eSleeper makes use of old eMac as a high-tech cat bed - KAIT-Jonesboro, AR-News, weather, sports

By Kelly Montgomery

Provided by

In an installment of cool projects that unfortunately can't be purchased, we bring you the eSleeper cat bed from designer Samuel Cox. Most cats do their daily napping on a chair, couch, or in an uninteresting cushy cat basket. We never saw that as much of a problem, but designer Samuel Cox wanted his cat to have a more evolved napping site, so he took an old eMac, threw in some Arduino, spoken Tweets, and ambient lighting and created the eSleeper.

The fancy cat bed was made from a hollowed-out eMac shell that is lined with cushy fabric for his feline friend; inside the shell there is an Arduino Ethernet connected to an infrared sensor. When the cat steps into the eSleeper, breaking the sensor beam, ambient LED lights create a nap-friendly glow and  the classic Mac chime plays. In perhaps the strangest twist of the design, the eSleeper Tweets a random phrase as well as the time and how long your kitty was napping when said cat awakes and steps out of the eSleeper. There's no evidence of this being put into any sort of production, but it's just the kind of DIY goodness that we couldn't resist sharing.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends