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Furbo Dog Camera Review: Ultimate Treat Launcher


  • Video Quality
  • Voice Quality
  • Ease of Use
  • Features

Summary

We gave the new Furbo Dog Camera 5 out of 5 stars for their impressive treat launcher, modern design, and unique features. Furbo absolutely outperformed our expectations, and is now our go-to device.


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5

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 the Furbo pet cam
Furbo is packaged extremely well and gives off that excitement you get when buying a fun new gadget. Or maybe I’m weird.

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.

Furbo contents
Here’s what you will find when unboxing Furbo. Furbo pet camera, charger, USB cable, and 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 design and base
The overall design of Furbo is unmatched. Added 3M tape on the base adds extra stability.

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!

Furbo design comparison
Furbo just happened to match these canisters in our kitchen, where we plan on keeping it.

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.

Furbo Video Quality
Furbo’s video quality is impressive for only being 720p and not full 1080i.

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.

Furbo's treat popper in action
Furbo’s treat popper in action.

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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Furbo Pet Cam

11 thoughts on “Furbo Dog Camera Review: Ultimate Treat Launcher

  1. After months of hype waiting for our Furbo to arrive, it finally showed up at our house last night. We set it up (Android phone, major connectivity issues, only worked on one of two phones) and proceeded to try it out. Unfortunately, this product is a major disappointment in it’s current iteration. Treat popper clogs up (even when using the treats Furbo provided!), video is insanely laggy and choppy, the mic/speaker in the unit seems to be very low quality to where our pet doesn’t recognize anything the treat popper priming noise, and the connection to it cuts out frequently. Also, NO INSTRUCTION MANUAL OR TUTORIAL material available as far as we can tell. Ugh. Was hoping this would allow us to keep our pup at home instead of paying for our monthly daycare service, but Furbo just doesn’t execute it’s promises well, which due to them being mostly mechanical and/or hardware issues, can’t be cured through an app update. Sending it back for a refund this weekend… so sad.

    1. Jason, thank you for the comment. This is the first negative review we’ve heard on this product! I’m very interested, have you used any other pet cameras before or was Furbo the first? Perhaps the whole industry is not yet what you were hoping for, as nearly all of the camera products vastly rely on how good of an internet connection they have. Poor connection will result in poor performance. Device clogging and no instruction manual on the other hand is certainly understandable for being frustrated.

      I encourage you to try another camera out – hopefully you find one that works for both you and your pets.

  2. Thanks for this wonderful review, after I read it, I immediately went on Amazon to order one! I got it the next day and my little Toy poodle, Dudu, loves it!! I love the design, the ease of setting up and the crisp HD. Super good quality like with no lag. Best of all, the great popping feature is so fun!!

    Thanks for the awesome review, I’m so happy I got it:)

  3. Hi! I ordered my Furbo over the Summer when Amazon first did the pre-orders. Finally I was able to set it up tonight for my pups….so easy of a set-up and I love the design! My two little Malteses seem very interested in it so far! The only question that I have is that the live video streaming to my phone from the Furbo is black and white (iPhone 7Plus)….I noticed on your Facebook page that it looks like it should be color….is this not correct, did I buy an older version, since I purchased it over the Summer? I wouldn’t think that would be the case, since the Furbo is so new. If you could shed some light and let me know if there is something I am doing wrong. Like I said, I love it, crazy puppy Mommy over here! Just would rather see my babies in color! Thanks! Melissa Gallagher

    1. Hi Melissa,
      Thank you for letting us know! Could you check the setting to see if the Night Vision is turned on? If so, simply turn it off. 🙂 If you experience further problems, please contact us at support@furbo.com so we can help you. Let us know!

  4. I’ve sent 3 emails and posted a facebook message and have heard nothing back about the issue I’m having. I have not been able to set up my Furbo due to the Green Light not coming on. I just opened my Furbo 2 days ago and have not been able to set it up due to this issue. Is there a number I can call to troubleshoot this issue? I have to say I am very unimpressed with Furbos customer service so far!

    1. Colby, I’ll get in contact with the team at Furbo and send them your email to have them reach out. Did you email support@furbo.com? They are usually very prompt with replies, perhaps check your spam folder just to be sure.

      Either way, be on the lookout for an email!

      1. Yes, I have emailed support@furbo.com at least 3 times and left a facebook message and nobody has reached out to me (besides the auto reply email). Yes, I have looked in my spam folder. This is the first time I have heard back from anyone.

        I will continue to look out for an email.
        Thanks,
        Colby

        1. Hi Colby,

          I am sorry you experienced problems with your Furbo. With the help of our customer support team, we were able to provide you with a new Furbo! Thank you for all your patience, we are happy we resolved the issue. Please let us know if you have any more questions! We will be glad to help 🙂

          Thank you,
          Ashley

  5. I received my Furbo this week and its everything and more! The set up was extremely fast and easy, the sound and picture quality was amazing, and the treat dispenser worked perfectly. I am actually surprised to hear any negative reviews – our was everything it said to be. Extremely happy with this product and LOVE being able to check in our pets.

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