It's For the Birds: AI-Powered Bird Buddy Gamifies Birdwatching
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How close can you get with a bird? Following a recent encounter with a pigeon (see video below), we can tell you that a bird on a mission to get some food will get all kinds of familiar. Traditional bird feeders offer a meal in return for a show you can watch from your window. The Bird Buddy — showcased at this year’s CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) — lets you get even more up close and personal.
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The Bird Buddy smart bird feeder comes equipped with a high-res camera that will capture and record your feathered friends as they snack at your bird feeder. It connects to your phone via Wi-Fi, letting you view short recordings of your visitors and sending you notifications when a bird stops by.
The app does more than show you the birds — it teaches you about them. The Bird Buddy recognizes over 1,000 species and can identify them thanks to artificial intelligence. According to a press release, while you learn about the species flying about your area, “You are also contributing extremely important information to a database of bird migrations and populations, helping experts better understand and protect them.”
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Bird Buddy purportedly is one of the top crowd-funded products of all time — and it’s pretty clear why. The wide-angle lens of the camera lends itself to bird photos that look like selfies. Plus, the app gamifies birdwatching with a collect-’em-all, trading-card-style format that unlocks new species as they visit your feeder.
The Bird Buddy has several available attachments, including a solar roof that can power the device, a suet ball holder and a drinking fountain. If you don’t opt for the solar roof, you will need to recharge the detachable battery every five to 15 days with a USB-C cable.
The Bird Buddy is available now. At the time of publishing, the product has sold out, but the manufacturer is taking preorders for the next go-round. The Bird Buddy starts at $199 for the base model. Mounts, accessories and the solar roof come in the Pro Bundle, which goes for $315.
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This is part of our CES 2023 coverage. Follow along here and on our social media channels:
