
Chasing Cats - TheGuyWhoCodes
http://myplace.frontier.com/~r.bond/cats/cats.htm
======
6502nerdface
I remember back when Slashdot was cool (i.e., 2002), there was a post [0]
about a guy who built [1] a cat-door with attached camera and software that
could detect whether the cat was carrying something in its mouth, and only
allow the cat to enter the house if not.

[0] [http://slashdot.org/story/24258](http://slashdot.org/story/24258)

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20010405175311/http://quantumpic...](https://web.archive.org/web/20010405175311/http://quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/flo_control.htm)

~~~
chrissnell
Let's not forget another back-in-the-old-days Slashdot favorite, the Bender
Defender! The guy that built a cat motion detector in Linux and used it to
trigger a blender and strobe lights!

[http://www.plasma2002.com/blenderdefender/](http://www.plasma2002.com/blenderdefender/)

~~~
fao_
It's probably easier to find something smelly the cat _hates_ (Like a vapour
rub), and place that where you don't want the cat to go.

~~~
fao_
I understand that this is taboo, but I am utterly baffled as to why I lost
karma for this.

Creating a system to traumatise a cat is objectively more harmful than making
areas you don't want a cat to go repulsive to the cat.

I've seen the latter method work beautifully with nervous cats, kittens, older
cats, etc. Whereas I would have reservations about using the former method
with those types of cats _because_ it serves to be startling and traumatic to
a cat.

~~~
bduerst
I didn't downvote, but it's probably because you were splitting hairs on what
is more of a Rube Golberg solution to an obviously simple problem. Not many
people are taking it that as a serious cat training solution.

------
RickS
This is great. There's a project that's the inverse as well:
[http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/flo_control.htm](http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/flo_control.htm)

A door that only lets cats in, based on image recognition.

As an aside, I've really enjoyed the particle photon so far. It was a little
wonky at first when they didn't have persistent storage of state changes, but
now that's up and running, it's flawless. It runs the lights in my house (via
a relay just like OP) and has recovered from a few power outages with no
attention necessary from me.

~~~
zippergz
I've used Photons for a bunch of projects, and they're great. They do
sometimes get into weird states that require a reboot. And I'm not a huge fan
of the web IDE, but there are workarounds (and sometimes I just bite the
bullet and deal with it). However, regardless of those complaints, it's a fun
platform for projects, and it has almost completely replaced my use of
Arduinos at this point.

~~~
jc4p
I own a lot of Photons (and Spark Cores! :P), I've even bought large amounts
for hands-on classes, but I've fallen in love with the ESP8266. You can
program it using a custom build of the Arduino IDE (if you want), one of my
projects lives off a cheap 3.7V battery pack for weeks at a time. I love it!
My favorite time spent with hardware hacks was in my AVR and PICAXE days, the
ESP8266 gives me the best feelings about those + modern conveniences.

The future is looking really exciting too, Particle's new cellular chips open
up a lot of possibilities (especially with their out of the box no-need-to-
use-a-dynamic-dns-system), and I will definitely litter my apartment with
ESP32s -- built-in bluetooth 4.2, that can talk to the built-in bluetooth on
my new Raspberry Pis, I love 2016!

~~~
rashkov
You're excitement is definitely contagious! I'm always wondering what people
do with these things though? What kind of projects? Just getting started with
electronics myself and not quite sure what to make of microcontrollers yet.

~~~
jc4p
Thank you for the kind words, reading your message made me smile :)

I think the most interesting and quickest to explain thing I've done with
these chips (the ESP8266) was a chain of temperature/humidity sensors packed
in my office building.

I only ended up building out a couple (soldering by hand on prototype boards)
but I used a ESP8266 + 1200mAh battery pack + DHT22 sensors to make small
modules we could put in different corners of the building. We had A/C issues
during hot summers and it's a lot easier to report them to the building
management by saying "4 conference rooms have been above 80 degrees all day".
The modules woke themselves up every 30 min, waited until a stable recording
was captured, then POST'd their hardcoded label (like "Corner office"), the
temperature, the humidity, and the time to a Heroku server (which when loaded
in a browser simply spat out all records).

At home, the one semi-recent project I've been most proud of was a remote
trigger for my A/C. I used a Raspberry Pi with both an IR emitter and a IR
sensor attached, taught it my cheap window A/C unit's remote's codes, then
emulated them to turn the A/C on and off based on a server and small app that
did geofencing. My apartment didn't have built-in A/C, but it started cooling
off the second I walked out of my office at around 6 PM on a weekday :)

If you're interested in building things, you should get a Raspberry Pi 3 or
one of these chips (and a pack of sensors/inputs) well before you have an
idea. I set them up with access on my WiFi then just leave them in a corner
for months (sometimes years) before I use them for anything, but I think the
most important part is having the smallest barrier from "ooh! what if!" to
initial prototype.

~~~
msthomaa
How much time does ESP8266 plus sensor run before running out?

~~~
jc4p
In that project they ran for less than a minute once every 30 min, on my
1200mAh they lasted around 2 weeks if I remember correctly. There's a lot of
reading material online about sending the ESP8266 into standby mode.

------
byuu
I definitely want this system!

But instead of cats, I want it to detect Fedex and UPS delivery drivers. And
instead of turning on the sprinklers, I want it to ring my doorbell so that I
know there's a package sitting on my front porch.

~~~
simmons
I need that, too! (Why can't FedEx be bothered to ring the doorbell?) I
sometimes wonder if instead of video, it might be easier to do audio analysis
to detect the sound of the UPS truck, which tends to be rather unique in my
neighborhood.

~~~
Motomorgen
Turns out my dog is a finely tuned audio analysis system capable of detecting
UPS, USPS and Fedex vehicles within a half mile range.

------
nostromo
A guy did something similar, but manual, to keep people from peeing in the
alley behind his building.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r77lEmGaCXI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r77lEmGaCXI)

I bet people would pay real money for a system like this.

~~~
Mao_Zedang
That was extremely an funny video

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js2
Squirrel hunting, also using a water deterrent and Python:

[https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/kgrandis/pycon-2012-milita...](https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/kgrandis/pycon-2012-militarizing-
your-backyard-computer-vision-and-the-squirrel-hordes)

~~~
dejv
There is also video of this talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgqfnKG_T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgqfnKG_T4)

------
alexandrerond
I had expected information on how to tell cats apart from other moving things.
Looks like this can be easily achieved with a raspberry pi, the PiCam and the
motion software.

------
discardorama
I have a problem with my neighbor's cats deciding to pee and poop in my front
yard. I decided to go with a few of these: [https://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-
KIT19001-SSScat/dp/B000RIA95G](https://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-
KIT19001-SSScat/dp/B000RIA95G) .

They worked reasonably well, but the cats have learned that if they run
quickly past one, it won't hiss. So now I'm thinking of modifying them so they
use an IR beam, and a beam interruption would trigger the hiss.

The eternal battle goes on.

~~~
mrfusion
You can leave that outdoors? Would it keep birds away from blueberries?

~~~
discardorama
I've left it outdoors, and it's still working. I did cover the top (where the
batteries are) with some plastic to prevent water from going in.

It should work against birds, as long as the IR detector can sense a change.
The bird must stay in one place for a couple of seconds at least.

------
yoo1I
I like how he's training a neural network to, in turn, train the cats to avoid
his lawn.

------
mmanfrin
A similar DIY approach to dealing with cats:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goZ2DqMnaGc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goZ2DqMnaGc)

~~~
anotherevan
Hadn't seen his second video! Here's his first attempt which is also quite
entertaining.

[https://youtu.be/uIbkLjjlMV8](https://youtu.be/uIbkLjjlMV8)

------
aab0
How necessary is the deep model there? It seems like a simple motion detector
would work just as well since he doesn't mention using the lawn himself.

~~~
emeraldd
Looks like there is a sidewalk through the lawn. Which probably means using a
motion detector would force him to sacrifice using the front door.

~~~
TeMPOraL
If you create any kind of safe path in such a system, the cat will learn it
quickly too.

One simpler way to go IMO would be to put the system at ground level and use
two motion detectors, one aimed specifically to "see" only things that are a
meter or more above the ground. Humans would trigger both, but the cat would
only trigger the one aimed at the ground.

~~~
jerf
See, the advantage with that plan is that _even if_ the cats figure out how to
bypass that system, now you can assuage the pain of failure by filming the
cats leaping across your yard like pogo sticks and monetize the video on
YouTube. Tens of millions of views guaranteed.

------
pmille5
What did those cats do to him...?

~~~
rconti
Only guess is crawling on cars and leaving little paw-prints, that's the only
common thing I can think of. Occasionally known for getting up under the hood
or something, which doesn't turn out so well for the cat, either. Though I'm
sure individual cats could have their own undesirable quirks.

With dogs, you get the pooping (which is at least half an owner problem),
squirrels dig up my yard, gophers same, ants all over the place. Can't say
I've ever had an issue with cats, but I trust the creator of the project has a
reason, and as a cat lover, I'd laugh my ass off at video of a cat getting hit
by surprise sprinklers.

~~~
CaptSpify
Cats poop too! And flower gardens are some of their favorite spots, because
the dirt is so easy to kick back up.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Also my cats like to bite on flowers. Don't know why, they just do.

~~~
kbart
Cats do need to eat grass. If they didn't have access to grass, they eat any
other plant they can find, including flowers. They do that to clean their
digestion system from inedible parts(1), as for a home cat, that's mostly
their own furballs.

 _" Cats regurgitate when they eat grass because they lack the necessary
enzymes to break down vegetable matter. Does this mean your cat likes to throw
up? Well, while it's doubtful that kitty enjoys the act, this up-chucking
sensation may eliminate all indigestible matter from the cat's digestive
tract, making it feel a whole lot better. This is important because cats eat
their prey as is, including both the edible and inedible parts (fur, bones,
feathers, etc.)"_

1\.
[http://www.petmd.com/cat/wellness/evr_ct_eating_grass](http://www.petmd.com/cat/wellness/evr_ct_eating_grass)

------
gerbilly
How about using wolf urine as a repellent?

[https://www.predatorpeestore.com/wolf-urine-for-bobcat-
probl...](https://www.predatorpeestore.com/wolf-urine-for-bobcat-
problems.html)

------
a-seeing-cue
You don't need a fully convolutional network, just a regular CNN for image
recognition

------
addled
And when he gets old and crotchety, he can train the model on children as
well.

------
soared
An SSD for this makes all me and all my HDDs want to cry.

------
dharma1
wonder if it works at night. This proved to be too much to crack for a Pascal
VOC trained model I tried - [https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/I/61pY4UVbHxL...](https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/I/61pY4UVbHxL._SL256_.jpg)

~~~
aab0
You could try finetuning training; take the Pascal imageset, do image
augmentation (ImageMagick has routines for darkening and 'midnight'-coloring
images) to mimic nightime appear; retrain.

------
abhi152
Did the Cat's behavior change ?

------
asimuvPR
I do enjoy how overly complicated this is. Wonder what we will be building in
five years.

~~~
ASalazarMX
I fear in a few decades we would buy a cheap robot and command it to scare the
cats perpetually.

------
Qwertious
For some reason, I expected this to be a sequel to "Chasing Ice".

------
dzolvd
So he likes dogs _doing their business_ in his yard but not cats?

~~~
dzolvd
Missed that there were specific culprits: "the neighbors' cats"

------
jacobsladder
Why does this guy hates cats so much?

~~~
developer2
Chances are the cats are digging in his yard/garden/flower bed and leaving
feces everywhere, or leaving dead animals in his yard. Outdoor cats are
destructive pests; it should be illegal to allow pet cats to roam freely
outdoors.

If you think it's "natural" and your cats should be free to roam, then you
simply should not own cats. Your cat is not just "visiting neighbours". It is
destroying other people's yards and killing off local bird populations. Yet
you don't care, because it's out of sight and out of mind. All you care about
is how _you_ feel for allowing your cat to be free, while shunning all
responsibility for how your cat is impacting others.

People who keep "outdoor cats" remind me of an acquaintance I once knew who
owned birds with clipped wings, kept in tiny cages for 23-24 hours a day. Her
reasoning for not finding it morally reprehensible? "Well these exotic birds
cannot survive our Canadian winters, they need to be kept indoors!". So...
you're buying exotic birds that do not belong in our climate, mutilating them,
imprisoning them... and somehow manage to revamp the logic in your head to
make yourself their savior?

I hope one day aliens come to our planet, put us all in 10x10 foot cages after
severing our spinal columns so we can't walk, while making sure to let us know
it's for our own good and has nothing to do with their own agenda. Or the
aliens can come and cohabitate with us, but let their human-eating pets roam
outdoors and deny any responsibility for those pets' actions.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Right on with your view of the birds with clipped wings but your cat view...I
mean, did you have a bad experience or something? I've known quite a lot of
people (especially farmers) who keep outdoor cats and they rarely destroy
anything beyond killing some pests. In fact outdoor cats are _HUGELY_ valuable
for farms because of pest control.

Some animals will become pests no matter what but I've never met someone with
such a negative view of outdoor cats it was just a bit surprising.

~~~
omegaham
Agreed - the problems I've always had with cats have been the feral ones, not
the fatass neutered neighborhood cats.

------
danso
The content of this article is pretty cool...but if I had to come up with a HN
title that a deep learning process would surmise would do extremely well, it
would be literally this. Or maybe "Show HN: How to use deep learning to
optimize honey production from beehives"

edit: The title of the submission has been changed; originally, it was
something like "Using Deep Learning to Keep Cats off the Lawn"

~~~
minimaxir
Although incredibly off topic (the Cats = upvotes meme isn't even true on
Reddit), a submission title's phrasing is not the primary cause of a HN
story's success/failure. (and the proposed Show HN would make me raise an
eyebrow in thinking the post is linkbait and cause me to flag it)

~~~
bobwaycott
Why would you flag something based on the title alone? That seems to be an
abuse of the flagging privilege.

~~~
minimaxir
In my experience, there is a high correlation between linkbaity titles and
spammy content. (I can unflag if necessary, but that has been rare)

The official rule is to flag if the content is spammy/off-topic.

~~~
reitanqild
Did I read you correctly?

Flagging first without reading in deed seems like abuse of flags. (Possible
exceptions for very obvious offenders against site guidelines.)

~~~
minimaxir
Exact quote from the guidelines:

> If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag'
> link.

~~~
bobwaycott
I think the issue here is flagging a story without bothering to check the
story. Excluding obvious dupes, the recent article posted for Greek sex
escorts, and similarly irrefutable garbage, you have no defensible basis for
flagging on title alone.

Real-world example:

There have been a couple articles recently posted with titles such as "Do X
with all the things using this one weird trick". The articles were solid,
informative, and on-topic, despite the otherwise regrettable titles. I even
complained about the titles in the comments, but not the content. I could only
make this judgment by reading the articles and denying my flag-hammer until I
knew they weren't garbage.

I think we're disagreeing on a difference between the proverbial letter and
spirit of the law/guidelines.

------
mnort9
This is gold

------
anexprogrammer
Why doesn't he just get a dog?

~~~
exabrial
I imagine the TCO and maintenance effort a bit higher

------
wNk6A23YB
Cool project yo. But can you flip a switch or something to make it attract
life instead of repelling it?

