Smart Dog Collar Tells You What Your Dog Is Feeling

A dog collar that is capable of detecting the emotions of a dog and communicate them to humans has been invented by a Japanese biologist.

The smart collar device is named Inupathy—Inu means dog in Japanese—and was developed by Joji Yamaguchi to better understand his own dog.

"I was always worried about my dog's nervousness and wanted a way to learn how to make him relaxed," Yamaguchi tells Newsweek. "So I invented a device capable of analyzing the rhythm of a heart beat."

"I found a relation between the pattern and the behavior of dogs and managed to detect emotional states such as excitement, happiness and concentration," he adds.

Yamaguchi describes Inupathy as "the world's first mental visualizer for dogs." It works by measuring the heart rate, analyzing the animal's emotional state and conveying it through embedded color LEDs on the back of the device.

Earlier this year, a similar device was conceived by U.K. pet store Fetch, which proposed a similar type of communication system that worked through a smartphone app, appropriately called WhatsYapp.

Despite its promise of being the "most advanced communications system" between dogs and humans, a working device has still not come to market.

Yamaguchi says his collar has already helped him to understand how different environments affect his dog and has gained some interesting insights into everyday situations.

"I've learnt that the distance between me and my dog, and whether I'm touching him or not is very important," Yamaguchi says. "He is also more relaxed with the door of a room closed, rather than opened."