Remoca Dog Food Bowl Camera monitors, videos pet meal times on your phone

Written by: William on December 13, 2012 at 10:22 pm | In PRODUCT INNOVATION | No Comments

From emergency evacuation jackets and rescue carry bags, dog pedometers, and even canine communication translators (!?), the Japanese could at times be accused of taking their love of pets a bit too far.

Sure, there’s certainly a lot of strange pet accessories out there, from wigs to outlandish duck bill design dog muzzles that might have observers calling at least the fashion police, if not even the animal cruelty hotline.

But here’s one new innovation that is both a stroke of engineering genius as well as a practical tool to ease worried pet owners’ minds.

If you want to keep an eye on your pooch’s eating habits but don’t want to leave your desk, this Remoca Dog Food Bowl Camera set will be able to relay video of everything for you.

Equipped with sensors, as your dog approaches it switches on and films him or her getting their fill of nosh or water. If you are concerned about when and how much your pet is eating, you can keep an eye on the hungry pooch even from your office or when you are otherwise out of the house or busy.

The camera can be adjusted to change the angle it shows — but the movement is quiet and smooth so as not to distract your pet from their food.

You can even control it remotely to open up secret compartments with treats, record video for later viewing, or watch it on your phone on a special app. Hell, there’s even infrared in the camera so you can check up on your dog’s night time snacks!

Tags: Pets, Technology
Category: PRODUCT INNOVATION
Other categories: CULTURE, LIFESTYLE

Architecture for Dogs offers customizable designer pet homes

Written by: William on December 10, 2012 at 8:38 pm | In LIFESTYLE, PRODUCT INNOVATION | No Comments

Designer dog houses adapted to match the breed of the pooch? Well, it already no secret that the Japanese do love two things — pets and good design — so perhaps this marriage was inevitable. After all, we’ve previously seen this two come spectacularly together to create duck-bill design Oppo Quack dog muzzles.

A group of architects, led by designer maestro Kenya Hara, has proposed a series of special dog homes, each one customized for a particular kind of canine.

Participants in the Architecture for Dogs project include Atelier Bow-Wow, Kazuyo Sejima, Kengo Kuma, Shigeru Ban, Sou Fujimoto and Toyo Ito, and more.

Here’s how Hara himself puts it: “Dogs are people’s partners, living right beside them, but they are also animals that humans, through crossbreeding, have created in multitudes of breeds. Reexamining these close partners with fresh eyes may be a chance to reexamine both human beings themselves and the natural environment.”

Word got out online about the project in November but the website has only just gone live, and it also recently exhibited at the Miami Design District.

From the website dog-owners can download blueprints for the designs, plus instructions and videos for how to construct and customize them for your own pet.

There will be another exhibition, this time in Tokyo, in October 2013, along with a book.

Tags: Architecture, Design, Pets
Category: LIFESTYLE, PRODUCT INNOVATION
Other categories: CULTURE