are next to the plants that emit a loud noise when movement is detected within a certain range. These could be reproduced quite easily and cheaply and left next to problem areas (e.g. plants, work surfaces).

That's a... great idea. I had neighbourhood cats decimate my plants when growing them outside, like they would eat not only the leaves but also the buds until there was nothing left.

Had my dog as security but he wasn't always around the plants lol.

How accurate/reliable are those Tensorflow nets?

Let's say you wanted to do this, but to keep all other cats away (from e.g the food bowl) other than your own?

Cats can often look very similar on camera.

Just wait until Googs releases captcha where you have to pick all pictures of Buttons, but not Mittens. Look out that you don't get confused by Button's twin Whiskers!

I am looking for a device that will recognise a specific cat and spray the water towards it. There is a aggressive stray cat in the area and is constantly attacking mine.

Then keep your damn cat indoors. They shouldn't be roaming free anyway.

Keyword is "stray", it's not theirs.

I wouldn‘t stress the fact it‘s a stray cat too much. In my experience the situation wouldn‘t be any different if the aggressive cat had an owner in the neighborhood. Disclaimer: I don‘t have cats myself but all the cats in my area (non stray) seem to use my ground as their toilette :(

That’s because you don’t have a cat. You can have a cat for him to defend your ground. Or, much better, a dog.

The stray presumably can’t unlock and open house doors, which would imply theirs are outside at times.

That stray also is using any opportunity to get into house and attack my cat when it is indoors. It also eats my cat's food and steals unopened food packets. I want to make it avoid my place.

If you can‘t recognise that one cat then you could maybe somehow mark your cats?

With humans, this is known as 'area denial', and is also under active research.

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2018/gr...

I'm a bit curious about how this is powered: Does it have to be plugged in? I always think about how cool it would be to do these sorts of little projects, but a big roadblock is always "how will I power it?"...

One of my cats has taken an interest in one of my ferns which has been fun to watch it almost completely get eaten.

I'm trying to see if I can grow and keep growing cat grass indoors. Somehow it keeps dying :/

Cheap orange or citrus essential oil spread on the rim of your plant pot, or on the lower leaves of the plant also works.

Has to be refreshed every few weeks, and leaves some oil residue, but it is very effective.

A better approach: keep only plants that are safe for the cat to eat. Cats need to eat grass or other plants, they do that to stimulate regurgitation of their own hair they unwillingly eat when they clean themselves, and that if not expelled could clog their digestive system.

Image recognition could be used to open a cat flap door when the right cat arrives, and a timer could keep it closed for a while after the cat went out to eat some grass. It usually takes a few minutes to the cat from eating grass to regurgitating it, so it's just a matter of keeping it out for a while.

+1 While this a very a nice project technically, cats really need greens and grass to facilitate digestion. So the outcome of this project is unnecessarily cruel to the cat.

I like harvesting grass by hand. They only like a small subset of grass (my spoiled cats anyway) so I might as well get credit for it.

You can also use an RFID reader to open the cat flap door when your cat (if chipped) comes.

I think you're greatly overestimating how much range RFID has in that scenario.

Are you talking about an RFID cat flap? They’re quite common

I stand corrected!

I have always wanted to build one, but since I keep my only cat indoors I never really had a reason to invest the time.

Or alternatively, just spray the inedible plants with some sort of transparent capsaicin solution? They'll be unpleasant to eat and they would probably stop very quickly.

I like how using optocouplers is overkill but using tensorflow to detect the cat isn’t! Why not a motion detector, people can avoid the spray bottle!

Because putting different software on the pi doesn't cost extra, but better electronic parts do.

You wouldn't need a Pi at all with a PIR motion sensor.

PIR is triggered too easily by too many things.

But pir can't avoid people

This is Hacker News

This seems very over engineered. I had a device that used a simple motion detector and compressed air to do the same thing. It worked fantastic.

The low-engineering solution to this problem is to trade the non-cat-edible plant with a neighbor for another plant. That solution wouldn’t be a blog post on HN though.

For a hobby project, over engineered is just the right level of engineered! I’m guessing the creative phase is at least as important to the author as the solution to the problem.

We are reading and discussing this only because it made it to HN which it did only because it is over engineered.

It's certainly overengineered, but cats usually won't stay in your garden. Trading it with a neighbor might well make things worse if your neighbor isn't paying the same amount of attention.

This (I assume) is a potted indoor plant that would be indoor at another house. If neighbors have toxic plants in their gardens there is no good technical solution.

Yeah, I hadn't noticed it was indoors. In that case I agree, I'd just get rid of it.

You’re on hackernews, not Instagram? It’s fun to see people solve things in an over-engineered way.

Cats have been eating grass to manage their digestion for much a much longer time than we've been keeping them as pets. Unless we understand the reason, we should not be interrupting the process. The cat knows what's better for it much more often than we do.

For those reasons the linked monstrosity seems at best a torture device, and its operator is far from suited to owning animals

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