Those of you with a furry family member have no doubt thought about setting up a camera to either spy or check in on them during the day. That’s basically the proposition of the Eufy D605 Dog Camera. Except it offers a Eufy cam with a little bit of pet boredom-busting, too.
In my kitchen sits a Google Nest Hub Max that boasts a camera that pans out across my bench and into the loungeroom. Occasionally, it will show my cat, Boston, looking for scraps on the kitchen bench or him licking the sink and spout for fresh water (he has his own water fountain, he just likes the sink more).
The Nest Hub is great, but it’s used more to check on the apartment itself, not just Boston. I’ve never really felt the need to spy on him, he’s only naughty when I’m around and he wants my attention. Who am I to intrude on important cat business, after all? But when I was asked to review the Eufy D605 Dog Camera, I couldn’t say no.
Eufy D605 Dog (Pet) Camera
Eufy is a smart home technology, appliances and security brand by Anker Innovations. Eufy has a number of smart home cameras, but this one has extra features specific to furry friends. The company bills the Eufy Dog Camera as a “Full HD camera with a built-in speaker and treat dispenser”.
As you can tell by the name, it’s marketed towards those with dog pals, but I thought I’d test it on Boston first, before trying it on my parent’s Jack Russell, Archie. Boston is very treat-motivated and his favourite hobby at the moment is trying to break into his bickies container. He’s also not home alone all that much.
A good design a-purr-oach
The Eufy cam itself is nice enough to look at. They haven’t opted for an obvious pet toy look, which is welcome, but it’s still quite big in comparison to other smart home cameras. The bickies are stored in a canister you access by popping off the lid, and you can wash out the part that holds the treats. It stores a decent amount of treats, too.
Purr-fect specs
The Eufy pet cam features a 1080-pixel camera on a base with a 270-degree rotation. Using live view, you can pan side-to-side. Anker says the Eufy D605 Dog Camera has an on-device AI detection and auto-tracking function which pushes out notifications whenever the device detects a bark, meow, screech, notices them licking their paws, or even when they’ve gone to the toilet.
The camera packs a 2.5x zoom lens as well as four infrared sensors for capturing footage at night. I, unfortunately, didn’t get a chance to see the quality of the pet-capturing at night because, well, read on and you’ll see why.
You can record up to 16GB of local footage on the pet cam itself. You get clips that range 15 seconds to 2 minutes in length. Videos are edited into a daily video, ‘Doggy Diaries’, which is completely unnecessary but I don’t know one cat/dog parent that wouldn’t love this (myself included) so I can’t really blame Anker for making this a feature. A bonus is that you don’t have to pay for a subscription to watch the footage like you do with Google Nest devices (and others, too).
Paw-some set up
To set up the Eufy D605 Dog Camera, you need to install the Eufy Pet app. The setup wizard guides you through the straightforward process of adding the device and it also provides some guidance on how to get your pet familiar with the Eufy cam. Within nine minutes, the camera was live and this is what I could see:
The Eufy cam follows Boston around if it senses he’s near, it pushes a notification out to your phone to let you know something is going on. Within the app, there are a number of features to fiddle with, mostly the treat dispensing.
Using the Eufy cam was a cat-astrophe
The app has a sort-of slingshot feature that you pull to dispense the treats. It makes a ‘squeaky toy’ sound before launching the treats in the space in front of the Eufy cam (spread and force depends on how far you pull back the trigger, watch their eyes, this thing has balls). It splatters the treats out and your cat or dog can have themselves a little snack. The first slingshot should have been recorded, because Boston lept nearly as high as the ceiling. Cats are strange and this guy is no exception. I did that a few times and even set up my own ‘command’ before the treats are flung out of the cam. I tried, “Boston sit, sit Boston” but the treats were dispensed before the command finished and that wasn’t enough time for him to sit for snacks, so why would he bother?
The instructions for the Eufy D605 Dog Camera say to put the device up higher so as to be out of the way. I tried that, in front of the TV while I sat on the lounge half watching him and half scrolling Instagram on my phone. There was a crash sound, then a scuttling cat making noises similar to a turkey, and unfortunately it was Boston 1, Eufy Cam 0. It reminded me of that time a security robot took itself for a swim.
Moving the cam back on the floor wasn’t the best idea, either. Within minutes, Boston had worked out there were treats inside and the best way to get to the treats was not to be patient but to break in. He pushed the Eufy cam over and started pulling on the orange tab (which is how you put the treats in). It was not much safer being tucked into a corner.
The Eufy pet camera was not going to last in this apartment while I was home, let alone while I was out. Within two hours, this cat had learned how to break in and retrieve the bickies from the reservoir himself.
Pardon the inter-ruff-tion
With Boston having the Eufy cam confiscated in record time, I took it over to my parents to see what Archie’s experience was like.
He quickly learned treats were dispensed once the squeaky toy went off and waited patiently until it did. He went up to the cam a few times, and when I triggered the slingshot, he stopped caring as it was only bickies and not Barbecue Shapes. Leaving the Eufy Dog Camera on a cabinet in the dining room while they’re out could work, if he could be bothered to leave the comfort of my parent’s bed that has warm sunshine beaming in.
Claw-ing our way to a verdict
If your cat isn’t a criminal who breaks into timed food dispensers or even his bickies container and isn’t so curious that anything foreign must be destroyed, your experience with the Eufy pet camera might be completely different. If your cat or dog is left for hours at a time, and you’re in the market for a pet cam with added treat-dispensing for you to waste time giving out while you’re at work (and they aren’t the type of furry friend to ruin things), the Eufy pet cam is a fun way to monitor your little pal and ease their boredom.
The AI tracking is super smart, the camera feed is exceptionally clear and it has the bonus elements of interaction by delivering recordings of your voice and boredom-busting with treats. For me, it’s too light in that it allowed a less-than-5kg little panther to over-power it and break in. A little more indestructible and a little less app things would fix the Eufy D605 Dog Camera right up.
The verdict, but with some cat-titude
Boston rates the Eufy D605 Dog Camera a 2/10 as it had the audacity to enter his space (and it doesn’t give out enough bickes). But he gives the box the whole thing came in 10/10.
Where to buy the Eufy D605 Dog/Pet Camera?
Eufy $499 | The Good Guys $499 | JB Hi-Fi $499
I’m sorry about all the puns.