I never knew I needed a pet camera, but now I don't think I can ever go into the office (or on vacation) again without one. A security camera can give you extra peace of mind when you're out, and pet cameras specifically designed for our furry friends combine things like the ability to follow your pet around, engage in play, or dispense kibble for an added bonus. Connected to an app on your phone and with Cloud storage options, these pet cameras—including our top pick, the Tkenpro 2K Pet Camera Treat Dispenser ($80)—ensure you'll never miss a moment in your pet's life when you're away (or home).

Best Pet Camera

This smart pet camera uses pan rotation for an almost-360-degree viewing angle. It has a crystal-clear, 2K HD live video feed and intelligent infrared night vision. The bottom of the camera has suction cups, making it easy to move around the house without needing hardware. Through the app, you can pan the camera, take photos and record video, talk and listen to your pet through the microphone, schedule repeated regular feedings, or toss them a snack. This camera has motion, bark, and voice detection, and AI auto tracking—meaning when something out of the norm is detected, the app sends you a notification.

Its AI features create a minute-long video from motion-triggered recordings and automatically saves it for 30 days, and you can download and share on socials. You can opt for cloud storage (with the option to upgrade to a monthly subscription for 30 days of continuous recording) or you can buy a memory card (up to 128 G) for 24/7 recording. The video is always hi-def clear, never laggy or giving error messages, and I love that I can pan to see the whole room.

 

Best Dual Camera

Imilab C30 Dual Security Camera

This dual camera has 3K high definition, with 360 degree rotation up top, and a stationary camera below for even more coverage. There's also live view and two-way chat, night vision, and 6X zoom. AI detection alerts to things like barks, meows, loud noises, and fire, so you can receive notifications for anything alarming. Through the app, you can view live footage, review footage stored in the MicroSD card or Cloud, and share with family. Plus, smart voice control can be accessed with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

The camera has an adjustable mount that can be installed on the ceiling for even greater range. This camera has some of the clearest images I've seen while testing, and I love that the dual views let me see what my pets are doing on the ground while panning to see the 360 views above.

 

Best Affordable 360 Rotating Pet Camera

Petcube Cam 360

This camera from Petcube is great, but it suffers one of the pitfalls I have with the rest of the brand's lineup—the features are seriously limited if you don't want to pay for Petcube's upgraded Care plan (which starts at $4 a month) with video storage, pet detection, and automatic video recording capabilities. At a super-affordable price, this camera has 360 PTZ rotation capabilities, 1080p HD resolution, 8X digital zoom, 2-way audio, and night vision—all the bells and whistles for under $50.

There's optional mounting that requires some tools, so setup is a bit tricky. The camera feed rotated pretty smoothly, and with the wide fish-eye-like lens and panning abilities, I was able to clearly see more of the room than I thought possible. Plus, with the new privacy mode, you can easily turn off the camera lens for more security. I was pleasantly surprised by this 360 PTZ camera and its seriously affordable price.

 

Best Pet Camera on Wheels

Enabot EBO Air 2

This model from Enabot is an improved interactive robot toy and camera on wheels from the brand's lineup. It's got a 2K HD camera, two-way audio, and a laser toy, and you control the robot's movements from your phone's app. It's lightweight and compact, can traverse around objects, and moves a lot more smoothly than the other camera-on-wheels I've tested from Enabot.

While acting as a pet camera, the robot also entertains (or scares or confuses) your pet by making various animal noises, doing tricks like spinning and zigzagging, displaying various “emotions” via front screen, and it has a built-in laser toy that my cats actually played with. It also has 24/7 video recording with smart playback, motion detection, and activity alerts. This model improves on the faults of previous Enabot robots, has a super-clear image, can easily move, and always entertains (and perplexes) my cats.

 

Best Feeder Pet Camera

Petcube Bites 2 Lite

This food-dispensing camera from Petcube has HD 1080p live streaming video, night vision up to 30 feet, the ability to zoom up to 8X, and two-way audio to talk to and hear your pets. There's also an easily detachable plastic treat dispenser that holds up to 1.5 pounds of kibble, and you can toss treats remotely from the app, where you can also control the amount and distance.

With the subscription service, the app alerts you when motion or sound is detected, and logs it with playback video stored in-app. I like the customization capabilities and clear video feed, but like other Petcube devices, you sort of need the extra Care plan to unlock all of the best features.

 

A Pet Camera With a Laser Toy

Petcube Play 2

This model from Petcube attempts to combine popular laser toys that cats go crazy for with a pet security cam, to mixed results. Like many other cameras from the brand's lineup, it has crystal clear color and night vision, an extra wide view, two-way audio, and fun features available with the paid Care plan, like video history, playback, and a 30-second compilation reel of highlights of the day.

The laser toy is supposed to auto-engage when motion is detected, but very often it didn't, and when it happened to catch my cats' attention, it stopped displaying the laser soon after. Plus, because the camera needed to sit high on a shelf to see the area, the laser was often too high for the cats to attempt to catch. You can manually play with the cat with the laser through the app, although it's often laggy, and my cats ended up being more perplexed than playful when the laser was on. It's a solid camera, but the toy aspect falls a bit flat.

 

A Popular Treat-Dispensing 360-View Option

This Furbo 360 is marketed toward dogs, but like gender, it's a construct—both cats and dogs will like this treat-dispensing cam. Former WIRED reviewer Haley Sprankle praised it for its clear 1080p and color night-vision camera, two-way communication, noise notifications, 360-degree pan abilities, and treat dispensing. It also has Auto Tracking, which follows your pet to make it easier to find them without having to search your phone screen.

Like the majority of pet cams, there's an option to subscribe to Furbo’s Nanny service, which snaps pics and sends safety alerts about things like smoke or fallen objects—even chewing alerts—and can spot intruders too. The video clips are stored in the cloud so you can review the footage at any time.

 

Another Interactive Pet Camera on Wheels

This rolling pet camera has the best of intentions, but the sometimes glitchy app makes the combo pet camera/toy/feeder a little unpredictable. Through the app, you can watch your pets on the security cam and drive the robot around, pressing buttons to do tricks and dispense treats. You can watch the camera feed live from the app, but you can also schedule recordings, which are viewable via Cloud Playback. The robot is also supposed to detect abnormal movement or sounds, like barking or broken glass, and send a smart alert to the owner with a timestamp while away from home.

The bot also automatically compiles a 30-second “day-in-the-life”-type video of your pet so you can watch a recap while away, and through AI-powered pet recognition, the bot can also snap a picture of your pet. All of those AI features were unreliable. Although the promised AI capabilities fell flat, I liked being able to move the bot around my house to watch everything going on, since the camera was not just stationary in one spot.

 

Others Tested

Petcube Cam for $32: This simple, compact camera doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it’s a great price for being a reliable, basic pet camera. Like others in Petcube's lineup, it has a 1080p HD camera, night vision, and two-way audio. It sits on hinges and can angle upward and downward, with the option to flip the video feed in-app if you want to lay it horizontally. You'll need the brand's subscription Care plan to get any features beyond live feed. You can set a “motion zone” to only get notifications in a specific area, and you connect your phone's location to the app, so that you're alerted more often when away. You can also share the camera feed with others so they can watch remotely and only specify certain times you want shared. This camera is basic, but it has a high-quality camera feed and advanced extras that make it a steal at this price.

Catit Pixi Smart Mouse Camera for $82: This cutie looks like a miniature mouse with oversized, magnetic feet that attach to a metal stand, and the mouse legs hinge so you can adjust the camera's height and angle. It's cute but expensive for what it is—the lens doesn't move and requires microSD to get video footage beyond a live feed (with the SD card, you can scroll through the video to see the goings-on from past days, record live footage, and save photos and videos to your smartphone’s camera roll). Although it was hard to pinpoint exactly which time you're looking at when reviewing footage, video feed can be laggy, and there were connectivity issues a few times. It's a tad expensive at this price point for its (lack of) capabilities.

Closer Pets TreatView with Pet Camera for $100: This solid pet cam features an HD camera, two-way communication, motion detection, a built-in memory card, and 1-cup storage for kibble or treats, which can be scheduled or given at random. The video feed was always crystal clear, although sound was a bit laggy and hard to hear well. The treat portions were huge, dispensing a heaping handful of kibble at even the lowest setting. The alert sound when dispensing is super jarring, and my pets were scared of it—there was no way to silence it. Because of the placement of the hole for dispensing kibble, the camera is angled low, which made it hard to see the area I wanted. This is a solid pet camera whose additional features become a burden rather than an asset.

Petlibro Granary Smart Camera Feeder for $117: While this is primarily an automatic cat feeder, it has incredible camera surveillance capabilities. The feeder is connected to Wi-Fi and controlled via an app, dispensing food based on a feeding schedule you create. This features a 1080p HD camera in color and night vision, so you can watch and hear, communicate with pets via speaker, and store and review pet videos in the cloud with a 30-day video history. The app also alerts with real-time notifications when the motion and sound sensors are set off, and you can even customize sensitivity and detection range settings of the camera's downward-facing 145-degree wide-angle lens based on preference. This is a solid two-for-one pet camera and feeder.

Petkit Purobot Ultra Automatic Cat Litter Box for $800: This fancy automatic litter box uses a camera and AI technology to monitor usage and surveils around your automatic box—including actually letting you see your cat’s stool to help more closely monitor their health. The camera's 210-degree-wide angle is attached to an arm in front of the opening, which swivels 180 degrees and follows your cat when it senses motion and records both the outside goings-on and the inside of the litter box. You can also manually move the camera through the app to pan to the outside or inside of the box. It records in both color and black-and-white, plus it has night vision. Through the app, you can view the camera footage live or watch short clips of each time your cat—or anyone—walks near the litter box and when a cat uses it, plus it also uses AI to identify which cat used the box through the videos taken.

So, is there really a difference between security cameras and pet cameras? Sort of.

Security cameras enable you to watch your house (and pet) while you're away, but pet cameras often have a few more pet-specific features, like dispensing treats or abilities to interact with your pet via two-way speaker. These cameras with special features can help ease common issues like separation anxiety or boredom. The Enabot Rola PetPal Robot Pet Companion, for example, has attachments so you can remotely give your pet a treat or engage in “playtime” (more on that in the review below).

That's not to say that you can't use a security camera as a pet cam, but like any other smart home device that connects to Wi-Fi, there's a chance it can be hacked and compromise your privacy. Make sure your Wi-Fi password is strong, set up two-factor authentication with your camera's app, and it's not a bad idea to keep it turned off when you're home, as an extra precaution.