Technological advancements are leading to the emergence of wearable computing devices as a major consumer category. Several companies have developed, or are developing, wearable accessories to monitor human activity. But the health and wellness applications associated with these accessories can also benefit non-humans, and wearable computing accessories with such apps are now emerging for the pet market. In this paper we describe WagTag, an accessory that can be attached to a dog collar to track a dog's activities and the intensity of these activities. The activity information is visually displayed on the device, while more detailed information can be uploaded to a computer via a Bluetooth connection. We describe key design issues and goals associated with the development of this device, especially with respect to aesthetics, durability, and functionality, and also describe WagTag's prototype activity recognition models.
['Gary M. Weiss', 'Ashwin S. Nathan', 'J.B. Kropp', 'Jeffrey W. Lockhart']
WagTag: a dog collar accessory for monitoring canine activity levels