Part of travelling or working away from home is missing the fur babies, otherwise known as your dog or cat. Gosh, a company with a product line of smart pet toys has launched easyPlay, a Smart Robotic Pet Toy you can use to interact with your pet from anywhere.
easyPlay is a ball made from ABS plastic, which is remote controlled from an app on your phone or tablet. You can move the ball around your house, navigating thanks to a 720P webcam built into the ball and let out treats when you think they deserve it. It connects to Wi-Fi and you can control it from anywhere in the world as long as you have a data connection. You can also interact with your pet thanks to the built-in two-way mic and speakers.
The unit contains a 5,200mAh battery which takes around 6 hours to charge but gives you around 10 hours of play time, so if you’re on an extended trip away you’d better make sure whoever’s house sitting charges it.
The easyPlay rolls through the house, or wherever you want with a multi-angle wheel drive on the base. The motor in the base is minimalistic so your pet can’t really get in there and get hurt trying to bite the wheels, and it also serves to weigh it down so your dog can bat it around a fair bit and it sits back up-right. a feather attachment for cats to try and entice them into playing with it, but I can’t see my cat being too interested.
The treats inside the ball are doled out through a small hole on the side. Internally, the treats are sectioned off in three compartments which rotate letting you control when a new batch of treats is available. Once the treats are available, your pet can then play with the ball to get the treat out.
With two-way voice interaction, a video camera and the ability to roll it around the house, the only thing missing is the IR Blaster and Laser pointer and it would essentially be the LG Rolling Robot that never actually made it to market. It’s interesting, and I find myself kind of wanting one thanks to the amount of travel I sometimes do. If you do want one, the easyPlay will retail for about $249USD when it launches, but you can jump in early and back it on IndieGoGo if you want and back the project for $99 which should nab you one if the project is launched successfully.
