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How my smart home helps care for my pets

Smart home tech makes for happy animals.

An outdoor contact sensor on a garden gate or an “animal detected” alert from a video doorbell notifies me faster than a GPS tracker that Gus has made a break for it, and smart home automations and routines that work for humans can be helpful for four-legged friends, too. Instead, I rely on the various security cameras and video doorbells I’m testing around my house to send a motion or animal alert to my phone when he’s walking through the yard to the backdoor or sitting on the front porch waiting to be let in. In case I miss an alert on my phone, I also have an Alexa Routine set up to play a Christmas bells jingle and announce “Smokey’s Home” from an Echo Show 8 on my desk and a speaker in the living room when the Google Nest Cam (outdoor / indoor) trained on the porch door detects an animal.

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