Upcycling Electronics: How a Discarded Tablet Can Benefit Animal Companions

Key Takeaways

• Repurpose old tablets for pets with cat and dog TV, tablet games, and baby monitor apps.
• Use tablet mounts for optimal viewing angles and keep pets entertained with short bursts of content.
• Ensure pet wellbeing by monitoring their behavior and providing attention and stimulation.

Even tablet computers, which don’t need upgrading often, will eventually pile up. You can give them to kids, pass them on to your parents, or try to get a few bucks for them used. However, if you’re a pet owner, have you considered that your cat or dog might enjoy having a tablet too?

Cat and Dog TV

I will never forget the day that I discovered cat and dog “TV” on YouTube. When it’s raining outside, or there’s any other reason our pets can’t go outside right now, these animal-friendly videos can be a great source of

My dogs in particular enjoy Daycare for Dogs which shows dogs at an adoption center being social in a play group. It’s also for a good cause!

While I don’t have to do it as often, both my cats are disabled and can’t go outside unsupervised. So, sometimes I use cat TV videos showing birds, squirrels, and other wildlife that would interest cats.

While you can totally put this stuff on your main big TV for your pets, if you mount an old tablet somewhere, such as near your pet’s crate or pen, then you can give them access to these programs without tying up your big TV.

In my personal experience, you should use cat and dog TV sparingly as needed. Dogs in particular can become overstimulated, so treat it like a play or exercise session—short bursts are better. Cat and dog TV programs are not a substitute for giving your animals the attention and stimulation they need to be physically and mentally healthy.

Cat Tablet Games

Cats are such tactile animals, and they love to play by batting things around or trying to catch them. There’s nothing wrong with traditional cat toys such as laser pointers, fascinators, crinkly toys, or balls with bells in them, but the genre of cat games for tablets can be a great supplement to this. My older cat notoriously wiped out my neighbour’s entire guppy pond, but maybe he’d have suppressed the urge if games like Cat Fishing 2 had existed back then.

Generally, these games provide your cat with sights and sounds that they’ll find attractive, and since your tablet has a huge touch screen, it means the cat can actually interact with on-screen objects. Both of my cats readily engage with these cat games, but I’d rather use an old Android tablet for the job than my brand-new iPad!

Baby Monitor Apps

Whether you have young children, pets, or both, their lives and wellbeing are in your hands. However, we can’t be everywhere all the time. We need to go to work, or sometimes just to another part of the house. This makes it a good idea to invest in something like a Ring camera, so that you can keep an eye on your pets regardless of where you might be.

However, if you already have an old tablet you don’t need anymore, there’s nothing stopping you from using a baby monitor app that turns that tablet into a monitoring tool. Something like Cloud Baby Monitor was designed to help you keep an eye on a human baby, there’s no reason you can’t do the same thing with a furbaby.

Of course, unlike a dedicated baby monitor camera system, your tablet probably doesn’t have the right mounting gear to get the best angle, so you’ll have to look for the right tablet stand or mount to hook it up. Once you’ve got mounting angles and power sorted, you can keep an eye on them all day. This is especially useful if you’re one of the many people who have crate-trained your animals and have them stay in their crates while you step out or have to go to work. This ensures you know if they are sick, or if they are in any sort of distress.

Also read: