this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
38 points (93.2% liked)
Asklemmy
47796 readers
729 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm not part of the target audience as I don't have a cat, but I don't see the value in this over a cheap red laser pointer. Automatizing play with your pet sounds super dehumanizing, like, you can't even be bothered to spend 5 minutes entertaining your pet?
And this is the method of play that requires the least amount of effort since you only need to press a button and flick your wrist around.
That said I might buy something like this just because I like to nerd out on electronics like this.
I can, but we're gone at work all day. Having something that can engage them when they want would be very useful. We play with them, but I think it's a bit of a generalization to say it's dehumanizing or we can't make the time. There's nothing wrong with wanting an additional thing besides myself to enrich my pets lives.
Edit: also, the angles. Our home is narrow and so to give them a good workout it requires a lot of moving around and holding the laser pointer over my head to get a good angle on it. Clearly you don't have a cat, cause it's 20-30 minutes when I bust it out, not 5. They fucking love the thing. Having something that knows the bounds of the space and can move through it smoother and more consistently than I can would be great.
FYI
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8388446/
Yes, I've seen this before. Well not this specific article, but the idea that the laser pointer doesn't give them that tactile satisfaction. Again, we do play with our cats with lots of touch toys. Just thought this may be a fun other toy.