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No longer will you have to see what the cat dragged in.
An AI cat flap can automatically stop your pet coming in if it recognises it is carrying prey.
The £310 Flappie will also record any attempted entry so you can see exactly what it has been hunting.
Cats kill up to 275million birds, mice, and other animals every year in the UK, with owners often finding the evidence in the house the next morning.
Combining a high-definition night vision camera and a custom algorithm similar to facial recognition software, the device has a 90 per cent accuracy. And this will improve as the AI gets used to the cat.
An AI cat flap can automatically stop your pet coming in if it recognises it is carrying prey
The £310 Flappie will also record any attempted entry so you can see exactly what it has been hunting
The Flappie will automatically unlock when the cat drops its catch. Owners can also set up an app to alert them when this happens and watch it live on their phone from the comfort of their bed.
The device, which will be available to buy in Europe in spring, was unveiled this week at the Consumer Electronics Show 2024 in Las Vegas.
Flappie is the brainchild of twin brothers Denis and Oliver Widler from Switzerland. They set out to help their mother who had become exasperated with waking to step on the nightly haul their cats had brought in.
The flap remains locked until motion sensors detect that a cat has appeared, before scanning its microchip to ensure it is at the right house.
This triggers an infrared camera, installed just above the opening, to scan the cat’s face and, using AI, determine if it is carrying anything.
Combining a high-definition night vision camera and a custom algorithm similar to facial recognition software,, The Flappie has a 90 per cent accuracy
Oliver Widler said: ‘We found that cats are remarkably intelligent. Dixie, Rocky, and our other test cats learned to drop their prey fairly quickly.’ The company is working on improving the AI so that it can recognise what the cat is carrying.
According to the Mammal Society, cats kill up to an estimated 275million prey a year in the UK. This is the number that were known to have been caught and does not include prey that cats did not bring home.
Also unveiled at the Las Vegas event were the world’s smartest – and most expensive – pair of binoculars at £4,000 by Swarovski.
While better known for its crystals, the luxury brand has spent the past five years designing the AI device.
The binoculars can instantly identify 9,000 birds and 300 mammals, and allow users to take pictures through the 10x lens. One setting even lets you show fellow twitchers exactly where you’ve spotted something – the binoculars mark the point and direct the next user with red arrows on the screen.
