Skip to main content

This mobile camera can help alleviate anxiety for your animals

Do you miss your dog or cat when you’re at work? Ever wonder what your pets are up to when you’re away? The Vava Mobile Pet Cam is for pets or owners with separation anxiety, people who feel guilty leaving pets alone all day, or anyone who would like to engage with their pets remotely.

Vava launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for the Mobile Pet Cam. The company has successfully launched other products such as the Vava Dash Cam and Vava Home Cam via Indiegogo and Kickstarter,  which bodes well for this campaign finishing above the funding goal and the product shipping at a future date. According to Vava, the company uses crowdfunding campaigns to obtain suggestions and feedback from potential customers.

Resembling nothing more than an astronaut’s helmet with a dark-tinted face shield, the Pet Cam moves around the house via parallel rubber tank-like treads. According to Vava, the mobile camera can navigate tile, hardwood floors, and carpeting.

With automatic following enabled via an associated mobile device app, the little guy can follow your pet from room to room, even under the bed. Vava also claims an intelligent collision and drop-detection system minimize bumping into obstacles and falling down stairs.

You can take still shots or record short video clips with the Pet Cam’s integrated 1080p camera. The camera has a 120-degree wide-angle lens and infrared night vision so you can really spook your cat. You can store captured images and video in the cloud with 1GB of included storage.

When you access the Pet Cam remotely and check on your pet, you can talk as well with two-way audio. If you want to engage further, especially with cats, the mobile pet sitter has a laser pointer and a feather teaser you can control from the app.

Want to reward your pet for specific actions or just because? The Vava Mobile Pet Cam has an integrated treat dispenser that expels treats on your command.

A real-time bark alert feature sends notification alerts to your phone when your dog barks. You can then switch to the Pet Cam app to see what’s going on because presumably, the Pet Cam will be facing your pet. Fortunately, for dogs attuned to the sound of UPS trucks in your neighborhood, you can turn the bark alert feature off.

Vava says the Mobile Pet Cam is durable, paw proof, and has a low center of gravity to help it stay upright. A fully charged battery good for eight hours of active engagement with your pet can last seven days on standby. Theoretically, if your dog or cat sleeps most of the time while you’re out of the house and there’s no one else home, a single battery charge will suffice for a long work day.

The Vava Mobile Pet Cam is available for pre-order on the Indiegogo campaign site for $149, approximately 50 percent off the planned $299 retail price when the Pet Cam ships. As always, you should be aware of the risks when pledging money to a crowdfunding campaign.

Editors' Recommendations

Bruce Brown
Digital Trends Contributing Editor Bruce Brown is a member of the Smart Homes and Commerce teams. Bruce uses smart devices…
Do Arlo Essential cameras require the Arlo Smart Hub?
An Arlo Smart Hub on a wooden table.

Arlo makes some of the most popular smart home cameras. They're reliable, easy to install, and supported by platforms such as Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa. Many of its best devices fall into the Essential family, which includes the Essential XL, Essential 2K, Essential Indoor 2K, and Essential Video Doorbell.

Alongside these products, Arlo offers something known as a Smart Hub. This is available in two formats (Ultra Smart Hub and Pro Smart Hub), and both make it easy to connect your Arlo devices to the internet. But do you need an Arlo Smart Hub to use Arlo Essential cameras? Or can you get them online without purchasing the secondary hub?

Read more
Do you need a subscription for a Ring doorbell or camera?
The Ring Video Doorbell 3 installed near a door.

Anyone shopping for a DIY home security system has probably stumbled upon Ring. The company has an ever-growing lineup of cameras and video doorbells that are consistently ranked among the best available -- and since they're easy to set up and offer tons of functionality, it's no surprise they're so popular.

One thing to keep in mind when looking at Ring products is that you'll be on the hook for more than just the sticker price. Ring offers a monthly subscription service known as Ring Protect. Many of the best features for its cameras and video doorbells are locked behind this subscription plan, meaning owners who don't sign up will be missing out on important functionality.

Read more
Can you use a Blink Outdoor Camera without a subscription?
Blink Outdoor cam wet from the rain.

For security and peace of mind around your home, a Blink Outdoor Camera is one of the most popular choices for keeping an eye on your property. The outdoor cameras have features like motion detection, a Live View which lets you see what is going on at your property right from your smartphone, and an Activity Zones option that lets you choose which areas of your property you want to record -- which is handy if you live near a busy street where cars could constantly set off annoying motion detection notifications. The recently released Blink Outdoor 4 has improved on these features to make them even better than the previous Blink Outdoor 3.

Like most home security systems, Blink operates on a subscription plan, with a monthly charge starting at $3 to use the service. But if you don't want to pay for the charge, you might want to try using the cameras without the subscription -- though there will be some severe limitations if you do.
Does the Blink Outdoor Camera require a subscription to use?

Read more