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We all want to know what our pets are really doing when we’re not home. The petcam market has responded with more features than ever. This often includes interactive components, from two-way speakers to treat tossing. We took one of the most feature-packed cameras currently available, the Furbo, out for review to see if it lives up to its price tag.
How Does the Furbo Work?
The Furbo is pretty easy to get started as soon as you pull it out of the box. To set it up, put it on a flat surface where you think the camera will get the best unobstructed views of the room where your pet spends the most time. Plug it in, scan the QR code on the product insert to download the app to your smartphone, and then follow the app instructions to connect the Furbo to Bluetooth and your home WiFi network.
Once it’s connected, you control the camera via your phone. There are a couple of options for viewing your pet at home: Touch the “play” control on the live video feed to watch real time, or just review the clips that Furbo uploads every few minutes. It saves these clips for 24 hours. There’s a version of the Furbo for cats as well—in addition to treat-tossing, it has an attachment for toys that your pet can interact with.
Specs and features
- Tosses treats
- 360-degree rotation; 160-degree wide-angle view
- Follows your pet’s movement around the space
- Smart features include notifications for particular behaviors, such as barking
- Two-way speaker function
- Requires Bluetooth connection for phone app control and WiFi for online access
- 1-year warranty
- 30-day free trial for Furbo Dog Nanny subscription
Testing the Furbo Pet Camera
How we used the pet cam
We’ve often wondered what our household pets, which include our dog Pepper and our parrot Mango, get up to when we’re not home.
We had some suspicions: That Pepper tended to be on high alert most of the time we’re not home, waiting for us to return. That she freely helped herself to one of the chairs that she’s technically not allowed on (the only one—she honestly has the run of the house otherwise) to get the best view out the living room picture window. So the opportunity to review the Furbo, one of the higher-end pet cams on the market, came at just the right time for our crew.
Generally, I only wanted the camera on when I wasn’t home. Turning the camera on and off as you need it is so easy, at first I missed the toggle to do it—it’s right on the video feed screen next to the name of the room the camera is in (you can customize this).
Toggle the dot labeled “Living Room” to turn the live feed on and back off.
The Furbo follows your pet’s movements and can rotate 360-degrees to do so—so there are no (or very few, depending on placement) blind spots with this pet camera. It’s tuned to note a variety of behaviors, including barking or howling, whether there’s a person in the frame, and when there’s a high amount of activity. You can customize alerts for these actions, so that the app will notify you for things you want to know about right away, if any. Or you can review the uploaded clips at your leisure.
There’s a machine learning function, in which the Furbo app asks you what your dog is doing in a given video clip. You review the clip and options to help teach it to recognize your dog’s behavior. Most of the time, however, none of the options applied.
Amusingly, Pepper was doing none of these things.
The ability to toss a treat, speak to your dog, or simply listen to what’s happening in their room at the moment, happens in the live feed. You can toggle the sound between a one- and two-way option.
You’ll see a treat icon in the bottom center of the live screen. Tap it, and it will make a sound to get your dog’s attention, and then toss a treat (or a few, as we found when we loaded too-small kibble into the dispenser).
How the Furbo helped us train our pets
The Furbo was useful because it both revealed and confirmed some things about Pepper’s (and Mango’s) home-alone behavior.
As we suspected, Pepper isn’t particularly relaxed when we leave the house. She either sits in “her” chair or on the couch, and when there are sounds outside—or if the parrot starts squawking because he hears something—she howl-barks. And occasionally she sits on the chair she’s not supposed to sit on—but not on the seat, on the top of the back (that had us laughing for quite a few days).
So while barricading that particular chair from further sits, we experimented with the treat toss function to distract Pepper from some of those other unwanted behaviors, such as howling. First, I would talk through the speaker to get her attention, then toss a treat. After she found the treat, I asked her to go to her bed—and she did.
Pepper comes up to the Furbo for a treat, then lays on her bed as requested.
Ultimately, using the Furbo in this way requires consistency, much like any training. But once you get the hang of it and your dog gets used to hearing your voice coming from the Furbo, you can experiment with how to best use it. Maybe you want to train a certain set of behaviors while you’re out of the house, or maybe you simply want your dog to have positive associations with being alone at home.
All of this is made easier if your dog is treat-motivated; if they’re not, you may find the treat-tossing function less useful than the two-way speaker.
Tips for using the Furbo
- Placement is KEY—especially if you’re treat-tossing. This may seem obvious, but it wasn’t to us; we focused on placement for camera view and didn’t consider where treats might get tossed. Our first one involved a treat that landed on the ottoman, which led to Pepper hopping up onto it to get it. We don’t encourage treat-hunting or eating on furniture, so that was a partial fail.
- Review your treat sizes: Furbo recommends using round treats of about 0.4-inch diameter. You can use smaller sizes, but that means your dog will be getting multiple treats in one toss, which is what we found when we loaded it with kibble and it sprayed out a few pieces at a time. The upside? You can turn that into a quick game of “go find it” to keep your dog busy as they find the scattered treats, if you’re so inclined.
- Talking through the speaker is best in a quiet place where there isn’t a lot of ambient noise that might spook your pup.
Our Furbo Review Recommendation
At about $200, plus a monthly subscription fee, it’s not the cheapest pet camera out there. Our review showed that the Furbo is packed with features that work well right out of the box, with intuitive functions and easy phone compatibility (at least for our testing with an iPhone).
We sometimes found being able to track Pepper’s movements in the house to be distracting—it’s another app to pay attention to. And interactivity, like treat tossing and speaking to your dog, takes time and attention.
If being able to spend time with your dog when you’re not with them is what you are hoping for in an interactive dog camera, then the Furbo is a great choice. If you’re simply looking for an inside peek at what your dog is doing when you’re not home, then you might look at cheaper and simpler options.
Who would like it:
- Pet parents who want to see their pets on camera and also spend time with them remotely (creating positive associations by speaking with them and/or tossing them a treat once in a while)
- Dogs who are food-motivated, as well as those who are motivated hearing pet parent voices
- People who prefer a 360-degree view and pretty seamless integration and control with smart phones
- Pet parents who want a remote training tool
Who wouldn’t:
- Pet parents who need a budget-friendly camera with fewer bells and whistles
- Pet parents who are interested in monitoring their pet—but not interacting with them—when they’re not home
- Dogs who are easily spooked and may not like a device that rotates and makes noise
- Dogs who aren’t food-motivated and wouldn’t really benefit from treat-tossing—there are other pet cameras that have the two-way audio only, or those that simply provide video with no interactivity
Further Reading
- The 8 Best Pet Cameras to Help You Keep an Eye on Your Dog & Cat
- The Wyze Pet Camera is a Strong Budget Pick
- Need to Watch Your Pets? Get a Security Camera Instead of a Pet Camera
