Chinese startup Meng Xiaoyi convinced 10,000 people to pre-order PettiChat, an AI collar that claims to translate dog barks and cat meows into human phrases with 95% accuracy.

• Price: ~$118 USD
• Weight: 27 grams
• Response time: 1.2 seconds
• Powered by Qwen (Alibaba Cloud LLM)
• Combines audio capture with motion sensors
• Generates phrases like “leave me alone” or “I want to play”
• No peer-reviewed studies validating the 95% accuracy claim
• Experts warn about anthropomorphizing animals

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