Petrics has plans to demonstrate a connected smart bed for dogs and cats at the incoming CES 2018 event in Las Vegas which will be released later this year. The smart bed is also fully compatible with the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and other home hubs, suggesting there is room in the IoT segment for devices specifically meant to go beyond benefits to humans. The Petrics smart bed will be available in various sizes and priced between $100 and $300 once it becomes available for purchase, the startup said.
As to the purpose and features of Petrics’ pet bed, monitoring of data collected by it will be achieved through its connection to the Petrics Health & Nutrition app for Android and iOS. The connected bed will monitor and record your pet’s weight, sleep patterns, and more, which could assist owners in assessing the health of their furry friends. As a result of that, it should be useful in keeping costs of pet care down since pet owners will be able to address abnormalities in a more proactive fashion while possibly avoiding expensive emergency services. It also features thermostatic controls, effectively allowing pet owners to adjust its temperature. That’s actually one of the pet bed’s more prominent features, according to Petrics, and was included because environmental temperatures are often linked to the overall health of pets. Moreover, pet owners often neglect to consider that factor, the firm suggested, adding that it hopes to raise awareness about the issue and reduce pet health problems with the inclusion of support for adjustable temperatures.
The Petrics Health & Nutrition app will also take things well past taking metrics and controlling temperatures. It’s the first pet feeding app, according to Petrics, which breaks down more than 15,000 available foods and their ingredients, as well as providing dietary recommendations for a given pet – which are based on the animal’s personalized pet profile. The app also sends alerts based on food recalls, in addition to notifications about vet appointments, medication schedules, and critical dates for flea and tick prevention, among other things. Petrics says that among the estimated 80 million pet-owning households in the U.S., more than 53 percent of pets are certifiably overweight. That’s bad news for cat and dog lovers, but technologies like the new Petrics pet bed and its app may help address those issues if they gain significant traction.