Allison interviews Tomas Rosinski, Co-founder of OnlyCat, about their AI cat flap that detects prey in your cat’s mouth. OnlyCat is effective in letting only your cat into the house while keeping bugs, birds, mice, rats, and other pests along with rival cats out of the house.
OnlyCat has a device that senses your cat’s approach to the flap by detecting your cat’s registered microchip, so only your cat can enter through the flap.
OnlyCat also has a camera that images the cat as it comes into the entry area and uses an image-based AI classifier to detect what the cat may be carrying in its mouth.
If the cat is carrying nothing in its mouth, the flap is released for the cat to open it and enter the home. If the cat has something in its mouth, OnlyCat prevents the cat from entering the home.
OnlyCat comes with a mobile app that allows you to manage entry and exit functions, including direction through the flap, time of day, and manual locking/unlocking of the flap. Using the app, you can set up custom door policies so OnlyCat responds uniquely to individual cats in your home.
OnlyCat can be installed as a drop-in upgrade for customers who already have a cat door. New installations are relatively simple and can be done in glass, doors, windows, and walls.
Learn more at https://onlycat.com/
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Transcript of Interview:
Allison: We’re standing in a booth right now where there’s a video of cats trying to drag animals, small prey animals into a home. And Tom Rosinski is going to tell us about their device that’s going to keep those little critters from coming in the house. Hi there.
Tom: Yeah, so I’m from OnlyCat. We’ve developed an AI cat flap. It’s the world’s most advanced cat door with microchip capabilities. So only your cats can enter. You can choose curfews, choosing what day, what times they’re allowed to enter. But it’s also got a camera. So when a cat approaches, if it’s trying to bring prey or unwanted gifts into the house, it’ll temporarily lock.
Allison: That’s amazing. So let’s back up a little bit. I didn’t even know there were cat doors. I always thought there’s only doggy doors.
Tom: Yeah. So obviously it depends on what country and geographic locations in some places. Cats tend to be indoors in other places. So actually we’re a UK based company. And so in the UK, especially as many outdoor cats, so they, and sometimes for many customers, the prey deliveries can really become an incessant problem.
Allison: I do remember our cat back in Michigan doing that, bringing just a row of tails. That was nice. We really enjoyed that.
Tom: Yeah, we’ve got lots of different cases and we’ve got at the moment just a few hundred devices out in the field, but they’re working extremely well. And so we’re in the process of now scaling up production to meet customer demand. And yeah, we’ve got cases of birds, mice, rats, snakes, voles, squirrels, lizards.
Allison: If you’re listening, you should be really glad because in the background we’re watching there’s a cat trying to bring a live rat in. We saw some kind of creepy worm. There’ve been birds, all kinds of things, but the Only Cat is stopping the flap from opening when those animals are there. How is it doing?
Tom: Yeah. So we’ve got a camera that’s built into the device.
Allison: Can I turn this over?
Tom: Yeah, absolutely. So you can see here on the inside, we’ve got the camera and we’ve got infrared illumination. So we’ve got good quality video footage even at night. And yeah, so faster than the blink of an eye, the system detects, analyzes each frame for the presence of prey. And if the cat’s trying to bring something in, it’ll temporarily lock.
Allison: So, how is it identifying something as prey and not a cat?
Tom: It’s using convolutional neural networks. So it’s an image-based classifier and AI-based system.
Allison: Thank you. So it’s actually looking to see what looks like a cat and what looks like a worm?
Tom: Yeah. So we’ve essentially fed it lots of examples of what a cat trying to carry prey looks like. And essentially, the AI then figures out just extremely accurately, almost in a superhuman capability to then determine if the cat’s trying to bring something that it shouldn’t be and then lock.
Allison: I like that right now there’s a cat bringing a bird, and it says contraband detected.
Allison: That was just like a frog. This is a gruesome video to have on, I’ve got to tell you. But it’d be even more gruesome. Oh, there’s a lizard. It’d be even more gruesome if that lizard was in the house, right?
Tom: Exactly. And that’s a problem for many cat owners when the cat brings in mice. Sometimes it doesn’t like eating the stomachs because they’re full of acid. So they’ll kind of just dissect the mice and then leave them on carpets or eat them under the bed or…
Allison: Or maybe they’re still alive.
Tom: Yeah. So that can also be a big problem, having a rat that’s then just let loose, sometimes half dead or alive and being late to work, having to spend two hours trying to chase down an animal.
Allison: You also talked about people who are immunocompromised, that could be dangerous to bring them into the house, right?
Tom: Absolutely. Yeah. We’ve got some customers who are undergoing chemotherapy, are immunocompromised. And so it’s a big problem where essentially before we release the device, they’re saying, well, if we can’t solve this problem, we’ll have to get rid of the cats. Unfortunately, as much as it pains us to say that, but other cases where people starting a family and then just finding a dead rat in a baby’s cot.
Allison: Oh, geez. I’m going to stop talking to you soon, Tom. Between the video and your examples, this is horrible. So, how is this installed into the home?
Tom: It’s just a drop-in upgrade for customers who already have a cat door. Alternatively, it’s a relatively simple installation. It can be installed in glass, in windows or walls. So we’ve got instructions depending on different use cases.
Allison: Very good. So this is called OnlyCat, which is a perfect name because you only want a cat to come in. Now you said you’re not yet in production. Is that correct?
Tom: We are in production. Yeah.
Allison: So what’s the price point on this?
Tom: So it’s around \$500 or half price with a $10 per month subscription.
Allison: Oh, that’s an interesting way to do it. Pay once or pay by subscription. And the website is?
Tom: OnlyCat.com.
Allison: Very good. Thank you very much.
Tom: Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.