The Petzi Treat Cam I tested arrived dirty, and the lens bumper was broken, which I chalked up to damage during shipping. Still, this model offers only a grainy 720p resolution and a tight, 110-degree viewing angle, both of which aren’t ideal when you’re searching for an elusive cat or pup. Petzi couldn’t reliably detect nighttime from daytime, the video can be spotty, and there’s a 5-second delay for video, which is a lifetime for anxious pet parents. You can take only snapshots, not videos, of your pets, and there’s no real-time two-way audio feature. (You have to “record” an audio message each time you want to talk to your pet.) And if you stop interacting for more than two minutes, say, to fire off an email, the app times out. The app’s dashboard is a little confusing to operate, and each of the camera’s controls is stored on a different page, which means you spend more time adjusting settings than interacting with your pet. Installing treats is also nearly impossible. You have to apply pressure to opposite sides of the cover and lift, like you would a child-proof pill bottle. When you do figure it out, prepare to be disappointed further. The treats dispenser fires off a random number of treats, usually between one and 10 during my tests.
