Does your dog feel lonely when you're not around? A researcher has developed a phone for dogs, so that he calls you on video!

Steph Deschamps / November 25, 2021

This is the brainchild of Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, a specialist in animal-computer interaction at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. The DogPhone, literally the phone for dogs, is intended to break the loneliness of your favorite pet. 
 
 Her main source of inspiration is certainly her dog, Zack, a 10 year old black labrador. To make him feel less lonely when his owner is not at home, she has developed a toy that allows her dog to call him on video! But she's not the only one thinking about this project, her colleagues from the University of Aalto in Finland have also put their hand to the paw.
 
It is the first system of its kind allowing animals to use the Internet to contact their owners, said the University of Glasgow in a statement Wednesday. It is still an experimental system. The goal is to break the loneliness of dogs who find themselves alone at home. This technology also appears in a context where the animal may have been too accustomed to the presence of his master because of telecommuting and the pandemic.
 
The system is very simple, a technology inserted in a ball is activated when it is shaken by the dog, which triggers a video call to its owner. The owner can also call his pet, provided that he answers.