My mom loves her cat, Zelie, even if she’s a fearless little hunter. Birds, mice, the occasional surprise catch… all proudly delivered right through the catflap and into the house. The problem? My mom is terrified of mice. “Since you work with AI, can’t you make something to stop her from bringing me presents?” Usually, she calls me about her printer or her phone, but this time I couldn’t resist the challenge.

After a bit of hardware tinkering, a dash of AI, and a few late-night experiments, it actually works! The setup uses a Raspberry Pi equipped with a camera and an RFID reader, running Python code with YOLO object detection models. It identifies when Zelie is carrying prey, triggers the door lock automatically, and pushes alerts in real time. Now my mom is happy (and mouse-free), I got to play with edge AI on a fun side project, and Zelie is mildly offended by the new security measures.

If you want to see it in action or are curious about how it works, I’ve shared the project code, hardware setup, and instructions on GitHub so that you can build your own! Check it out here:https://github.com/fl2o/catflap-prey-detector and Happy building.