Home monitoring camera?

I'm an admitted workaholic. Obviously my work life balance will need to change, as we'll be starting dosing this weekend. I work downtown (i.e. not close enough to come home on lunch), usually 8-11 hour shifts and typically about 5 hours on Saturdays as well. My partner works full time as well, and may be able to occasionally stop by on lunch, but likely not daily. Needless to say, I'm very worried for the upcoming work week and not being able to make sure everything is okay. The stress of diagnosis the past few weeks and taking time off for vet appointments has put me more behind at work, just compounding to the already demanding nature of my job. I can't keep focus and all I can think of is being home with my boys.

A coworker of mine uses a home monitoring system to check in on her dog while she's away. There is a camera to monitor and she's notified if there's any odd motion sensing activity or barking. She can talk to him through a speaker and even launch preloaded treats. I think something like this might be beneficial for our household and I'll be looking into some different systems. Does anyone currently use something like this? If so, do you think it helped ease your mind a bit? Any system recommendations? Thanks in advance!

 

I do know there are some people here that have camera's in their homes (like Nanny cams) that allow them to check on their kitties on their phones but I don't remember the particular brands.

You can also get an auto-feeder like the PetSafe5 that allows you to program it to open and offer food during the day while you're at work. To make sure kitty doesn't get food for the 2 hours immediately before Pre-shot times, you can have it advance to an empty slot.

There's also some good ideas in this "Is Tight Regulation possible with a full time job" thread. It's geared toward Tight Regulation with Lantus/Levemir, but there's some good ideas for anybody!

 

I want to be a stay at home cat mom!!

I thought about getting one, not for the purpose of watching over my cats during the day but to watch over the food bowl at night when I'm sleeping. I have five cats and the automatic feeder doesn't seem like a good choice for me. I'd like to leave some food down for them at night, but I'm concerned that my sugar baby will eat it within two hours before I test him. However, there's a good chance all of it may be eaten early in the evening. So... I thought that a nanny cam could be useful.

 

I've always been so career minded and the thought of being a stay at home anything made me roll my eyes. I get it now!

I have the same concerns about automatic feeders. Our sugarbub is such a chow hound and the alpha of our pack. His brothers defer to him which already makes feeding time a nightmare.

 

Yep. My sugar baby is the most assertive with the food as well. He's the largest, and he's always been the hungriest of all of them.

 

You can have the auto feeder open when you want and close before that two hour window. I have mine close at like 2am.

 

But I have five cats. Would I need 5 feeders?

 

I have this camera on my auto-feeder. Camera works fine, and sees great in total darkness too:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B019MMRV1M/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

So you're worried the other cats wouldn't get any? There are microchip enabled feeders that only open for specific pets

 

I am sort of worried that the other cats won't get any!

 

How are they microchipped? Do they wear collars? With five cats, would each one be microchipped for a specific feeder to open up? Would I need five feeders, or are there five compartments that would provide one for each cat? I don't mean to have so many questions, but I really have no idea how these work. To me, it just seems impractical to own one if I'm feeding more than one animal. And I really wouldn't want to just leave it for my diabetic, because my other cats have become accustomed to eating as well.

 

I have used a couple different cams to watch to girls when I am away. I HIGHLY recommend the Kasa Cam. It's a tiny more expensive than some, but it is super easy to set up. You basically plug it in, download their app, it finds the camera and voila, it's done. You can check on them in real time and/or check past activity. It has a motion and sound sensor that will record video so you can see what they have been up to. Night vision, zoom, audio..you can hear them and talk to them if you like. I love it.
I had tried others that were horrible to set up, and were not reliable. I love the Kasa cam, I have 3 in 3 different rooms.
https://www.amazon.com/Security-TP-...3363260&s=gateway&sprefix=kasa,aps,182&sr=8-3
It's actually a good price right now @ $86. I paid over $100 for a couple of mine.
(And no, I dont work for Kasa..lol)

 

The microchip controlled feeders will work with either an implanted microchip or with a chip worn on a collar. In a multi cat household, you'd likely need a feeder for each cat or 2 minimum assuming the feeder allows multiple IDs to be programmed into it. Most were >$100 each last I checked.

Interesting description Pros and Cons of one of them HERE .

 

Thanks Linda. Money's tight, so what I'm doing now seems to work!

 

I have 3 of the Amazon Cloud Cams
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C4UY0JK/ref=psdc_7459508011_t3_B074WJPPCZ
I got them when they were on sale. That have motion sensing. With only 3 there is no subscription required.