Tim DraperFounder and Managing Partne, Draper Associate · I back the ideas that look crazy first

🐾 Is this spoiling your dog?

7 Mar 2025 · 1 min

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1:06

Tim Draper's team built buttons that let dogs communicate by pressing them to trigger sounds or messages. A $20 starter kit plays pre-recorded sounds; the advanced version adds custom recordings, speakers, and phone alerts when your dog presses a button. The catch: does answering every request spoil them?

You can press a button, a sound comes out that the dog knows. Dogs we know can recognize hundreds or even thousands of words, but this lets them actuate a thing that they recognize.
So this package is $20, and then if you add more— This is our most advanced system.
It's got a purpose-designed speaker and it's connected hardware, so you actually get a push notification on your phone when the button's pressed.
That's really fun. Where are the other 2 buttons?
Pets. Play. Play. You can record them with whatever words you want, though. They're not prerecorded.
And it can be my voice? Yeah. Yeah.
Bitcoin.
Is it kind of spoiling the dogs because all the messages are needs and asks?
We are seeing anecdotally evidence of them being able to express all sorts of interesting things. Lots of dogs have been able to express pain before it's physically visible to guardians. Lots of guardians now being able to understand more specifically what their dogs want. They can go over to their board Enact their agency and say, I would like to go for a walk in the park. They can get more precise about what they need in the moment.