I was sent a Furbo interactive dog camera for review. All opinions are my own.
I live in a duplex. The neighbors who live in the other half of the house have a dog who cries the entire time they are gone. I work from home so I am home during normal working hours, and I was listening to the poor dog howl all day. Thankfully we just talked to them about it, and they said they had no idea it had been crying while they were gone. They started closing him in the room farthest from our side of the house. We can still hear him cry but it’s much easier to ignore now that it is quieter.
It made me realize that most pet owners have no idea how their pet behaves when they aren’t home, unless there is some proof remaining when they get back home. If they tore into something or had an accident you’ll find that. Otherwise, it’s really hard to know!
I was eager to find out by using Furbo. Furbo is a new interactive dog camera. It can sync up with your phone so you can view the video feed while you are away from home. It has a compartment where you can store treats, and a button that lets you dispense the treats from afar. It also has a microphone option so you can speak into your phone and let your dogs hear what you are saying at home.
We were a little surprised by what we learned! We learned that my one dog is pretty silent when we’re gone. The other will bark if she hears a vehicle. So, if we’re gone and the mailman stops to drop a package then she’ll bark at him, and keep barking for quite a while. The same is true if someone knocks and then leaves. We set up Furbo to alert our phone if it detects barking while we are away. If you have a dog who would calm down when given a voice command or dispensed a treat this would be a wonderful way to calm your dog down. Unfortunately, our dogs seem to bark even more if they hear us on the mic but can’t see us. However, they have never had any kind of official training so perhaps it’s something we should dedicate training time to so that we could use it to calm them down.
We also learned that they explore the house a lot more when we are gone! When we are home they mostly stay put, laying on the couch, or maybe in their dog bed for probably 80% of the time. When we are home they will lay for periods of time, but they frequently get up to look around the house which they don’t ever do if we are home. Maybe they are just checking to make sure we aren’t in a different part of the house? I’m not really sure but it was funny to observe on the camera.
Ryan and I both have phones that were very affordable, and neither model is particularly new. However, the app works wonderfully with our phones. We rarely get disconnected or need to reload the app.
Excuse my messy living room but here is a rough idea of what the Furbo lets you see via their app.
Perhaps best of all, it’s really easy to use so we have really used it pretty regularly. We simply turn it on and make sure it’s plugged in before we leave the house. If we are just running to the bank or the grocery store we don’t usually check it at all unless it notifies us that they are barking. However, if we have a full day of errands to run it’s nice to check on them throughout the day just for peace of mind.
Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.
This post currently has 15 responses.
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Heather
This is the neatest thing I have seen in a while! I would love to see what my Roscoe does when I am not here!
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DJ
I have always wondered what my fur babies do during the day. It would be really neat to see what really happens when the parents are gone. I bet my pup gets into a lot of stuff while we are gone.
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Lauryn R
This is such a great idea! I have always thought that it would be so fun to see what our animals do when we aren’t home. 🙂 I definitely want to get one of these now! Thanks for sharing.
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Cynthia R
I have three cats, I’m sure like the dogs most of the time they are just laying around sleeping, but I’ve often wanted to get a camera and see what they are up to when I’m not there. This is a neat item.
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Cheryl
I’m usually at home with my dogs all day, but this is a great idea for people who are away at work or travel.
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Melissa Storms
This is fantastic! Our dog and cat really are not home alone very often but when I have shopping or errands to run I worry about our chihuahua, she is very attached to all of us. I would love to be able to see them both and offer treats when I am not home.
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Jennifer Boehme
My neighbors say my Sophia barks when I leave, yet I don’t hear her but once in a while. This would be nice to see what she does, or how she acts when I leave, and I like the treat spot on it.
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gloria patterson
I love it they must think you are playing hide and seek with them when they can hear you but not see you. That may be the one thing they are missing they should have a way to see you. this would be great for a lot of furbabys
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Linda Bradshaw
This would be perfect for my stepdaughter. She loves her furbabies and worries about them when she goes to work.
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Robin Creager
I love the wide angle view from the phone app. I’ve always wanted one of these since I started working 12 hr. night shifts and don’t get to spend a whole lot of time with my babies and I do tend to miss them. This is quite a clever gadget to have for pet owners with pets they have to leave at home.
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MeMe R
I am looking for another pet cam. I have a great one by zmodo but it’s not in color, does have night vision and it’s great cause I can move it around. I am not sure about giving cookies to my pets while I’m not home cause I would come back to some hurt feelings lol. This camera is still over priced and it has been on the market for a long time. Hopefully it will come down soon, as I like that it is in color.
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My friend was telling me about problems she is having with her dog. It looks like to her that the dog never moves while she is gone to work. I told her about this and and forward link to her. She is going to get it so she can talk to her furbaby while she is gone for the day.
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Rosie
This is nice! I never thought about how a dog could start barking if they hear your voice, but you aren’t actually there. Many folks may not realize their dogs bark all day long!
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katie
I would love to see what our dog does all day. Sometimes when we’re gone for hours he’s on the same spot on the couch when we left but always curious if he’s fooling us haha
What a nice gadget, piece of mind when we are away and possibly some fun, while whaching