Temptations' New Tech Allows Your Cat to Talk

Have you ever wondered what your cat is saying to you? Does that mysterious, soft meow mean 'I'm hungry', or 'give us a cuddle'? Does your feline companion want to tell you the cat flap's broken, or alert you to the fact that the headless, bloody corpse of a sparrow is now in your kitchen and that, actually, you're welcome?

Well, wonder no more as Temptations has, with the help of Acne and adam&eveDDB, come up with Catterbox, the world's first talking cat collar.

The cat, almost literally, has now got your tongue. 

Catterbox houses a microphone, speaker, Bluetooth technology and wi-fi allowing cats’ meows to be recorded, processed, and then translated into human speech, resulting in a completely new, breakthrough device that will allow you to interact with your cat. And yes, you read that right.

The collar also connects to the Temptations Catterbox smartphone app, which allows cat owners to choose their cat’s new human voice from a range of options.

Acne's R&D department undertook initial research, design, prototyping, development and manufacture of the collar while digital and design teams worked on the app and the collar interface as well as the brand identity.

"Chatterbox is produced with the help of speech recognition to detect and analyse the many different 'meows' of cats," says Acne's creative director, Johan Holmgren. "After scientific analysis, the necklace translates cat-language into something that we humans are able to understand. We wanted to created something that’s actually useful for cat owners, and help them become closer to the their cats and understand them in a way they’ve never been able to do before.”