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We chat with David Teaster of Satellai about how their pet collars could help save your dog's life.
"Hello everyone, I'm Alex here. I'm at CES, and we have been checking out Satellai.
Basically, the best way to probably catch your dog if it goes running around and it's going to get lost.
David, can you tell me a bit about why people should be excited about Satellai, why people should be checking it out, and how it's going to help them with their pets when they maybe lose them?
Yeah, so I'd say there's a lot of functionality that can add a whole lot of benefits to people."
"So with our flagship Satellai collar, we kind of baked everything into one device with virtual fencing, location tracking, health and activity monitoring, and it all combines with our own LLN that we've got in the app.
So you ask it questions, and it can give you answers in real time as you need them to give general behavior guidance, general advice on what's going on with your dog, or just pretty much any question you want to be able to ask it, it'll be able to answer."
"So behind me here, we've got the sort of collar that, as you said, it keeps track of other things, not just where the dog is, sort of early behavioral things.
How does that work, and does it sort of take into account things like breed, things like size of the dog, things like is the dog too big, not only in width, but also in height and things like that?
Because as a dog owner myself, I know that there's different breeds come with different issues, and there's a lot of problems about different types of ways to breed a dog as well, and the ways that they end up having a lot of problems."
"So how do you sort of combat that with this collar?
Yeah, that's a wonderful question.
So a lot of that is, like I said, we have our own breed database that the LLM is trained off of, but that also supports the data points that we collect from more users we get, and we're able to use that to kind of give inference to other types of numbers or data that you'd be interested in knowing."
"So when it comes to your dog, there's some information that you tell it.
When you first set up the app, generally it'll base off of the picture you take.
It'll guess what breed it is.
Usually it's pretty accurate, but if you think it's a little off, then you can kind of specify."
"It'll reference the breed database for general characteristics, so what does a typical dog of this breed look like and what kind of are some common issues that it might encounter.
So that's kind of touch point one."
"But even stronger is with our new satellite collar GO, which is the one here in the background, this one incorporates a lot more strongly with our own AI, our Petsense AI that we've launched.
So with the health and activity monitoring, it's actually able to establish a baseline for your pet's general behavior, to find out what its usual activity trends look like."
"And then it's able to notify you when there's sudden shifts in that pattern.
So it kind of becomes an early warning, like when your dog suddenly becomes very lethargic as opposed to more active.
Then it can flag that, which would help you kind of capture if that's a health issue that's kind of starting to develop before it becomes really a major significant problem."
"So you can kind of catch it and fix it while it's fixable for like $10 rather than for $100 or even $1,000.
It's one of those things, isn't it?
Does it help sort of, I guess, the dog tell you in a way what's going on with it?
Yeah, really, it's about capturing those signs that you're not there to observe and helping, like you said, the dog kind of express to you when it otherwise wouldn't maybe be able to communicate that, like what's going on."
"So you just kind of capture those insights.
You know when those patterns shift, when those behaviors change.
So you have deeper insights into what's going on.
You're not just coming home one day and finding your dog on the floor, you know, unresponsive because there's some kind of problem that you had no idea there was anything going on."
"So you guys have designed your own sort of AI LLM for this.
What was sort of the design process when you go into something like this and creating your own AI model for this specific purpose?
Yeah, so like fundamentally you're kind of starting with like what's already available and then building it out and training it off of the data that you have."
"So kind of one of the nice things here is that with the same hardware because it already captures like activity and movement patterns.
And as we collect more data, then we're able to use that new data to train it to start breaking down activity into different patterns."
"So now like we can already capture like, you know, initially we were kind of limited to activity and rest times.
And now we're able to actually segment between like running and walking and shaking the head and resting."
"And then beyond that we'll be able to soon we think we'll be able to do like licking and scratching.
And then we'd like to be able to get respiration is in the works now.
And from that we think we'll be able to give a pretty reliable heart rate."
"So increasingly like with these behaviors and with this data, you kind of with the same device, you'll be able to get more and more and more features and it'll kind of snowball on itself where the same product that you already bought like half a year ago is able to do way more half a year later than it was when you first bought it."
"Can I grab something real quick?
I'd just like to show off something that you guys have been showing off as a prototype in CES.
Could you perhaps hold that for me?
Could you explain what this is and how it's going to sort of, I guess, take your dog tracking game up to another level?
Yeah, so this one's really going to take your dog tracking to the next level."
"This is one we're looking to launch probably into quarter two, maybe start of quarter three.
This is the Satellite Tracker Ultra.
And what's different here from the others, it's the basic like activity tracking similar to the other devices because like the Petsense AI, that goes across product lines."
"But where this one's a little different is we've got the solar panel there on the back clearly.
And the reason it's mounted on a harness is to kind of keep that facing skyward so it can charge more readily and regularly, reliably is the word I'm looking for, so it can charge more reliably."
"And beyond that, like it's already got a seven-day battery life.
We've got the solar panel there, it charges on the go.
But what's really making this one different, this one's made for outdoor dogs because it has a Qualcomm 9205S modem inside."
"So that gives you direct satellite uplink.
So even if your dog like takes off into the woods somewhere and there's no cell phone coverage, it's still sending out a signal and you can see that to know like where to go to find your dog."
"And then even if your dog's gone for a really long time, that solar panel could recharge it at any time.
And now you're pinging the location again, you can find where your dog is.
And one of the cool features too is like people that like to get outdoors with their dog, you can actually connect to this via Bluetooth as well."
"So if you get stuck somewhere and you need help, you could actually like, your dog could save your life here because you can connect to that and send an emergency satellite message with your latitude, your longitude, and like the kind of service that you need."
"So basically, the Send Help emergency situation, which like where I'm from too, we're prone to tornadoes, for example.
So if you had that situation, a tornado blew through, the cell phone lines are down, you know, the towers got knocked down or the lines are down or whatever, then you've still got that as a way to be like, hey, I need help, come get me."
"And then like the whole family's safe, right?
Something I am noticing though, I have to bring it up, is that this seems very dog heavy at the minute.
Are there plans to expand into cats?
Because I know a certain cat, shout out Albert, who is pretty useless, but he's very good at getting into places that he shouldn't be."
"So is there something like this perhaps on the horizon for cat owners as well?
Yeah, we are planning to expand into cats because like we're not just about dogs, we're about pets in general.
We want to connect pets to love and care."
"But we've kind of started with dogs because with dogs you can make things a bit bigger.
And now we're looking at ways to miniaturize things.
Hopefully we'll probably make it a breakaway collar for cats and we'd like to have like a sleeker, more slim design so that cats are more readily accepting of it."
"So we do have plans for that.
Probably by the end of the year we're looking to launch our first cat product.
And it should give you like the same kind of activity monitor.
But obviously like the way a cat moves is different from how a dog moves."
"So we've got to train that database as well.
But we will be able to capture that data and help you know your cat just like you do your dog.
And maybe one day hamsters or something, I don't know."
"Yeah, that's something we could look at too.
And part of it too is like those same health patterns I mentioned with dogs, with cats it's even more so.
Because if your cat doesn't feel well, it's liable to hide away somewhere to try to take care of itself until it gets better."
"But if you know something's going on, then you can actually get help for that cat that otherwise wouldn't seek you out.
So dogs can be a little like that, but cats are even more so.
They tend to be, in my experience as a cat owner, as a dog owner, I've found cats tend to be a bit more solitary and independent."
"That was dramatic, maybe.
David, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you so much.
That's all I have for you.
Thank you."
