The Plexidoor Electronic Pet Door: Open, Dear Sesame

Is your pet a gadabout town? Does he or she need constant access and egress to maintain that secret tomcat or “bad dog” nightlife when all who pay for room and board are sleeping unawares? If so, the answer has come in the form of an automatic door.

What’s new in the world of automatic sliding pet doors? The cold, hi-tech hand of technology has once again come through to enhance the lives of pets and their owners with the debut of the RFID-based automatic sliding door. What’s that you ask, above the incessant barking and scratching and yearning to be free and other things? RFID is an acronym, which stands for an automatic radio-frequency identification method (sorry if you knew; I didn’t). It is a system that relies on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. How does this cool automatic door work? The Plexidoor Electronic Sliding Door operates the same way as a garage door, but instead of a button opening the door ingress is achieved via an RFID chip attached to the collar of your pet (far enough away from the proverbial chip on the shoulder). The beauty of this automatic sliding door is that your pets can come and go as they please but other unwanted critters including burglars cannot, which is often the problem with regular flap doors. When the animal approaches, the door is thus informed to automatically slide up. It then slides shut after your pet passes through, and a safety mechanism ensures that the animal doesn't get caught in the door. To complement the “open sesame effect,” a strange sort of squeegee sound completes the process. How much will this cool sliding door set the average consumer back? Well, that depend son the selected size of the door. Prices range from $700 to $800 depending on size and model. It is currently available in bronze and white and needs no batteries to operate. Never more will anyone ever have to ask: Who let the dog out?