Bistro Cat With Facial Recognition, A Flash in the Pan

WARNING: This may be my most opinionated post yet. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know if I’m spot-on or being too harsh!

The video for the Bistro feeder begins, “Have you ever worried about your cats when you are at work or on vacation? Are they eating regularly, are the drinking enough….they are our beloved pets and their heath management is important for us.” oh really dumbass, than hire a pet-sitter like you should be doing int he first place!

Surprisingly, this product has far surpassed its Indiegogo goal of $100k and is at $176k  a whole nine days before it ends on August 14th. The units costs $170 and only $159 if you have one cat (not sure how they check that or if they give you an inferior product). It’s slated to retail at $249.

The entire things sounds like a bunch of civil engineers who wanted to look cool and come up with a cat toy with lots of bells and whistles and as usual, the media fell for it hook-line-and-sinker but I’m certain wise pet parents will not. I believe it’s the tech obsessed with Indiegogo purchasing the product because he/she wants to be the first to see how it works.

Mark my words – IT HAS NO LEGS.

What the (uninformed non-pet) media has to say:

For too long, humans have been reaping all the rewards of facial recognition software. But no longer. There’s now facial recognition for cats — TIME – Really? We’ve been reaping the rewards of facial recognition? Um…okay. Like when? The writer has clearly watching too many sci-fi movies. 

The Bistro lets cats dine in high-tech style — CNET – Oh very pithy CNN but what exactly does it mean?

Bistro recognizes a particular cat’s face so you can track how much he/she is eating at one time.

High-tech cat feeder uses facial recognition to save all nine lives — Engadget – Good lord, could Engadget be just a wee more dramatic? Yes, Bistro, the facial recognition feeder that sucks eggs is saving lives. Alrightly then.

Look, there are some things about it I do like about it (but not for $179). Like the ability to monitor what each cat is eating and if the amount they eat or drink fluctuates by day. I’m not, however,  a fan of their recommending food you can feed your pet depending on his or her weight/health. It screams of SPONSORSHIP.

But let’s not forget – and I cannot believe they volunteer this information – this project came into being because Mu-Chi, one of the founders, realized one day that his “cat daughter Momo was weirdly paralyzed.” Turns out “(daughter) Momo was severely dehydrated and she was not eating regularly.”

She was eventually saved, but at the cost of her her two back legs (???!!!!), Um, your “daughter” isn’t drinking and eating regularly and it takes that type of extreme health condition for you to take note? I can only hope you are not representative of most pet owners Mr Mu-Chi. I know! Instead of paying attention build a new piece of technology to do it for you! 

Mr Mu-Chi and now 2 legged Momo

The product does have the cost-of-entry features others like KITTYO, PetCube and Motorola have such as remote monitoring, interaction via sound, and sharing of photos and video.

In addition to the blatant”Food Advice” sponsorship/advertising feature, my two biggest beefs with the Bistro – and why it will ultimately fail are:

1) It only allows for feeding of DRY FOOD: “Bistro doesn’t support canned (wet) food because it’s too hard to keep it fresh and the nozzle can be easily jammed by the wet food if it’s not cleaned up properly.”

Well those of us with “beloved pets” know that wet food is a necessity in a cats diet, whether every day or in conjunction with dry food. That means the app that shows how much your cat is eating will not calculate for anything eaten outside the limit of the Bistro.

2) Will only work in 1-cat homes unless you have multiple unites. Have you ever seen cats eat one at a time? “No Kip, it’s alright, you got to eat first last time. I’ll just stand here and wait in line.” So am I supposed to get three of three of these? One for each pet? This is a topic that is never addressed on their fund-raising page.

It’s more like this:

Are we SURE these people have pets? I’m still convinced they are tech nerds who are just thrilled with themselves for coming up with cat facial recognition for the sake of it. Go you.

Reveal in your technological glory all you want. Just please don’t get a pet.

Especially a cat.