The industry leader in smart pet technology, Fi, launched the world’s first AI-powered dog collar, Series 3+, and the data tracking is a game-changer for pet parents.
Scratching and licking are among the subtle nuances recorded by the technology, which often goes unnoticed by pet caregivers.
"It’s really not just about the active dogs," French founder and CEO Jonathan Bensamoun told FOX Business. "It’s about every dog and any parent who is interested in having a more granular understanding of their dog’s health."
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The technology, equipped with a new Apple Watch integration for owners, collects insights from location and sleep cycles and food and water consumption, barking, licking, scratching and exercise down to the pet’s daily steps, among other health-related analytics.
"If your dog escapes, we’ll send you a notification that your dog exited the home," Bensamoun said. "If your dog jumped the fence, skipped the backyard, we’ll be able to track the dog anywhere in the U.S."
Machine learning and data aggregation are used to uniquely identify activity tracking and compare them to dogs of the same breed, age, size, levels of lethargy and more to monitor and address pet health concerns.
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Comprehensiveness and reliability were among the most fundamental values to Bensamoun during development. Fi consulted with top experts in the technology industry, including professionals at Whoop and Oura, to advance the AI collar.
Hours of video footage of dogs in a controlled environment, research and development were used to train the datasets to foster the innovation.
"We all put cameras in our home, and we recorded our dogs wearing the collars," Bensamoun said. "I was embarrassed to learn how much my dog is barking when I’m not there. He never does that when I’m there."
Thor, Bensamoun’s 8-year-old German shepherd, was the inspiration for the collar.
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"He’s the reason why I started the company in the first place," Bensamoun told FOX Business.
"My dog is really fast. Every time I take him off the leash in a park or something, I’m always worried that he’s going to outrun me. Having a tracking device on my dog was just a natural extension. When you have a dog, you always want to give them their freedom. You want them to be free. You want them to enjoy life and run around and run freely. You don’t want them on their leash all the time."
Bensamoun says it’s essential for him to track Thor’s activity to ensure clarity of wellness indicators, but especially to monitor intensified scratching and licking to schedule allergy injections.
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"If a dog is drinking much more than usual, they might be symptomatic of a kidney issue," Bensamoun said. "If the dog is licking their paws more than usual, it may be a symptom that their paws are hurting and the owner not realizing."
Bensamoun caught colleagues red-handed, shelling out treats to Thor over a dozen times a day using the Fi collar.
"I realized when I go in the office with my dog, people are giving treats all the time behind my back," he said. "I was looking at the chart when it comes to his feeding, and I was like, ‘Wait, it has to be a bug.’
"It showed he had a snack 13 times in the day."
Pet owners can use the Fi mobile app to get information and share the data with veterinarians.
"We really think it’s going to become a key pillar of what the next generation of vet care and healthcare is going to be for dogs," Bensamoun said. "We are going to be able to extract more information from the hundreds of thousands of dogs that are wearing this collar."