Skip to main content

The best pet tech products from CES 2022

Through the years, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has brought us a number of mind-bending tech innovations that have enhanced the way we experience and interact with all facets of life. In fact, most aspects of average residential living have received some kind of love from the ingenious developers showcasing life-changing possibilities at the renowned expo. Even the lives of our pets have received some incredible advancements.

At CES 2022, pet tech was front and center from a handful of renowned vendors, and we’re excited about what’s coming for the world of our four-legged friends. From our eager hearts and minds to yours, here’s a guide to some of the most jaw-dropping breakthroughs in pet technology that we spotted this year.

Related Videos

Smart collars

The Wagz Freedom Smart Collar.

There’s no denying that our pets simply cannot speak our language. Sure, they do their very best to communicate with us through the sounds they’re able to produce and whatever body-talk they can muster, but don’t we want more? After all, it would be great to gain some deeper insight into what’s going on inside the minds and bodies of the creatures we cherish most.

That’s where products like Catlog come into play. Designed by Rabo Inc., the Catlog smart collar uses weight-sensing tech to analyze your cat’s daily motions. This can be anything from sleeping and sitting still to washing paws and taking a drink from the water bowl. Using focus points like pet vibrations and movements, your cat’s motions are synced to the Catlog’s web-connected hub, which then draws up a detailed report of all the activity your cat has been up to in a day.

Invoxia also made some noise at the show with the announcement of a smart collar for dogs. Building upon the Catlog premise, Invoxia’s pooch harness will monitor your dog’s location, heart rate, and respiratory status.

Sure, a visit to the vet is the tried-and-true approach when dealing with canine and feline health troubles. But with smart collar monitoring, getting ahead of a heart or lung issue is a great way to get on top of any type of trouble before it becomes a significant issue for your companion.

Health-monitoring wearables

The iPetWear Sensor.

Going beyond the confines of a collar, CES exhibitors also showcased a number of products that our companions will be able to wear in some form. One such innovation comes to us from the minds at ITRI, and it’s called iPetWear. A smart module that can be clipped to your pet’s collar or stored in a pet bed, iPetWear uses micro-physiological radar sensors to monitor the heart rate, respiration, and overall activity of our dogs. Once data is collected, the info is beamed to the pet owner’s mobile device via Bluetooth and is viewable through the iPetWear app.

For an estimated cost of $80, iPetWear purchasers receive the iPetWear module, a specialized collar, and access to the company’s mobile app.

We also love this incredible, psychological health monitor for pooches. Known as Inupathy (developed by Langualess), this wearable backpack will be able to detect a number of mind-based conditions that our dogs may be going through. Notice that Rover is behaving a tad abnormally? Throwing an Inupathy pack on him may not necessarily reveal the inner workings of his brainwaves, but it could give you a better idea as to what you can do to calm his fears.

The PurrSong suite

The PurrSong LavvieBox.

It can be difficult to gauge exactly how our cats are feeling on a daily basis. Not to mention that felines are particularly skilled at hiding away health troubles, and sometimes until it’s too late. Thankfully, companies like PurrSong know exactly what to expect when caring for a kitty and have developed a family of products to help us out.

The three main items are the LavvieBox, LavvieWater, and LavvieTAG. The LavvieBox is a smart litter box that monitors your cat’s bathroom visits, reporting on your feline’s weight and the nature of their visits. Criteria is captured and then beamed to the PurrSong mobile app for the owner’s reference. The LavvieWater is an automatic water dispenser that tracks your cat’s water consumption and sends collected data to the PurrSong app. Then there’s the LavvieTAG, a live fitness sensor that tracks your cat’s walking, running, sleeping, and eating habits.

Pet geofencing

Wagz Tagz in couch, freedom dog collar, smart pet.

Tired of your dog jumping on the living room couch? Wagz Tagz is a great way to keep him off. Connectable with Wagz’ Freedom Smart Dog Collar ($249), the Wagz Tagz acts as a geofencing barrier for your pooch. When the Freedom collar detects the nearby presence of the Tagz accessory, the collar emits a humane shock warning to the harness, indicating to Rover that it’s time to get off the furniture.

Boundaries are adjustable from 3 to 15 feet, and the setup is a quick process that can be handled by both iOS and Android devices. The Tagz device will be available in March 2022.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Apple reportedly working on a new iPad-like smart home display
Someone holding the 12.9-inch version of the iPad Pro (2022).

Apple recently announced a new HomePod with support for Matter, but it seems the company might have bigger smart home plans for the rest of 2023. According to the latest report from Bloomberg, Apple is allegedly working on an iPad-like device that could directly compete with Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub Max.

Details on the rumored product are scarce, but it seems the device would feature a touchscreen and function similar to an iPad. Magnets would allow it to be mounted to a wall, and HomeKit would give it access to all your smart home products. It’s unclear at this time if the device would feature a stand, allowing it to sit on your countertops like the Echo Show and Nest Hub. What is clear, however, is that Apple wants to gain a stronger foothold in the smart home market -- and this could serve as a great alternative to using the HomePod Mini as a HomeKit hub.

Read more
Yale launches its first smart safe with biometric verification, remote access, and voice assistant support
A person pointing to the Yale Smart Safe.

Yale is widely known for its premium smart locks and deadbolts, but the company’s lineup extends well beyond your front door. And although we are just a few days into 2023, Yale has already added two new products to its catalog -- the Yale Smart Safe and Yale Smart Safe with Wi-Fi.

The two Yale Smart Safes are designed to be used with the existing Yale Access app, making it easy for existing Yale users to add the product to their smart home ecosystem. Both products also feature a built-in keypad and a traditional key, giving you three ways to access your valuables. The more affordable Yale Smart Safe ($250) works with Bluetooth for local control, or you can step up to the Smart Safe with Wi-Fi ($300) to access your vault from just about anywhere in the world. This model also supports Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more