What's Up with Tech?
Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!
With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!
What's Up with Tech?
Unleashing Smart Pet Tech
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The bond between humans and their pets runs deep, but communication barriers have always limited how well we understand our furry companions. What if technology could bridge that gap? That's exactly what SATELLAI is achieving with their revolutionary smart dog collar.
David Teaster, Product Marketing Director at SATELLAI takes us behind the scenes of what might be the most advanced pet wearable ever created. This isn't just another GPS tracker – it's a comprehensive safety and wellness system that combines cutting-edge location technology, customizable virtual fencing, AI coaching, and health monitoring in one sleek device. Using dual antennas that transmit on both L1 and L5 frequencies, the collar provides unprecedented location accuracy that traditional trackers simply can't match.
The virtual fencing feature stands out as particularly impressive, allowing pet owners to create customizable boundaries of any shape and size – from backyard perimeters to sprawling rural properties up to 100,000 acres. When your dog approaches these invisible boundaries, the collar provides feedback through customizable options including whistles, vibration, or optional static correction. No more digging under or jumping over physical fences – and you'll receive immediate alerts if your pet ventures beyond the established safe zone.
Looking toward the future, their roadmap includes expanding their AI coaching capabilities beyond breed-specific advice to individualized insights based on your specific pet's patterns and behaviors. They're also developing a satellite tracker with solar panels for extended battery life and direct satellite uplink for truly remote areas, alongside plans for a comprehensive ecosystem of connected pet products that will monitor everything from location to eating habits. Already partnering with major retailers and Fetch Pet Insurance, Satellite is positioning itself at the forefront of pet technology that keeps our beloved companions safer and healthier than ever before.
Ready to experience the next generation of pet care technology? Visit satellateai.com to discover how the smartest dog collar on the planet can transform your relationship with your four-legged family member and provide the peace of mind every pet parent deserves.
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel
Hey everybody, fascinating chat. Today we talk about a smart dog collar that has GPS, ai, coaching, health tracking, virtual fencing and more. What a world. Who could imagine that? David, how are you? I'm doing? Well, how are you? Evan, good, good to have you here. You're in Shenzhen at the moment, but that's a whole other discussion I'd love to dive into Before that, maybe introduce yourself and the big idea behind pioneering the smartest dog collar on the planet.
Speaker 2:Great, so my name is David Teaster. I'm the product marketing director at Satellite, which it's a pleasure to work here, and the whole reason I joined here is because I thought we could make a big difference in the lives of not just pets but also pet parents. So the big idea behind engineering the smartest dog collar on the planet at least as smart as we can make it is that we want to create a device that can help pets stay safe for their parents, to keep in touch with them and to stay connected, and really help pets stay on the radar and help pet parents understand their closest companions. If I had to say it simply, that's really what we're looking at, and so we're looking at applying advanced technology in order to narrow the gap between humans and animals.
Speaker 1:Well, it's an incredible mission. We all love our pets, of course, here in the US and around the world, I think, so talk about how long it took to bring this idea, this product, to fruition, and what was involved. There's so many technologies here. I'm a geek and a techie, but talk about this. It must have been quite a journey, quite a process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean by the time I joined.
Speaker 2:Let's see, I joined in December of 2024.
Speaker 2:And by then I think they'd already been working on everything for about a year and the two founders both met when they were working at a brand called Hwami, which is doing like smart wearables.
Speaker 2:So you know, similar technology to a Fitbit, where it's tracking like your heart rate and your breathing and then your location, so you can see where you've walked or where you've run and all those things. And I think you know everybody here loves pets and has been a pet owner and I think we've all gone through our own experiences with pets, which has really helped us to form our own ideas on what we want to be able to do. And fundamentally, from talking to the founders, I know a big part of it was they wanted to take a lot of that same technology that's applicable to human smart wearables and start finding ways to apply it to the animals that we love so that we can keep track of, like how healthy they are, how active they are, to help them keep track of locations and just keep pets safe and protected and keep their owners informed keep pets safe and protected and keep their owners informed.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I mean, smart dog collars and tracking of dogs, now with air tags and other technologies, has been around, but you're trying to take this to a whole new level and you're in market right. I mean, this isn't a Kickstarter. Maybe tell us how you go beyond traditional GPS trackers that we've had for years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, you know we started with the Satellite Caller, which is our first product, and we took that to market in April of this year I believe we went live on April 10th which is available through our own website already at satellitecom. If any of your listeners are interested in picking it up there or finding out more, that would be S-A-T-E-L-L-A-Icom, and just let me do the plug there so that if anyone's interested they could start looking. And yeah, so to make it to the next level, like really it's about creating a device that can help you stay connected to your pet. So to do that, we've actually uh incorporated uh dual trans, dual signal, dual antennas into our collar to help make the tracking more precise. So this should help with uh especially. Are you familiar with, like satellite or transmission technology at all?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're geeks here. Well, I had a feeling you would be.
Speaker 2:You probably know more than me from what all the smart guys tell me. Basically, they transmit on the L1 and the L5 frequencies and because those are different frequency patterns, the way that they're able to interact with obstacles or the way they bounce off of things that would otherwise be an impediment, helps them to detect, to kind of position between the two, to calculate between it, to give a more accurate position of your dog amazing and you talk about something called virtual fencing and real-time alerts.
Speaker 1:I mean, geofencing has also been around for a while. Some people love it some hate it, but how does your virtual fencing work as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the virtual fencing. So we've incorporated Mapbox Maps to help make the virtual map on your phone as true to life as we can. And then you can set up the virtual fences yourself where you create that into an area on your phone. And for our default you can either set up a simple fence which would just be a circle, and then you can size it as big or as small as you want. You can do that in just a few seconds. Or you could set up a complex fence which would start out as a square and then you can start adding posts to it to adjust the shape and you can size that realistically from anywhere from half an acre to 100,000 acres. And then, fundamentally, the way that that works is it coordinates with the caller to provide feedback to your dog. So fundamental to the fencing is training your dog. So just like you train your dog to have recall commands when you say sit, then your dog sits. When you say sit, then your dog sits. When you say come back, your dog comes back. In the same way you'd use the feedback from the caller to trigger your dog's recall to help them know when they're getting to the edge of the fence that they need to go back the way that they came or respond to your commands that you've conditioned them to. And we have multiple feedback settings so people can customize the way that they want to whatever suits them and whatever helps them to train their dogs. And our feedback options include we've got a whistle, we also have vibration settings and then optionally we also have a static correction which is based off of like TIN's technology, so it stimulates the muscle, and that one's really designed for more of like you know. Imagine you have a dog with a high prey drive that you know a whistle or a vibration isn't going to distract them from the thing that they've zeroed in on. So it's just to add an option for people that if they feel they need some kind of stronger stimulus to their arm to help get their attention, so that they recall and know to respect the boundaries, and you can set that to any size you want.
Speaker 2:There's no limit on the number of fences you can set up either. So if you wanted to set up a fence, like in my case, I would have a fence at my own house, or if I went up to visit my parents, then I might set another virtual fence there too, so that my dogs can know where it's safe to roam, because it's the same feedback that I would have trained my dog on, regardless of where, where we are. So, regardless of where they are, they get that feedback. They know okay, I need to turn back around and go back.
Speaker 2:And I think what's nice about virtual fences is they're more customizable, they're easily deployed and they're location based. So your dog, you know, one of the things we say is like your dog can't squeeze through it, jump over it or dig under it. And I think what also makes it even better is you can actually pair that with. If you have a traditional fence in your yard, then you can also pair that up to where you've got the double layer of insurance, where you've got the one fence that's physical, that your dog's used to, but then a backup fence that is based on your dog's training. So you've got that double incentive. And then, two, you'll get a notification if your dog gets loose outside of that boundary or too far from the boundary, then you'll get that notification. So you know you need to go find your dog and then the tracking should enable you to locate your dog quickly.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was just on mute there for a second. You go on with something called a conversational AI coach. That allows exactly what? Because this is fascinating AI coaching in your pet collar. What does it mean? What do you expect for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's still at least stages for that. Right now it's still more bare bones than we would like, but fundamentally it's built off well. It's more bare bones than what we're building towards, but right now, fundamentally, we have our own breed-based characteristic database so you can ask questions about it and it can give you general advice that you imagine if you talk to you know ChatGPT or Claude or something, It'd be a similar experience, except this has a specific breed-based database that would tell you characteristics based on your dog's breed.
Speaker 2:So if you have a golden retriever and you could say, oh, you know, my dog's been limping, what might be causes of that? My dog's a golden retriever Then it should be able to tell you like okay, some things you might consider would be like hip dysplasia, because that's common in dogs, and then you'd be able to tell the information and it can give you some general guidance or advice. You could also use that to ask for, maybe like training guidance, so like what's a good way to train a golden retriever to do x, y or z. Then it can use those breed-based characteristics to start making recommendations. And what we're building towards in the future is, once we have a big enough database that we'll be able to actually have the AI learn specific characteristics of the pet once it establishes a baseline to be able to say when your pet's behavior has been changing or what give you advice that's more specific to the individual dog.
Speaker 1:Very cool. And you also talk about digital health for your pet, a Fitbit of sorts. How does that work and what do you offer there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so initially we're working with it combines with the location tracking so you know where your dog has gone. And then right now we have activity and rest analysis, which works with gyroscopes that are in the collar to help tell when your dog's moving and when it's in position or not. And then we're building that out in the future iterations for our future products which we're planning to launch maybe quarter four this year. Then we'll be able to actually have detailed breakdowns of activities by type. So right now it's just like rest and activity tracking, but we're building that out in the future iterations to where it'll tell you how much your dog is walking, how much your dog is running, how much your dog is jumping, how much your dog is just laying down, and then ideally we'll be able to get to how much your dog is actually sleeping.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Tell us about the market opportunity for this. I mean lost, stolen pets are a huge issue here in the US. People spend what? $100 billion on pet care or something. It's amazing, but what do you see the market opportunity as?
Speaker 2:What I see, the market opportunity.
Speaker 2:Well, first, I think already with the GPS tracking and with the virtual fencing, I think that's already in huge demand and that's something that I think more and more people are going to become aware of, even for I mean, it's been out there for a while, but I think there's still a lot of people that aren't even really aware that this is an option yet.
Speaker 2:So there's still a lot of room, in my opinion, for this market to grow. And I think people put a lot of emphasis on the safety of their dogs. I mean, even for me, I had a lot of different dogs growing up and I had several dogs as a teenager that would just run off and then they'd go explore the neighborhood for a while and then they'd come back, and so I wouldn't be overly worried, except eventually. You know, you never know when your dog's gonna just have that one day where they do something different than normal. You know, because dogs are dogs and you know I might have a dog for six, seven years and then you know he, if I open the door too wide, he likes to run out, and then he'd always come back until that one day he doesn't.
Speaker 1:And I think that's.
Speaker 2:Have you had that experience too?
Speaker 1:We've all had those stories, some quite scary, and I assume this is a global market for you, not just the US. But how do you see this rolling out geographically? Are there certain parts of the world that are more dog obsessed than others?
Speaker 2:I'd say the US is definitely a big one, especially for this GPS type tracking technology, because you know we have a lot of rural areas and people can have a wide range of land that they like to keep their dogs like. Even if you go to a suburban neighborhood, the yards can be pretty big yeah, no, you don't want your dog getting into the neighbor's yard or running down the street or whatever.
Speaker 2:Um and and I'm trying to think like even my own experience, like sometimes if my dog did yeah, how do you see the business? Model working.
Speaker 1:What is your go-to-market in terms of the product? I mean, there's a telecom element to this as well. I imagine Absolutely, but you have channels like veterinarians and retail insurers. I imagine you have wellness subscriptions. How do you see yourself in this whole landscape of pet care?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like you said, you named quite a few there. One we are expanding into more retailers. We started with our own website, which I mentioned earlier on in the video. We're already available on Amazon as well. I think we've recently managed to get coverage on walmartcom, so I believe we've got a shop there now and we're trying to expand in more of the pet retail e-retailers as well. I think right now we're looking at getting on chewy in the next couple of weeks to a month out. Hopefully we'll be able to get listed on there as well to make availability wider. And then, like you said, in the future we'd like to be able to partner with veterinarians, because we think the health tracking can be a really huge asset for people, that it can help you know when to take your dog to the vet before a small problem becomes a big problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great concept and you must have a huge amount of opportunity for new features and functions. Tell us about your roadmap other sensors or other kinds of networks or biometrics what are you looking at over the next year or two?
Speaker 2:Over the next year or two. We've got high aspirations, but it can kind of change depending on what actually presents itself as being practical. We are partnering with Fetch Pet Insurance. We had a press release about that pretty recently and then hopefully we'd like to see about getting our products to where they can also become preventative care in that regard and where we can work with insurance as well. On top of that we're looking to expand into more types of products. So we've got the caller but we're looking to create.
Speaker 2:I think next in the pipeline we've got the satellite tracker, which is actually we presented it at CES. So if you read any of our press releases, you might've seen references to that previously Not that I would have expected you to necessarily, but you may have um and the satellite tracker. We've actually incorporated a qualcomm 9205s modem, so it would have direct satellite uplink. Wow, it's also got a seven-day battery life and then, uh, it's a solar panel would be in be part of that, and so that's really designed for those super rural areas where there's just no wireless signal at all from your cellular network. The caveat of that is like the tracker wouldn't need a cellular signal, but your phone still would, so your dog can get somewhere without a cellular signal, and if you're somewhere with a cellular signal you can see where your dog is is which you know.
Speaker 2:Obviously it's not perfectly ideal, because you'd like to have something that can transmit both to and fro without any mobile signal whatsoever. But I'm not quite sure when we'll be able to find a way to make that happen. But it's still better because, you know, I had a dog that ran off. I was visiting my parents back in college and I remember like they were living up in the ozark mountains and he took off. I didn't even know which way he went. Like I don't even have a direction to start looking for him. I can't even ask the neighbors, because the closest neighbor is a hundred yards down the road, and so it's like I'm just standing there in the yard, just kind of like looking at all directions and shouting for him to come back, you know. So I think even for that, even though it's not the ideal scenario, it's still helpful because at least you have a direction to move towards when you've got that cell signal plus the seven day battery life, and then we've got a solar panel installed. So even if your dog's gone for a really long time.
Speaker 2:The tracker is built into a harness, then it'll be able to transmit via satellite regardless of where your dog is. And you'll be able to transmit via satellite regardless of where your dog is and you'll be able to see that at any time and, potentially, like no matter how long your dog is gone. That solar panel could let it recharge at any moment and you'd be able to get another ping on the system. We're also working on a lighter weight tracker, which right now we've got in the works, which will be kind of smaller but it would be like clipped onto a dog's normal collar and that'll have a lot of like the similar functions we plan to, where you'll be able to see where your dog is and get notifications. It probably won't be quite as robust as the current collar because that's quite large and then has a lot more technology incorporated into it, but we're looking to get something that's a little more accessible for the normal user once we have that second tracker available.
Speaker 1:Incredible and so many interesting use cases for working dogs too, I imagine Herding dogs and farm dogs, police military even, and farm dogs, police military even. What a great opportunity here. So, yeah, congratulations, really amazing work you've done in integrating all these technologies and bringing it to market. And yes, I'll be at CES this coming next year January, so look forward to stopping by and checking out all the new features.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hopefully we'll have a few more products to show you then, because right now the collar is the only one on the market. But I talked to the team too and you know, in the future we'd really like to expand into other products to where we can actually create kind of this whole smart home dot pet ecosystem, to where you can track even more of your dog's metrics. You know, ideally we'll get to a point where we can see, like how much your dog is eating, how much water they're drinking. We'd like to expand the cat. I mean, this would be like really long-term plan, so if it materializes or not could still be kind of up in the air. But I know like that's something that the team's very passionate about and that we'd like to work towards is like getting a whole system set up to where you've got everything connected and you can monitor so many more detailed aspects of your pets, of your pets health and activity, and just really connect with them and understand them better than ever.
Speaker 1:Love it. Well, amazing work. Thanks for sharing the vision and I can't wait to check it out. Thanks everyone for listening and watching, and reach out to David and team if you're interested. Take care. Thanks, david, thanks everyone. Oh, thanks so much, evan. Bye-bye.