There are a lot of so-called “smart” gadgets, and there’s about to be one more, as the dog food bowl is given connected smarts.
There aren’t a whole lot of gadgets for pets, but there might soon be something else on the way, and it might just satisfy some curious questions. For instance, if you’ve ever been curious whether your dog eats too much, there might soon be a dog bowl that can tell you exactly that.
Nestle’s Purina brand has been cooking up a gadget for this purpose, and for a little more, announcing the “Chekr” bowl, a digital pet bowl that includes a small scale to monitor how much pets eat and work out whether it’s right for the animal, among other things.
It’s a bit of a strange one, but one Purina says has been built to inform the family members of furry humans about an animal’s diet, activity levels, and more, while also factoring other aspects of pet’s health needs, such as treatments, flea prevention, grooming, and more.
Essentially, Purina Chekr aims to be a one-stop shop starting at the food bowl, taking information about the pet breed, age, size, dietary considerations, and feeding frequency, with a personalised recommendation for food being switched on at the end.
You probably won’t be surprised to learn those recommendations will likely be made by Purina, but beyond this, the Chekr bowl can work out how much food you should give to your furry human, connecting this with how much they’ve eaten from the bowl and the activity levels of the animal.
“As a pet owner, I understand just how difficult it can be to know what to feed your pet and how much to give them as they transition through different ages and stages of life,” said Nicole Battistessa, General Manager of Nestle Purina in Australia.
“That’s why we developed Nestle Purina Chekr – to help provide peace of mind to pet owners and further enrich the lives of their furry family members,” she said.
“Our data scientists will continue to use the insights and examine everything from how different breeds eat, what shape of kibble is more desirable, to how we can further improve our pet’s oral health – with the aim of helping pet owners to have healthier, happier pets.”
If the idea of a smart dog food bowl sounds intriguing, the perhaps less great news is there are no plans to release this to the greater masses just yet.
Unveiled at the Amazon Web Services Summit Online for Australia and New Zealand, the Chekr smart bowl is in testing right now, with plans to make them available soon to pet owners via pet breeders. As for pricing, Nestle Purina didn’t have information on that, but our guess is this thing won’t necessarily come cheap.
