The best new tech for pets
Garmin Blaze Equine Wellness System
Price: £519.99
Our own health and fitness data can be hugely compelling when it’s analysed and displayed in an app. The same goes for that of our beloved mogs, pooches – and, in this case, horses. The market for equine wearables has developed more slowly than for domestic pets, partly because that market is smaller, but also because it’s difficult to get accurate data from horses outside of veterinary conditions. There have been attempts to repurpose human wearables, but according to Katelyn Clardy, a product marketing manager at Garmin (who is also a horse owner), getting reliable readings can require shaving off patches of hair or applying gel.
“We noted that the underside of a horse’s tail is almost hairless and has similarities to the human wrist,” she says. “So we took our learnings from our watch technology and applied it to horses.” The Blaze Equine Wellness System is the result of these learnings, and it is indeed watch-sized, slotting tightly into a wrap that is held in place around the base of the horse’s tail with Velcro straps. “We did a lot of testing on all kinds of horses, and after a couple of seconds they would forget it was there,” says Clardy.
Set-up and pairing is no different to any other wearable; it works in tandem with the Blaze app on a smartphone or Garmin watch, sending live data – heart rate and skin temperature, but also gait, stride length, distance travelled – to build a picture of your horse’s performance and wellbeing. (There’s also a Transport mode, allowing you to keep tabs on the horse’s heart rate while it’s travelling.) “It’s really interesting to have these tools at our fingertips, because [this data] isn’t something that’s been easy to access,” says Clardy. “Now we have some evidence to hand before we start calling the vet.”
Unlike human wearables, the Blaze isn’t meant to be used 24/7; you’ll typically pop it on the horse for an hour a day, maybe to coincide with a riding activity that you initiate within the app. Then remove, recharge (while cleaning the wrap – it’s made from easily scrubbed Neoprene) and repeat.
Collar TV
Noerden PetPOV HD camera collar
Price: £49.99
This tiny camera, roughly 6cm x 2cm x 2cm, sits inside a soft case with an adjustable collar attached, ready to become an action cam for your pet. You’ll need to slot in your own MicroSD card and press the record button yourself (because pets can do neither of these things), but thereafter dog’s-eye and cat’s-eye footage is recorded to the card, ready to watch on the 1in screen or, more sensibly, to transfer to another device via a USB-C cable. The quality is reasonable, the action chaotic, the narrative bewildering. (Beware the possibility of your cat effectively becoming a neighbourhood spy and returning home with unbroadcastable material.)
Need for feed
PetKit YumShare Solo 2 with camera
Price: £159.99
The original camera-equipped YumShare Solo was designed for one pet, dispensing kibble to a daily or weekly plan, recognising when food had been eaten and letting you stay on top of feeding remotely via your smartphone. This new version ups the recognition capabilities of the camera, detecting different pets to keep track of who has eaten how much and when. It also recognises when the bowl still has food in it (to prevent new being added to old) and, unprecedentedly, has vomit detection – although this latter feature is still in beta. But even without these bells and whistles, it operates really well as a reliable, monitorable remote feeder, with a cat-proof three-litre hopper that fully disassembles for cleaning.
Fast track
Fi Series 3+ tracker
Price: from £339 for a two-year membership
Ideally you’d want a dog tracker to be more reliable than the average tag, and combine great connectivity with durability. Fi (pronounced as in WiFi) incorporates four wireless connection methods into this collar-mounted tracker, swapping between them as necessary to prolong battery life. First, to a small base station that sits at home and knows when your dog’s nearby. Next, the proximity of the dog’s owners is checked via their respective smartphones. Then it looks to WiFi networks of places the dog visits regularly, and lastly via GPS and cellular. It also doubles as a doggy step counter (not to mention a barking, eating and drinking monitor).
All that litters
Petsafe ScoopFree SmartSpin litter box
Price: £399.99
As you assemble this cat litter box – a 30.5cm-diameter sphere with four Ercol-style wooden legs – it feels rather extravagant for its intended purpose, but it’s very cleverly designed. Inside the sphere goes the cat litter; below it slots in a waste box lined with a bag. The unit monitors the internal weight to sense a cat’s arrival; then, a few minutes after its exit, the sphere begins to slowly rotate, sifting unused litter for the next visit while dumping clumped litter into the waste bag. There’s no danger to the cat, and it’s olfactorily inoffensive thanks to the deodoriser in the waste drawer. Naturally, it connects to an app that tells you how often the box has been used and when the waste needs emptying.
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