Working with a cat near your desk can be an adventure. A casual stroll across the keyboard and suddenly your document is full of random characters or your game character has jumped into the void. KeyBlu is a Mac application that detects your pet's presence via the camera or a sensor, instantly locking the keyboard. It is designed to be lightweight and unobtrusive, distinguishing between a feline paw and a human hand.
How paw detection works compared to human hands 🐾
KeyBlu uses a vision algorithm that analyzes the shape and movement of objects approaching the keyboard. Instead of using a simple proximity sensor that would trigger with anything, the application trains a lightweight model to differentiate the size and texture of a cat's paw from a human hand. This prevents false locks when the user is typing normally. The process runs locally, without sending data to the cloud, and consumes few system resources, allowing the Mac to continue running without slowdowns.
The day my cat wanted to write a novel 📖
Of course, there is always a cat that takes this as a personal challenge. Mine, after installing KeyBlu, decided that its mission was to lie down exactly on the camera sensor. The result: the keyboard locked every time it approached, but also when I tried to move it away. The app worked, but it had found a way to turn my desk into its heated bed. At least now the documents don't have stray letters from its side.