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One of the best things that has come from the blossoming of RFID technology in recent years is the plethora of project available to the geek who likes to make their own cool stuff. A number of these RFID projects can be found in books like RFID Toys; cool projects for home. RFID Toys contains complete instructions for creating an RFID enabled pet door, as well as for making your own smart shelves, RFID theft detection, or RFID access for your car or home. It even discusses how to get yourself implanted with an RFID chip, if that’s what you are after.
Of course, a pet door like this isn’t without its own security issues; after all, if your pet has an RFID tag on it’s collar, anyone who wants to break into your house could simply remove the RFID tag while your pet is out, leaving said pet up a creek and some criminal with a key to your home. Still, the project has two strong advantages for people who like to make stuff. First, the idea of an RFID enabled pet door is simply cool, and if you aren’t concerned about home security, cool is probably good enough to make the project worth it.
Second, many pets are implanted with RFID chips that are used to identify who the animal belongs to if it is picked up by animal control. Since these RFID tags are surgically implanted, they can’t be easily removed from your pet–and, perhaps just as importantly, it’s not as obvious exactly what is allowing your pet into your house–and keeping anything else out. If you could use your animal’s implanted RFID to activate a pet door, it would represent a slightly more secure (but still equally cool) solution. Another cool RFID application for your pet that wouldn’t entail nearly as much security risk would be controlled access to food and water outside your house, so that you know by the power of RFID that you won’t be feeding strays.