myQ Pet Portal
an app enabled smart door for your dog by Chamberlain Group
Research
Our extensive research included facilitating interviews, creating surveys, benchmarking existing products and understanding how current pet owners utilize their homes and take care of their pets.
The main prompt we were given was simple: design an access solution for dogs that works with an existing sliding glass door. In a nutshell, we refuted the original prompt with research, and decided a full blown front door with a built in doggie door would do the trick.
67% of U.S. households have pets
Yet… 80% of pet parents feel guilty leaving their pets at home
So why don’t more pet parents have dog doors?
96% of pet parents surveyed dont have pet doors because they lack:
Ideation
We went through idea after idea regarding ways to open a door, from a small motorized wheel at the bottom, to extremely strong electromagnets, to a linear actuator. Eventually we came up with the idea for a full door replacement, with a moving panel for your dog.
Prototypes
we were able to create a working breadboard model to understand if the mechanics and programming were possible and eventually had a full sized door manufactured as proof of concept.
App
Our final presentation had a final working version of the app that was able to control the dog door. Many of the original features are included in the final version that is out today.
Pet Portal won the Best of Innovation Award for the Smart Home category at CES in 2021, and was featured on multiple news platforms.
Meet the Team
In spring of 2019, I worked at Chamberlain within a group of 6 interns who were the catalyst of myQ’s Pet Portal. The team was made up of two industrial designers, two UX/UI designers, a computer science engineer and an electrical engineer.
Chamberlain Group