Build a Dedicated TV for Your Kitties!
Check out this adorable mini TV that Becky Stern designed to keep her cat, Benchley, entertained.
Many of us who own pets feel some guilt when we have to leave them alone for a while, like when we head off to work or take 2 minutes to check the mailbox. One popular solution is to turn on a TV to keep the furballs entertained. There is a myth that animals can’t see the 2D images, but that isn’t true. And the sounds can appeal to pets, too. That’s why Becky Stern built this adorable mini TV for her cat, Benchley, to enjoy watching his programs.
There are a couple of benefits to this. The first is that it should consume less power than the kinds of massive LCD TVs that most people keep in their living rooms these days. It is also very compact, so Stern can put it where Benchley likes to relax.
As Stern points out, this is really more of a small computer than a TV in the traditional sense. It packs a full-on single-board computer (SBC), so it can display any content. Stern’s primary content source is YouTube, which has lots of endless video playlists curated specifically to suit feline palates. But it can also stream videos from other services or even play content stored locally.
This is all possible thanks to the internal Raspberry Pi SBC. Stern tested it with both a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and a Raspberry Pi 5 Model B. Both have more than enough horsepower for this job. The screen is a 5” Elecrow Capacitive Touch LCD Display with a resolution of 800×480. That’s not the highest resolution display available, but we doubt that cats care. Power comes from a USB power supply (make sure you get one with sufficient current!) and audio pumps out through an Adafruit USB speaker.
Those components all fit into a nice-looking 3D-printable enclosure. It has a honeycomb grill pattern, which allows for airflow in order to eliminate the need for a cooling fan. Users can connect a USB keyboard and mouse to load YouTube playlists, but we suggest setting up some sort of remote control from a smartphone. That would reduce clutter and make it easier to queue up your pet’s favorite videos. Or you can simply use the touchscreen with onscreen keyboard to do the same thing.