South Korean startup Petpuls Lab has developed an AI-powered dog collar that uses voice recognition technology to detect how a dog is feeling through its bark.
Using a proprietary algorithm based on a database of more than 10,000 bark samples from 50 dog breeds that Petpuls Lab has gathered since 2017, the collar tells a dog owner through a smartphone application whether their pet is feeling happy, relaxed, angry, anxious, or sad, according to Reuters. It can also track a dog’s physical activity and rest.
“This device gives a dog a voice so that humans can understand,” Petpuls Lab Director of Global Marketing Andrew Gil said, according to the report.
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Moon Sae-Mi, who owns a six-year-old Border Collie, said the AI-powered collar revealed that her dog felt mad at times she otherwise would have thought it was happy. (RELATED: Study Suggests Dogs Can Detect Coronavirus In Sweat)
“I thought she was just happy when she played and felt sad and anxious when I wasn’t home… Actually, she felt angry when she lost a game she played with me, like how humans feel,” she said, according to Reuters.
Petpuls Lab started marketing its smart collar online in October 2020 at $99. Seoul National University tested it and found that the collar has an average accuracy rate of 90%, Reuters reported.