Smart beds for pets

[Catherine]

They are about to market new technology for pets. Smart beds monitor your pets weight and sleep patterns and generally report on their health. The smart bed tells you if your pet is too hot or cold.   It links with technology like Google Home.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/07/petri...ts-health/


We have the technology so it was inevitable that we would do this.  We now have technology to feed our pets  and entertain them. I suppose there is something out there that will walk your dog. 

Could it be that we will develop enough technology that we don't have to even have physical contact with our pets at all. 
We could even have a robot pet. The smart bed could easily communicate with the robot pet. It would be a perfect system.
We wouldn't be needed at all.

I am not totally against the technology. I can just see how silly it is to make our whole lives depend on it. One of the joys of a pet is our contact with it. One of the benefits of having a pet is our contact with it.

Smart beds could be used to monitor things, but we should still  want to assess our pets health ourselves.
Beds for the medically fragile (human or pet) could be life saving. I hope we take the technology in a sensible direction. No child should ever die of SIDS again and no senior should ever have a heart attack/stroke without quick medical intervention. 

But the idea of a robot pet being cared for by a smart bed is funny and a real sign of technology gone wrong.

[Tobi]

Oh yikes!! (Tobi's knee-jerk reaction again!)
That's just what we don't need. "Smart" beds by Google monitoring our dogs etc.
I would get my dog and just get into the woods.....haha and WOULDN'T be taking my "smartphone" (which I don't have and have no intention of getting)....and would not be allowing my "smart meters" to log the fact that I was no longer at home, or my Amazon Echo to note that fact either(which I also don't have and have no intention of getting).... LOL!!

No -seriously?? Google in our dogs' beds now? Wow. Time to get to the woods.

[Catherine]

Quote:No -seriously?? Google in our dogs' beds now? Wow. Time to get to the woods.

Sometimes our technology can be a bit much.
I don't plan to have any of those smart devices that you talk to and they do everything for you. I find remote controllers to be annoying.

We are not the only ones who are not quite fitting with the whole new smart home technology.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...Ijjw1oILjO

Why would anyone need something to tell us the weather.
Why do we need a dog bed that tells us if out pet is fat. Are we unable to look and see for ourselves.
I love the new technology, but it can get to be a bit much sometimes.

I just came across an article about a similar high tech pet product. I am not going to comment. I am just going to post it and see what you think.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/7/168617...d-ces-2018

[Tobi]

Catspad! lol!
What does it do when the dog tries to steal the cat's food? Whack it on the head with a furry mitten....or maybe just turn up the water fountain dramatically....harhar!
Cats are notorious for leaving food in their dishes, and dogs have to clean up after them (well, that's their excuse.)

No, seriously....this could be a useful item if someone were out at work during the day, and unavoidably detained for some emergency reason. But I don't really like the automated cat and dog feeder. It's always better to communicate with your animals when you feed them. It's a "special moment" between you both!

[Catherine]

If your animal care is fully automated why would you even have a pet. An automated feeder could fail and your pets would have no food or water. If you can't get home you need a friend or neighbour who can help. If you have no one who can help perhaps it is time you made some friends.

I like automatic stuff and I really love my smart phone, but I would never trust them to feed my pets. Living creatures need to be fed and cared for by living creatures. We can become too dependent on smart technology.

[Tobi]

Yes I don't like the idea of an automated feeder for a few reasons, but it could be a good thing for emergencies (so long as it doesn't fail.) Also, the only food it could deliver would be kibble.

But generally, a water fountain isn't such a bad idea, so long as the water is clean for certain and the mechanism is kept clean.(lol! That's funny seeing as many dogs love to drink from muddy puddles!)
But my neighbour who has a few dogs has a water fountain permanently in her living-room and it is a great idea for the dogs. The water always looks clean in it. Well, it's not so much a "fountain" as a constantly running stream into a large dish.
It would no doubt stop working if there was a power cut though or the water was turned off, as it is plugged into the mains electricity and water.

[Catherine]

Quote:It would no doubt stop working if there was a power cut though or the water was turned off, as it is plugged into the mains electricity and water.

I think this is the real danger of automated pet feeders. The power can fail. Unless it has a built in back up battery, in the event of a power failure, the feeders would not dispense food.

The lack of human contact is bad. The fact that is can only dispense kibble is not good. It is the risk that it could fail all together that makes it a bad idea. A pet's life could be endangered by relying too much on technology. If it was used for a mid day feed and that was missed the pet will still be okay, not happy, but okay. However, knowing how people do foolish things, we can expect some person to go away and leave a pet with an automated dispenser for food for a number of days. It leaves the pet too vulnerable. Many things could go wrong. I would never want to trust a pet I love to machinery that could fail.

[Jackmine11]

Kinda wild how they’re rolling out smart beds for pets now — tracking weight, sleep patterns, even warning you if your buddy’s too hot or cold. I’m not against it; after my dog Luna scared me with a sudden weight drop, I kinda wish I’d had something like that. Same with feeders: I switched to a sturdier automatic one after she kept skipping meals when I worked late. Ended up grabbing one from automatic pet feeder and it’s been solid. Tech’s not perfect, but it does give a little peace of mind.

[Aussienan]

If anyone knows anything about cats they sleep wherever that takes their fancy mine sleeps everywhere but in his cat bed.

[Catherine]

I am not sure it is good for us to be tracking medical things so closely. There is a cat litter out there that monitors your cat's urine. It might seem like a good idea to keep close watch for potential health issues, but it can become a bit of an obsession. 

People don't go for walks anymore.  They count their steps so they can do a certain number per day. It is not a walk, it is a measured workout session. We miss the benefits of just taking a walk.

When we are looking at the cat litter to see if our cat is healthy, we are not looking at the cat.
When we are asking our smart cat bed if our cat is healthy, we are not looking at our cat and interacting with it.
Beds that monitor health have a place. Certainly hospitals need them. Some animals might need monitoring.
It is still important to actually interact with your pet.

Automatic feeders could be useful. If you think you might be late home, you could relax knowing the cat would get some food.
It wouldn't be good to go away for days and leave just the automatic feeder to feed your pet. A person coming in is essential.
Anything could go wrong. The person coming in would make sure the house is okay. My neighbours went away in beautiful weather and left a window open to give the cat fresh air. Good thing I was coming in daily. After two days the temperature dropped suddenly. I didn't just have to close the window, I had to get the furnace going.

Smart technology is useful, but we need to find a balance between doing things ourselves and letting technology do things.

I certainly don't want a smart anything for my guinea pig. The point of having a guinea pig is to enjoy interacting with them.
I like serving the veggies by hand,  I like cutting the veggies by hand. It makes feeding him personal.