Raspberry Pi CatBot monitors for stray cats and texts you a photo

We've come across our fair share of Raspberry Pi projects for animals over the years. We've seen professionals in the science community use a Pi to monitor bear populations and even have a guide published by Ryder Damen on making a Raspberry Pi pet detector. But today, we're excited to share something of the feline persuasion—maker and developer Michael Suguitan has put together an excellent stray cat monitor he calls CatBot.

The system's function is simple, but its design is pretty complex and has a bonus feature. It works by monitoring a bowl of cat food Suguitan set out for nearby strays using a camera connected to a Pi Zero. When a cat is detected, the Pi captures an image and sends it to a predetermined number via text.

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But as cool as that is, it gets even better. Cat food attracts birds, which, while pretty and worthy of attention, can be dangerous if they eat it. To address this issue, Suguitan added an extra feature that monitors birds. When a bird is detected, the Pi taps on the window using an actuator.

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The main board powering the camera monitor is a Raspberry Pi Zero; however, it's not the only Pi used in this setup. Suguitan threw in a Raspberry Pi 5 to interact with the Pi Zero and handle the image recognition side of the project. This Pi 5 is also responsible for sending text messages using Twilio.

The Pi Zero is running a Flask server, which allows it to communicate with the Pi 5, while a simple Python script handles the camera input. Suguitan was kind enough to make the project entirely open source, so you can peruse all of the source code for the Pi 5 and Pi Zero over at GitHub.

If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project in action, you can read through the detailed build guide posted at Michael Suguitan's website and watch a demo video of the bird deterrent on YouTube.