If you've ever had a stray cat come in your pet door at night, you know that event usually leads to shenanigans. If you have the time and funds you can construct a secure pet door that only lets your cat or dog in after scanning the RFID tag on a pet collar, taking a webcam photo of your pet entering or exiting, and tweeting the event.
This project started as an Instructable from user e1ioan, but has now grown so popular that e1ioan has created a site for the project and offers kits for those who are lazy or uncomfortable with soldering.
It isn't a cheap project—you'll need a RFID reader, a micro server to act as a latch control, a webcam, a router running Open WRT, and several semiconductors, capacitors, resistors, and other electrical hardware as well as a flap-type pet door. From a quick look online the budget for this project seems to be in the $100-150 range if you do everything yourself. The source link below offers loads of schematics, step-by-step instructions, and the complete code needed for the project. But if you're a techy pet-lover this might be for you.
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What do you think so far?
