Review: Furbo 360 Dog Camera

You know when parents cry about leaving their kids at school? I’m the same way with my dogs. I would often use my SimpliSafe security camera as a pet camera to peek in on the pups when I wasn't home, but it wasn’t enough. I got notifications if they moved around, but when they left the camera's field of vision, I didn’t know much else. What if they’d gotten sick in a corner? What if they got into something they shouldn’t? The what-ifs worried me until I finally tried the Furbo 360.

This dog camera may aesthetically resemble its predecessor from Furbo, but one little upgrade makes all the difference: It spins. The original design now sits atop a rotating base, expanding any dog parent's ability to monitor their pooch wherever they are in a room. It retains its treat-tossing capabilities, which means now I can throw treats at, speak to, and watch my dogs from all angles.

Photograph: Furbo

We liked the original Furbo pet camera, but its 160-degree field of view left us wanting more. The new 360 model allows me to spin the camera to find my dogs and aim their tasty treats in a more specific direction. (I did not have any cats to test the Furbo with, but it's not designed for felines.)

The 360 not only allows you to rotate your device from Furbo's mobile app, but the camera also includes an Auto Dog Tracking feature. This recognizes your pup’s movement, rotating to follow them throughout the room so you don’t have to search around every time you open the app. This is especially handy for more active dogs, but it can struggle when trying to detect more than one furry friend. You'll also want to make sure your camera is positioned high enough to prevent furniture from blocking your view.

The camera has a 1080-pixel resolution quality that looks pretty clear, but Furbo has updated the camera’s night vision from infrared to color, so you now have a clearer picture in low light. This was useful for the evenings that I ran late, letting me make sure my babies were still safe and sound while also prepping me for any rogue pee spots in the room.

You’ll still see those sweet “dog selfies” that the OG Furbo provided, plus some more useful functions like Amazon Alexa compatibility—yes, you can ask Alexa to ask Furbo to toss a treat—as well as two-way mics so you can hear your dog and talk to them. (There's no Google Assistant support.) Furbo offers training videos and materials to help you prepare your pup for these features so that they don't get startled when a treat goes whizzing by. My dogs seemed confused when I spoke to them, but they never second-guessed a snack. 

Photograph: Furbo

Aside from the physical hardware, Furbo has an optional subscription service called Dog Nanny ($7 per month). It uses algorithms to recognize your dog’s behavior and send relevant alerts, including barking notifications, person alerts, and a lovely Doggie Diary that shows a time-lapse of your dog's cutest moments throughout the day. Watching my little munchkins go from napping to playing at warp speed was hilarious. Theoretically, the system should learn from your pet the longer you use it, making notifications more specific, like Dog Sitting Down. I wasn't able to try it long enough to see this in action.

You will need to do some setup work to make Dog Nanny less … vigilant. My husband and I both work from home, and we frequently got the Person Alert when one of us walked into the camera's frame. So we adjusted the notification frequency and the times the camera is turned on. This scheduling function is more helpful if you know the exact times you're away from home, but I wish the Furbo app was able to detect when I arrived home and when I left. I work from home so my schedule can be sporadic, so more often than not I'm just manually turning the camera on and off at home.

Adjusting when the camera turns on is important to consider given that you're adding a camera with 360-degree access to your space. There are very few reports of hacks on Furbo cameras, but a Wi-Fi-enabled camera in your home is always a risk. You should take precautions to minimize that risk as much as possible by enabling two-factor authentication in the Furbo app, using a strong password for your Furbo account and your Wi-Fi network (make sure they're different), and keeping the camera off when you're home.

Photograph: Furbo

The Furbo app itself is fine. My husband says it feels like it’s made for children, and I’d have to agree—I’d love to see the user interface get spruced up, but it does the job. WIRED editor Adrienne So previously noted the lack of a web-based experience in case you can’t get to your phone, and that's still missing here. If the goal is to alleviate the stress of leaving your dogs alone, it'd absolutely be beneficial to log on from any web-enabled device.

Small irks aside, the 360 is a nice upgrade over the original Furbo. Now when I head out for brunch or when my train is running behind, I can virtually pop in and sneak a look at Winston and Parmesan. I might even toss them a little treat while I’m at it.