Furbo Dog Camera Review: Ultimate Treat Launcher

Furbo Pet Cam Review

Founded in 2014, Tomofun, the company behind Furbo, is dedicated to bringing joy and innovation to every pet lover in the world. Their story began from a simple yet emotional comment from a pet parent: “Dogs spend most of their lives waiting for us at home.” This struck a chord with CEO Victor Chang and the rest of the Tomofun team, which sparked the originating idea of Furbo. Fast forward a couple years and the Furbo Pet Camera went down in history as one of the most successfully crowd-funded pet products ever, raising over $500k on June 26, 2016 with nearly 4,000 supporters.  Pre-orders and wait-lists were long for Furbo since there was such a strong demand, but we’re happy to say we got our hands on one to test, review, and compare to other pet cameras. Let’s dive right into the design, main features, and performance of the Furbo Dog Camera.

Unboxing

Furbo is packaged amazingly well for shipment. Our Furbo was ordered from Amazon, so it came inside of a standard Amazon box. Inside the Amazon box was a brown Furbo box. Inside the brown Furbo box was the actual product packaging/box that you would find on a store shelf. And inside the retail box was the Furbo, perfectly cushioned in packing foam. Jeesh. This is never a bad thing though (we’ll take extra protection any day), so long as you recycle! Inside the box you’ll find the Furbo camera itself, power adapter, a 7 foot long USB cable (YES! We hate short cords! Plus its also a fancy non-tangle cord), and a quick start guide.

Setup

Design

Sleek shiny curves with a wood-like finish on top adds a strong modern style that makes any tech gadget guru want one, let alone pet parents. The front of the camera includes the microphone/speaker, camera lens, and the infamous treat popper. A glowing indicator lights up the treat popper and base of the Furbo to let you know connectivity status and that everything is good to go. In addition, the base of the Furbo comes from the factory with 3M adhesive tape to secure it to a counter, shelf, or table. This durability test video shows how well the adhesive works.

Furbo’s sophisticated and modern design certainly gets an A+ in our book. Actually, this is definitely our favorite, but we may be slightly biased – we happen to have three kitchen canisters that match the Furbo flawlessly. I guess we found our location to set this up!

Features

Video & Sound Quality

Furbo has a 720p HD camera; while this falls short of some competitors on our list of best pet cameras, the fact that Furbo has infrared LED night vision more than makes up for it. In fact, this is one of very few pet cameras that actually have night vision. Furbo also has a 120 degree wide angle lens and 4x digital zoom. As for sound, Furbo uses two-way audio so you and your dog can both hear each other. Voice quality matches other pet cameras out there; quality is fine but there is a bit of delay solely because of WiFi connections. One of the only things we did not like is that it seems as if you cannot disable audio. Meaning, when you open the app, it’s picking up the all sound that the Furbo hears. As a result, if you place it near a TV, it’s picking up that sound. Also, if you’re peaking in on your pet while in the office, any sounds happening near the Furbo may be heard through your phone.

Bark Alerts

The microphone also enables one of Furbo’s most unique features: bark alert. This is the only pet camera that has barking alerts! Barking alerts will notify your smartphone whenever Furbo hears your dog barking. This device is actually smart enough to determine barking over other noises in the house, so you do not constantly receive alerts from every sound. You can also adjust the sensitivity of the bark alerts.

Treat Dispenser

Using Furbo’s app, you can pop a treat to your dog from anywhere in the world. Furbo’s treat dispenser is definitely a step above the rest currently on the market. We tested with varying shapes and sizes of treats (and even some regular dog food) and it did not clog at all. With smaller treats, it may toss out multiple at one time, but at least it didn’t clog! Sound and lights alert your dog that a treat is coming, so that it doesn’t catch them off guard like the Petzi camera did to our dog.

Smart Privacy Mode

Another unique feature to Furbo is Smart Privacy Mode. When enabled, Furbo will automatically shut off when you return home. This works by knowing when your smartphone reaches the same WiFi connection as Furbo. Privacy Mode is especially useful when devices have sound and movement notifications which would keep alerting your phone as you walk around the house. This amazing feature eliminates unwanted notifications!

Additional Impressive Features

Furbo stepped up their game by packing a lot of additional features into one device, including:

• Apple Watch compatibility
• iOS and Android Apps (available now)
• Social Media sharing
• Photo and video storage

Final Thoughts and Performance

Furbo is disrupting the connected pet market with their interactive pet cam, training device and treat dispenser. They perfected the treat dispenser while ensuring phenomenal design and usability. Tons of impressive features are packed into this amazingly designed gadget and it will certainly impress any pet owner. After using and reviewing every interactive pet camera on the market, we find ourselves using Furbo the most.

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