Pets Are Going Digital: The Brands Pioneering the  Million Market For Smart Pet Products

Love is being connected

Pet tech helps create a stronger bond while pet parents are away from home. PetChatz offers two-way audio and visual connections to allow pet parents to monitor and interact with their pets when they are away from home.Described as “digital daycare for the home alone pet,” it is a solution for separation anxiety, both for pets and their parents.

More play with a technology assist

A happy pet is one that gets plenty of play time with parents, and tech is enabling that too.CleverPet Hub is described as “the world’s first game console for dogs,” but it is also adapted to cats. The toy’s touchpads light up and make noise as pets solve puzzles with a treat administered when the correct answer is touched.

Pet care at the touch of a button

Pet parents are strongly motivated for a technology assist to make pet care easier and more convenient. A proprietary survey of pet owners conducted by Packaged Facts found that a top purchase motivator for smart pet-tech was to “save time/make my life easier.” So they are turning to automated litter boxes, feeders, waterers and pet doors.

For example, SurePetcare offers a micro-chip controlled pet door that only opens when it reads the pet’s microchip or RFID tad.

Luxuries for the four-legged set

High-tech also brings a new level of luxury to pets, like the ZenCrate from Play and Plug Robotics. Positioned to relieve pet anxiety, it also provides motion-sensored fan cooling and a pet-appropriate music playlist when the pet enters its private domain.And Home Pet Spa delivers a spa experience to pets. It’s a fully enclosed portable tub that includes mister jets for all body soaking and a hand-controlled shower wand for rinsing.

High-tech solutions for long, healthy pet life

Just as people increasingly are monitoring their health and wellness via digital monitoring devices, pet parents are turning to similar devices to monitor their pets’ health. FitBark is a doggie version of a FitBit-type device to monitor activity levels, steps taken and sleep periods. Recorded data is synced to the parent’s smartphone app with the resulting data accessible to veterinarians and other pet service providers.

Peace of mind through tech

Pet parents want nothing more for their pets than for them to enjoy a long healthy, happy life together. The innovative range of smart-pet devices offered by these and other companies make achieving that easier. Packaged Facts’ Sprinkle predicts that technology will continue to touch many pet-product categories in the coming years.

“Health-focused durable pet products will remain at the leading-edge of the humanization and premiumization market trends, which can be exploited in myriad product types, including pet wearables and ‘smart items’ such as litter boxes and beds,” he concludes.

 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2019/01/30/pets-are-going-digital-brands-pioneering-in-the-565m-market-for-smart-pet-products/#30f6a73a74b5