A Manhattan inventor may have come up with the next big thing for man’s best friend.
PlayDate is a 3-inch orange ball embedded with a high-def camera that you can control and watch on your smartphone. Owners can change the direction of the ball, take photos, make it “squeak” and bark commands to their pooches or kitties.
Co-founder Kevin Li, 33, got the idea after adopting his Rhodesian ridgeback-Lab mix, Hulk, in 2013.
“I wanted to make sure Hulk was getting proper exercise, lots of socializations,” said Li of Chelsea. “So I built an activity tracker . . . But looking at his sad face every time I left for work, I realized he didn’t need more tracking he needed more time with his best friend.”
Li, who is an adjunct computer-science professor at Columbia, described the $249 gadget as “Fitbit meets iPhone localization.”
He has already raised nearly $200,000 on Indiegogo and has sold out of pre-orders.