For the past few years, the “internet of things” – gadgets for health and well-being- have exploded onto the market and have so far mainly target people. Now, some are seeing an untapped consumer tech market out there for pets.

CGTN’s Mark Niu reports.

Shawn Baker has three cats – Maui, Mia and Molly. Even though they look similar – their owner can track each of their weights and kitty litter habits with a device called Tailio, which rests beneath the single litterbox they share, at a cost of about $200.

The inventor of Tailio lost his own cat, Persik, to cancer. His weight loss could easily have been detected early with the device’s four sensors. Tailio’s machine learning algorithms have already helped pet owners detect urinary tract issues in their cats. It can even monitor whether a cat jumps out of a litter box or not – a possible sign of arthritis.

But innovative pet technology isn’t just for cats. In fact, man’s best friend is known for having a lot of pent up anxious energy, where technology can certainly come into play.

“We’re needing to invent video games for dogs, kind of. And whereas before people invented computers and then they came up with video games. We’re having to invent the video game and then invent the computer and figure out how we’re going to make that work with an entirely different species,” Leo Trottier Founder and CEO of  CleverPet said.

Psychologist Timothy Gentner said CleverPet keeps his dog calmer, especially when no one’s home. He can’t say whether the $300 system has made Ziggy smarter, but he’s been impressed.

“I was worried that it was gonna be really hard to get dogs to interact with these different devices and it would be weird and it would be scared and the puzzles would be too hard, but if anything it’s been a challenge to give him increasingly more difficult puzzles and he’s just sort of figured everyone out. That to me is amazing. It’s incredible. It tells me that there’s a lot going on inside his head,” Gentner said.