Camera for watching cat?

soubida

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Hello! We are planning on going away for about 10 days later this month, and will be getting a cat sitter to stay in the basement with our baby girl. So we want to get a camera to watch her (and the sitter lol) while we're gone.

Anyone have any recommendations? We're definitely need to be HD and controllable through an app (we are eyeing the pet cube play 2).

Also any tips to keep our baby happy while we're gone is much appreciated💕💕

TIA😽😽

656180E8-787C-4665-AB38-ADB5296FA01E.jpeg
 

Tobermory

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What a cutie! I’m not familiar with the Petcube Play 2, but I’ve used Nest cams for years and have been very happy with them. Simple to set up, high quality image, night vision, sound, notifications, etc. The app works well, too. They give me peace of mind that the girls are okay when I’m not home.
 

tabbytom

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Hello! We are planning on going away for about 10 days later this month, and will be getting a cat sitter to stay in the basement with our baby girl. So we want to get a camera to watch her (and the sitter lol) while we're gone.

Anyone have any recommendations? We're definitely need to be HD and controllable through an app (we are eyeing the pet cube play 2).

Also any tips to keep our baby happy while we're gone is much appreciated💕💕

TIA😽😽
Check out this thread from post #11 onwards :- Cat Peeing Outside The Litterbox...

Or do a search on ‘cameras’ and you may come up with more suggestions.
 
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soubida

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What a cutie! I’m not familiar with the Petcube Play 2, but I’ve used Nest cams for years and have been very happy with them. Simple to set up, high quality image, night vision, sound, notifications, etc. The app works well, too. They give me peace of mind that the girls are okay when I’m not home.
thank you! im mostly intrigued by the laser toy function of the pet cube😂😂 I'll check out the nest cam too! is the connection stable?
 

Tobermory

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thank you! im mostly intrigued by the laser toy function of the pet cube😂😂 I'll check out the nest cam too! is the connection stable?
Yes. I’ve never had any problems, and I’ve used them in four different homes and several rooms. I originally bought them to check in on my elderly mother when I lived in Colorado and she was in Ohio. They paid off big time when I looked in early one morning and saw her lying on the kitchen floor, unable to get up!
 

She's a witch

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Is pet sitter ok with the camera? I’m having some in my place but asked my pet sitter to turn them off when she comes to our place. I would hate anyone to be recorded frankly. It’s a privacy thing to me.

I have two cheap ones from amazon (because around 25$) and they’ve been working good enough for more than a year. The only issue we’ve been having is that when we move them through app to see a different angle of the room, one of my cats gets interested and starts playing with it. Since then we secured them in one place and at least he doesn’t knock them down. So placing them out of reach is the best idea, but not always possible. But I love some of the photos we have a result of this :)
5498244B-E332-4EBC-A8A1-35F292A302DC.jpeg
 
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soubida

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Is pet sitter ok with the camera? I’m having some in my place but asked my pet sitter to turn them off when she comes to our place. I would hate anyone to be recorded frankly. It’s a privacy thing to me.

I have two cheap ones from amazon (because around 25$) and they’ve been working good enough for more than a year. The only issue we’ve been having is that when we move them through app to see a different angle of the room, one of my cats gets interested and starts playing with it. Since then we secured them in one place and at least he doesn’t knock them down. So placing them out of reach is the best idea, but not always possible. But I love some of the photos we have a result of this :)
View attachment 307235
omg your cat is adorable!

we plan to tell the sitter that she can cover the camera when she is with our cat (because we're afraid that she might not be able to turn it back on/reconnect it to wifi/etc if she turns it off) we mainly want to know how our cat is when no one is there anyway...

can i ask which camera you got on amazon? we ended up getting the wyze pan... because it's much cheaper than most cameras and we probably wont use it when we're not travelling anyway... it would be too much of a hassle to set up a million cameras all around the house😂
 

She's a witch

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omg your cat is adorable!

we plan to tell the sitter that she can cover the camera when she is with our cat (because we're afraid that she might not be able to turn it back on/reconnect it to wifi/etc if she turns it off) we mainly want to know how our cat is when no one is there anyway...

can i ask which camera you got on amazon? we ended up getting the wyze pan... because it's much cheaper than most cameras and we probably wont use it when we're not travelling anyway... it would be too much of a hassle to set up a million cameras all around the house😂
I have Apemans. It works just fine, it survived countless falls and even has some gentle bite marks on the “antenna”... once it spent several days hanging down on a cable, serving as an additional toy I guess, and yet, it works just as on the first day :) We bought the second one for another room when it was on sale again.
We love to watch our cats when we’re away, but I must admit it’s pretty boring, as they mostly sleep (even my active cat), but they do have some great chasing parties in the middle of the night. Funny thing is that they never do this at night when we’re home. But it’s great to see that they’re mostly relaxed and don’t really care that much that we’re not around :D we leave them pretty often though, so maybe they learned it’s only temporary and they are not stressed because of that.
 

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I have to recommend Wyze cams. Seriously. They are very inexpensive but work much much much better than the $80 or higher end cams do. And if you run cams on feral cats, they stand up to all kinds of weather. Get from wyze website though not Amazon. And still inexpensive.
 

Tobermory

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I have to recommend Wyze cams. Seriously. They are very inexpensive but work much much much better than the $80 or higher end cams do. And if you run cams on feral cats, they stand up to all kinds of weather. Get from wyze website though not Amazon. And still inexpensive.
Just looked them up. They have some really nice features that you don’t get with some of the more expensive cameras!
 

susanm9006

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Wyze cams run about $25 plus another ten or so for an SD card. They have good clarity and night vision and you can watch and rewind online.
 

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Your mileage may vary but my experience is that the app and/or camera is not sensitive enough to make the laser pointer on the PetCube a difference-maker feature. I like the Dlink cameras because I have a bunch of them and the app clusters them together well enough for me. I have hired two sitters and both were okay with the cameras. I would be more concerned about a sitter who wasn't okay with the cameras. Keep your clothes on, and do the job you were hired for, and we'll have no issues with the cameras, right?
 

nycats

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I have two petcubes. Play and Bite. They were both on sale! They do their job, and I get to spy on them while I'm away. I initially bought a cheap Chinese one from Amazon, but it broke after 8-9 months. Petcube is pricier but hasnt broken. I believe the newer models allows for camera movement.
 

daftcat75

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I have a six camera mesh to keep an eye out for my furry trouble.

I have one PTZ (Point-Tilt-Zoom: these are the ones you can move the camera around and I recommend at least one of these)

I have 3 mini-cameras (these are about the size of a salt shaker and make for great hiding spot cameras. I have one for under the bookcase, one for in the litterbox enclosure, and one to cover blind spots that the other cameras have left.)

I have one adjustable tilt camera pointed at her food area:

And I have a PetCube Play, the first and last PetCube I bought. This one is in the home office until I replace it with another D-link.
 
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soubida

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I have to recommend Wyze cams. Seriously. They are very inexpensive but work much much much better than the $80 or higher end cams do. And if you run cams on feral cats, they stand up to all kinds of weather. Get from wyze website though not Amazon. And still inexpensive.
we actually ended up getting the wyze cam! it was before i saw your comment though... and i got it on amazon. bad idea. so much more expensive... but it worked wonderfully and we were able to keep an eye on our cat perfectly! (and make sure that the sitter fed her on time and cleaned her box everyday loll) definitely helped give us a peace of mind
 

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Wyze is on sale on amazon today for $19.99

Wyze Cam 1080p HD Indoor Wireless Smart Home Camera with Night Vision, 2-Way Audio, Works with Alexa & the Google Assistant, One Pack, White - WYZEC2
 

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I HIGHLY recommend Yi Home Cameras. They are fairly cheap on amazon $20-30. They connect to an app on your phone and you can watch them anytime. They also have motion detection and motion tracking. So it'll alert your phone when a kitty is moving. Also, night vision! I have 2 of these cams, one in my bedroom and one in the living room. You can use the app on your phone to swivel the camera around the room too.
THEY'RE AMAZING.

 

SpecterOhPossum

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Never done this before but I used tablets, laptops, and phones to set up live streams you can tune in on via youtube
 
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