![\"FitBark\"](\"http:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/fitbark.jpg?w=100&h=70&crop=1\")
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I don\u2019t want to awaken the ire of any committed pet owners \u2014 because I think you can do whatever you want with your pets (and your money) \u2014 but I would be lying if I said I didn\u2019t cringe a little bit when I hear about extreme pet products and services like doggie treadmills, pet psychiatrists or pet fitness centers and the like.<\/p>\n
In a quick conversation behind the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, an unofficial, unscientific, non-statistically sound poll indicated that \u201cif you don\u2019t have time to walk your dog and need to outsource that to a health club…maybe you just shouldn\u2019t have a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
I concur with those results.<\/p>\n
Still, I came across FitBark<\/a> on the floor of the Hardware Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013<\/a> and while it could, at first, seem \u201cextreme\u201d I found that after talking to these guys and hearing their explanation, their little device actually seems pretty reasonable.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n What is the\u00a0FitBark<\/a>? From a technological standpoint, it is a wearable accelerometer that you put on your dog\u2019s collar to monitor their activity. In most ways the product is very similar to products like the Nike Fuel + Band or the FitBit, however the strategy behind it \u2014 and this is the reasonable part \u2014 is quite different.<\/p>\n FitBark is not designed to be a performance indicator or weight loss utility or competitive device for animals. Instead, it\u2019s just an activity monitor so loving pet owners can make sure their dogs are getting enough activity.<\/p>\n How it works is that, as the dog moves about, their activity is captured and stored on the device (up to three weeks of data can be stored).<\/p>\n Whenever the FitBark comes into the proximity of the owners iPhone\u2019s or optional homebase unit \u2014 via Bluetooth 4 or Wi-Fi \u2014 the data is transferred off of the FitBark, passed through the FitBark app on the iPhone and transferred up to the cloud where that data is stored.<\/p>\n The historical data can then be visualized on any of the iOS devices that are allowed to view the data. In this way, dog owners can have real-time info about the pet\u2019s activity.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Another hint that the FitBark is reasonable is their one-time pricing model. There are no ongoing monthly service fees or memberships required. You buy the hardware device upfront ($99 from their Kickstarter page<\/a>), and you get the data it produces for free. I”\u2019m guessing they have worked their data hosting costs into the hardware price.<\/p>\n In this way, it really seems like a tool for care and not a stingy racket for recurring fees.<\/p>\n I’m not sure this is a product I myself would ever use, as I tend to think dogs are evolutionarily equipped to survive living in what James Brown would call “a man’s world.” However I can see how loving, caring and yes, reasonable<\/em> pet owners might like to see this data about their dogs. Because of that, the FitBark seems like a useful piece of hardware.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to awaken the ire of any committed pet owners \u2014 because I think you can do whatever you want with your pets (and your money) \u2014 but I would be lying if I said I didn\u2019t cringe a little bit when I hear about extreme pet products and services like doggie treadmills, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n<\/img><\/a>
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