If you have a cat or dog in your family you know they can be a lot of fun but also a royal pain
sometimes. They always seem to want to play when you are most tired. They’re lonely when
you’re not at home leading some dogs in particular to tear up a pillow or two. And don’t even get
me started on the finicky cats that don’t want you one second and then won’t get off of you the
next.
Pet Tech is coming to the rescue, one of the fastest-growing categories of electronics, these pet
tech gadgets are designed to help you while keeping your pet entertained.
Cat owners, you and I know one of the worst jobs in the world is changing a litter box. They’re
smelly, dirty, and you wish you never had to do it again. One of the most helpful robots in the
universe is a robot litter box.
The Litter Robot has been out for several years now. The egg-shaped enclosure holds the
litter. The idea is the cat goes into the Litter Robot and does their business. After they finish and
hop out, the Litter Robot waits a couple of minutes to make sure it is clear then rotates to dump
the clumps.
The clean litter is screened into another enclosure while the clumps fall into a bag below. The
robot rotates again to replace the clean litter. It’s pretty fascinating to watch really. It even levels
it off. once a week remove the bag of dirty litter and toss it in the trash. And it can be used by
multiple cats in the home.
In case you’re wondering, cats do learn how the Litter Robot works. At least mine did. What
worked for us is we set the Litter Robot next to the litter box she was using and after a few days
removed the old stinky litter box.
Another tech gadget might work for some cats but dogs seem to be the most obvious. Fluent
Pet is a series of tiles with speaker buttons that, the company claims, will teach dogs to talk.
This gadget went viral on TikTok a couple of years ago.
The idea with Fluent Pet is to give each tile and button a specific word such as “toy”, “hungry”,
“outside”, or “play”. As the dog learns which tile plays which word, you reward the very good boy
or girl with a treat. In time the pup knows which tile triggers what they are trying to say.
I saw the Fluent Pet demonstrated at CES in January and watched as a cute pup responded
correctly when her master asked, “What is this?”.
In a short amount of time dogs learn to use the buttons to ask to go outside, tell you they’re
hungry, or even say “I love you”. If the pet owner isn’t home, the app will send it in a text
message.
For dog and cat owners, there are these robot friends. These have cameras and microphones
so you can check in to see how they’re doing or just say hi so they’re not lonely. Send them
treats when you’re away using the app. Cats love it because it can use a laser for playtime.
I’ve personally used one of these pet robots to keep an eye on our cat when we were away from
home, (yes, we did have someone taking care of our pet while we were away) so we could look
in and say hi. The GL Pets robot has a camera that not only shows a live feed of your pet but
can record videos and take photos.
It’s interesting just how fast pets adapt to having robots in the house.