Fitness trackers are big business, with millions of us now recording how many steps we take each day and poring over the data on our smartphones to keep fit and healthy.
But motion-sensing bracelets designed for human wrists were just the start: the latest thing in fitness tracking is turning this technology towards our pets.
Take the Dog Tracker Nano, for instance, which is currently seeking £100,000 in investment on Seedrs. The plastic collar is designed to be worn by your dog and track how far and fast your pet moves throughout the day with a built-in GPS chip.
By syncing with your smartphone it can tell you how much exercise your dog is getting every day and for how long, thanks to tiny motion sensors. The special app even analyses the data to give advice on the ideal weight, exercise targets and nutrition based on your dog’s breed, age and lifestyle.
Worried that your Labrador is putting on weight? That your Alsatian isn’t being walked enough? Now you can tell.
Cleverly, it can also be used to set up “safe zones” and set off an alarm if your dog wanders outside them. Trace the outline of your garden, for instance, and your smartphone will alert you if your dog manages to burrow under the fence and go exploring – and tell you exactly where he is on a map.
John Wisbey, co-founder of the firm behind the product, RDTP, told the Telegraph: “We see so many unfit and troubled dogs every day and wanted to do something about it.”
The company hopes to have the devices on sale by the summer. The Seedrs campaign has already raised £38,000 of the £100,000 needed.
But other similar devices are already on the market.
The FitBark is a small bone-shaped device which clips onto your dog’s existing collar, and comes in five colours for $99. At just eight grams it’s unlikely to hold your dog back and is waterproof so won’t go haywire if you take your dog to the beach.
The device syncs with a smartphone but you can also buy an optional $79 Wi-Fi base station that will send data directly to FitBark’s servers even if you and your phone are not at home.
Unlike the Dog Tracker Nano the FitBark works on motion sensing only, and not GPS, but is likely to be much cheaper.
And the industry is much bigger than those two products alone. Another firm, Whistle, raised $15m in funding earlier this month on top of a previous round of $10m for its health tracker for dogs.
At the same time it said that it had bought out Snaptracs, a spin-off from computer chip maker Qualcomm, which sells a tracker called Tagg with built-in GPS so you can see exactly where your dog ran.
For those with a higher budget there is also Voyce, which costs $300 but also offers heart rate and respiratory tracking for your dog.
The market for canine health trackers looks set to grow as large as that for humans.
