This new robot Kickstarter will terrify your pets
The wonderful subreddit /r/shittykickstarters today alerted me to a new crowdfunding campaign for ‘Sego’ — the ‘world’s first dedicated pet sitter and companion’.
Sounds sweet, right? The idea is that it’s a little robot on wheels that’ll look after your pets whilst you go on holiday. You can log in via the app and move the robot around, and check through its inbuilt webcam that all’s okay back home. It’s also got an inbuilt laser pointer which you can control through your phone to ‘play’ with your animal whilst you’re not with them. Beyond that, it’s also equipped with an ‘intelligent food dispenser’, lights, microphone, speaker, and best of all: a scoop that’ll apparently clear out your pet’s litter tray.
It’s $300. And this is what it looks like:
Boy, isn’t that the cutest little robot you’ve ever seen? I’m sure my cat would just love to see that thing careering towards her with its plastic gears grinding and a blinding red laser shining in her face.
I guess the good part is that your pet would just shit itself right there and then, so at least you wouldn’t have to move the robot far to be able to use the inbuilt shovel.
But seriously, this thing looks like what would have happened if a Portal turret had sex with the Scoop toy I had as a kid:
And let’s talk about that ‘intelligent food dispenser’ I mentioned earlier. Here’s a video of how it works from their demonstration on Kickstarter:
Yes, by intelligent, I think what they really mean ‘this robot will launch food pellets towards your cat in an unregulated and random fashion’. It doesn’t even dispense it into a bowl. I’d love to see how it’d handle wet food.
But really, the best part about this whole debacle is seeing how the cat in their demos reacts to the robot.
It HATES it:
All the while the robot is still launching food at her. The website Hillspet tells me:
A puffed up tail reflects a severely agitated and frightened cat trying to look bigger to ward off danger
Great. That’s really what I’m looking for when I’m looking for some ‘companionship’ for my cat whilst I’m on holiday. Hell, let’s just get them to stick a nightlight on it too and it could look after the kids. I don’t think we’ve gone too far, I think we’ve not gone far enough.
Seriously, people, don’t fund this shit. Spend the 300 dollars on a cattery instead. You’d end up with change, you’d be sure your animal was being looked after by a human, and you’d save your pets from getting a Frankenstein complex. Which I’m sure we could all agree is worth it.
— Olly
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