These winners of the 2025 Pet Hacks challenge make for some amazing inspiration for your next DIY project

I've covered a lot of Raspberry Pi projects in my time, but my favorite ones have to be the devices that involve pets in some way. People have gotten really inventive with how they use technology to fix their pets' annoying habits, and there are endless projects ranging from fitness trainers to diet enforcers.

If you're thinking of combining your love for tech with your adoration for your fluffy friend, I have some good news. The 2025 Pet Hacks competition has just announced its winners and runners-up, so if you need something to get the creative juices flowing, why not check out what's on display?

The 2025 Pet Hacks competition crowns its winners

The annual Pet Hacks competition is held by Hackaday, which gathers up all the entries and gives the ones that stand out the most the recognition they deserve. This year, Hackaday crowned a trio of projects as "the top three," and by the way the selection is worded, it doesn't seem like the judges liked one more than the other. Just three really good projects.

The first one, and my personal favorite, is the all-caps project CAT AT THE DOOR. Its main goal is to warn owners as to when the cat is sitting outside of their door to prevent any claws from digging into the woodwork in frustration:

CAT AT THE DOOR is an open-source project that lets you know when your cat is waiting to come inside—no more missed meows or scratching at the door.

[...]

How it works:

The Stationary device uses a radar sensor to detect motion.

If something moves, it checks for BLE tags worn by your cat(s).

If a registered tag is found, the Portable unit alerts you (display, buzzer).

The two devices talk via LoRa, ensuring a strong signal—even through walls or floors.

The second one, Cat Bowl Monitor, solves the issue of two cats on different diets. One cat would really prefer to chow down on the other's food instead of its own. To solve this, the inventor created an Android app that acts as a "cat face detector" and will only unlock the food bowl for the correct feline.

The third project, the Cat Valve, came to life after someone's cat brought in one too many successful hunting trophies into the house. The Cat Valve allows the kitty free access when going outside, but when it wants to come back in, it has to sit tight in a special "cat airlock" while the owners look at it through a camera to check for any mice being dragged in.

There are also a nice collection of honorable mentions, so if you want to give them all a browse, be sure to head over to Hackaday and check them all out.