This was a question posed by Whiskas ad agency that we couldn’t help but be intrigued by – fortunately, curiosity didn’t kill the cat in this scenario. What it did do was open the door for us to work with some cool people to design and build 50 prototype units that would help us to answer this question.
To find out the answer, we needed to create a smart wearable tech device for cats that could track their whereabouts and activity levels.
The first challenge was making something that could be delivered in a short time frame and that was compact enough to actually fit on a cat, while still having all the smart functionalities.
The second challenge was that GPS uses a lot of power, so we needed a decent sized battery. We choose to make the battery pack swappable so that users could easily swap batteries without missing out on any data while the unit was charging. This and not having to remove the collar every time made it a lot easier for users to embrace the technology.
Catlife – Smart Cat Collar
Whiskas
Concept design, Industrial design, Mechanical design, Electrical design, Prototyping, Small Batch manufacturing
There were a couple of other design functions we had to embrace from the beginning; how the technology would be attached to the cat and the shape of the product, ensuring that the GPS antenna wasn’t directly under the cat’s chin. We designed the product to fit onto standard collars using an O-ring strap design, with the weight of the battery designed to be at the bottom with the antenna pointing up. All of these features meant it could fit many different sized collars without being too loose.
The design is minimal and modern to fit with the aesthetic of expensive consumer electronic devices. It is a smart device after all with GPS, WIFI, BTLE, IMU and LiPO battery – all around a cat’s neck! This technology really did help us find out what our cats do when we’re not around, but it also meant we were able to help owners make informed decisions about what to feed their cats based on the activity level. It’s amazing what we do for our pets!
From concept to prototyping to manufacture, we partner with businesses to create commercially successful products and some great ongoing relationships.
