Dog Bed & Bandana Activity Tracker 🐶🛏️
Introduction
Getting a new puppy and preventing unwanted behaviors can be tough. Now imagine getting a $40 dog bed from a pet store for it to be destroyed in just one night. Introducing a dog burrow bed & bandana activity tracker!
Design Concept
The combination of sensors within the bed & bandana will allow pet owners to detect unusual activities or check-in with their pet from their mobile while providing their dog a comfortable bed.
Detected levels of activity include:
• Scratching/digging
• Relaxing/sleeping
• Barking/whimpering
• Biting/chewing
The concept is to replicate a warm fort/cave for dogs as a bed using the prototyping technique: 3D IoT modeling, fabric construction, and video prototyping.
Design Goals
The goal of this prototype is to create a cozy dog burrow bed for any dog that would:
• Keep the dog warm
• Be easy to clean
• Detect activity levels with sensors
And the prototype is:
• Desirable in that it’s a bed that will keep dogs warm while detecting activity levels
• Usable as the bed is straightforward and easy to use & clean for dog owners
• Feasible in that the material would only require two electronic sensors and other simple materials (i.e. fabric)
Implementation
The prototype will be made using fleece fabric and a pillow as the base of the bed. See the DIY inspiration here.
The fleece is sewed to assemble the component parts of the bed as seen below.
After folding the burrow cover over the pillowcase, the edges were aligned and sewn. Flipping the burrow cover inside out, the pillow was finally stuffed inside.
Two buttons were then sewed and used to fasten the pillow inside the fleece fabric. Using a button fastening mechanism allows the pillow to be removed for easy cleaning.
The bandana was previously created in another prototyping assignment titled “LED Dog Bandana” which can be viewed here. The bandana sensors support and allow activities to be detected using the bed sensors.
After the creation of the prototypes, a sensor was incorporated into the bed & bandana to detect a dog’s level of activity.
Evaluation
The dog bed was tested on a 4-month old puppy. The prototype was evaluated with both a dog and the dog’s owner.
Success measures for the dog include the dog’s reaction to the bed:
• Do they understand the purpose of the bed (i.e. bed is not a toy)?
• Do they instinctively go under the bed cave?
• Do they bark, whimper, or make any sounds?
• Do they use or stay on the bed?
Testing questions for the dog owner include:
• What are your initial thoughts on the concept?
• Would you personally buy or make this product?
• Are there any changes you would make or add?
The demo video can be viewed below.
Analysis
After testing with a 4-month old puppy and its owner, here are some key findings.
What worked well:
• The mobile notifications detecting any dog activity
• Easy to clean dog bed with a removable pillow feature
• Burrow feature is unique and allows the dog to stay warm during the winters
What needed improvement:
• The durability of the stitching to account for excessive digging or biting
• A suggestion for a tester: “Is the bandana necessary to the bed or can one of the sensors be attached to the collar?”
In terms of desirability, 2 dog owners mentioned they would personally buy this product themselves and could see themselves using the product to track their dog’s activity.
Additionally, one dog owner mentioned the comparison of Furbo, Amazon’s dog camera & treat tosser. They liked how the sensors gave immediate notifications like Furbo while providing their dog a cozy place. They thought the tracking feature with a dog bed and bandana makes the product easy to use and understand.
Conclusion
Overall, this final project was super fun to make while combining 3 of the 7 prototyping techniques learned this fall 2020 quarter at the University of Washington.
Reflecting back now, here are a couple of things I would change and learned while creating this prototype.
Changes I would make:
• Exploring more options for sensor placement such as the collar and conducting further testing
• Double or possibly triple thread stitching the dog bed for further durability in the case of excessive activity levels
Things I learned:
• Showing versus telling can sometimes tell a better story in terms of the demo video, which I aimed to do
• Dogs can really ruin anything, there’s really no way to prevent unwanted behaviors besides exercising or close supervision
