Italian Firm Volta Wins Innovation Award With Mookkie, AI-Driven Pet Feeder That Recognizes Your Cat or Dog
January 4, 2019
MILAN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/CES2019?src=hash” target=”_blank”gt;#CES2019lt;/agt;–Italian company Volta® (www.volta.ai),
a specialist in the development of AI-centric products, will introduce
Mookkie®, winner of the Innovation Award in the Smart Home category at
CES 2019.
“With Mookkie, we have taken one of the simplest and most humble objects
in our homes and reinvented it by deploying the latest in artificial
intelligence technologies,” said Silvio Revelli, CEO of Volta. “This is
what we do every day at Volta with multiple objects and processes. In
this case, the result is a fully-interactive pet feeder, which visually
recognizes each individual cat or dog and places their prepared food at
each pet’s disposal.”
The advantages not only focus on safety while ensuring access to food
for each pet; but it also guarantees freshness and food conservation.
“The bowl can be connected to a dedicated smartphone application to
record pet usage and monitor the amount of food present, while also
alerting the owner to the need to resupply,” Revelli said.
As a company, Volta essentially rethinks and redesigns existing products
and processes from the ground up, taking into account the wonderful new
“ingredient” of Artificial Intelligence. “Mookkie offers a prime example
of how it is possible to re-invent practically every object we know –
even the simplest – by placing artificial intelligence at the heart of
product design and engineering,” Revelli said.
Through a wide-angle camera that deploys logic similar to the
“face-unlock” feature of modern smartphones, Mookkie records images of
the animal for which food is intended, then deploys the trillion
operations per second necessary for visual recognition, allowing the
product to visually identify the presence of the pet and activate a door
opening to allow access to food.
Mookkie was designed with two users in mind: the pet and its owner. The
food storage bowl is easy to remove and efficiently repositions itself
thanks to a magnetic interface. The bowl’s shape is highly ergonomic,
reachable from every point and thus accessible by every type of animal.
Mookkie also provides notifications and short video clips through the
dedicated smartphone app, with an interface that allows for a two-way
flow of information. Mookkie’s technology is patented and the design
registered.
Working in collaboration with the Pet Electronics Company of New York,
Volta plans to introduce Mookkie in September at an initial price of
$189. Mookkie will be available for purchase at major e-commerce sites
or through www.mookkie.com.
Volta will present Mookkie along with their full lineup of products at
CES from Booth #27024 in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention
Center. Volta will also participate in CES Unveiled at the Mandalay Bay
on Sunday night, January 6, with the product on display throughout the
show in the Venetian Casino, Ballroom E / F alongside other CES
Innovation Award winning products.
Contacts
Media Contacts:
Carly
Stonehouse – 703-207-0958, cstonehouse@aboutbwf.com
Kerry
Lynn Bohen – 703-533-4823, kbohen@aboutbwf.com