I have two older cats that are not getting along as well as they have in the past. Especially at night Cat 1 will sneak up on Cat 2 and Cat 2 will hiss and growl and throw a fit waking everyone in the house. And I am sick of chasing one of them down to lock it in the basement for the evening.
I have a couple of Arduino Minis, some old pager motors for vibra-mode and a real desire to get a good night sleep.
The idea is simple, when Cat 1 and Cat 2 get within 1 meter of each other I want a collar outfitted with the pager motors to go off for 3 seconds (hopefully) ensuring the cats will keep their distance.
The problem, I can not find an adequate solution for proximity transponders. RFID tags are OK but I don't want to have to have an RFID reader in each room of my house in order to detect the locations of the cats. Just something that will allow me to measure an amount of change between sensors and allow the arduinos to decide if the cats are approximately less than one meter apart.
If I want to get real fancy I can eventually have the arduino set off the motor on the cat that is actually moving towards the other cat (assumed to be resting).
Barring all this, just get some shock collars from the pet store and fricasseeing them both (the kids don't seem to like that solution)
I have two older cats that are not getting along as well as they have in the past. Especially at night Cat 1 will sneak up on Cat 2 and Cat 2 will hiss and growl and throw a fit waking everyone in the house.
Take them to the vet. It could be one cat is ill and the other is smelling the effects of the illness. It might also be a sign they are not getting enough attention -- play with them more!
The idea is simple, when Cat 1 and Cat 2 get within 1 meter of each other I want a collar outfitted with the pager motors to go off for 3 seconds (hopefully) ensuring the cats will keep their distance.
Personal interjection: this sounds cruel. If they have gotten along in the past then despite their occasional spats they still need to socialize with each other and this could well make things worse.
I don't think your problem is in need of a technological solution just yet.
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The Gadget Shield: accelerometer, RGB LED, IR transmit/receive, light sensor, potentiometers, pushbuttons
I don't think your problem is in need of a technological solution just yet.
I am not sure there even is a good technological solution, there was something similar asked a few weeks back but about robots and no one came up with anything suitable.
(the kids don't seem to like that solution)