With the likes of Google Glass, Fitbit, and Emotiv wearables are now a familiar concept. Perhaps less known is that animals have been fitted with wearable technology for decades.
For example, in the 1960s conservationists fitted endangered species such as gorillas, snow leopards or elephants with radio tracking collars. As research methods improve, laboratory animals are often fitted with wearable monitoring devices rather than more invasive implanted devices.
Military or police dogs wear devices that give their handlers a “dogs-eye view” of the areas their animals are patrolling and are even able to transmit commands to the animals .
And in modern farming, livestock often wear devices to record their movements and activity as a way of monitoring hormonal cycles or to spot the early signs of possible health problems.
These are specialised uses of wearable technology for specific tasks. But in the past decade a new trend has emerged, as wearables aimed at pets have increased in popularity alongside those marketed at humans.
Health for Me, Health for My Pet
We humans seem to enjoy monitoring our every movement or vital sign in a bid to improve our health – and we want the same for our companion animals. There is no shortage of choice. For example, Retrieva is a commercial GPS collar which tracks a dog’s location, trajectory and speed in real time, data that is transmitted to a web or mobile phone. It allows the dog’s guardian to set up virtual “fences” which alert them if the dog crosses the boundaries.
The size of smaller animals is a challenge, but simple GPS trackers such as Loc8tor or G-Paws are available for cats. Marketed as a health monitor, Whistle is a light-weight device which uses accelerometer data to recognise patterns in a dog’s activity, for use by the owner or vet.
If that wasn’t enough, Voyce uses radio frequencies to detect vital signs such as heart-rate and respiration, which together with activity patterns and other information help the dog’s guardian and vet understand and improve the animal’s health. The system tracks the dog’s progress, sends the guardian relevant information and even rates the guardian’s care-taking performance.
