With each new technology that emerges, we’re faced with the challenge of integrating it into the visual fabric of our lives. Do you face a similar challenge with pet technology home décor choices for your home?
With mobile phones, colorful personalized covers have become a must so that the devices can be fashioned to fit with our personal style. Smart home technology is no different. We still want the gadgets to fit into our home décor style.
Here are a few tips:
Design-Centric Specialty Stores
For people who own contemporary styled homes, it’s a bit easier to integrate pet technology into home décor. This is because most technology products are styled for early adopters and reflect a modern style.
Modernists should consider shopping for pet technology products from a store that specializes in the type of décor that is appropriate for your house. For example, Ultra Modern Pet specializes in contemporary pet technology products. With design in mind, they curate an offering of contemporary alternatives to traditional, mundane pet furniture and products.
Compared to the vast range of products you’ll find from an ecommerce superstore, a boutique store is more likely to have considered esthetics and materials in their product selection.
Solve Pet Technology Home Décor with Cabinets
The best pet technology home décor solution for traditionalists is usually to go with technology cabinets and gadget covers.
If you follow Jackson Galaxy, you’ll know that he recommends against hiding your litter box in a remote area of your house. On the other hand, most people wouldn’t be keen to have an exposed litter box sitting in the middle of their living room. The best solution is usually placing the pet technology inside a cabinet.
For example, this Etsy crafter is selling cabinet specifically made for the Litter Robot Connect.
With a self-cleaning litterbox to reduce the smell and a cabinet to hide it visually, owners who previously would not have been able to stand a litterbox in a central zone of their house may find it more palatable.
The cabinet approach also works for smaller pettech items such as treat dispensers. By placing these on the lowest shelf of a bookcase or open cabinet, they can be made less intrusive. Just be sure to secure your bookshelf or cabinet to the wall with a anchored brace so that playful antics from your pet don’t create a dangerous situation.
Solve Pettech Home Décor Challenges with Decals
When Amazon Alexa Echo was first launched and only came in plain black, there was immediately a flood of decal wraps in various patterns and styles. But now, you can order your Alexa products in a variety of patterns to match your home style – from walnut grain to charcoal fabric.
Most pettech products are not yet produced in large enough quantities to come in a variety of materials and designs, but vinyl decals can be used to create the appearance of custom colors and textures. One of our Barkytech editors solved her challenge of placing an automatic pet feeder in her French country kitchen by ordering a pretty floral laptop skin decal and trimming it to fit.
MightySkins is one of the leaders in the electronic skin space. While they don’t yet sell a skin for your Furbo, they do sell skins for some of the more common smart cameras that are often used as pet cameras. For example, they have a large selection of patterns for the Nest IQ Indoor Security Camera.
For other products, like our editor, you can fashion your own decal cover by purchasing a large square vinyl sticker and cutting it to shape and size with scissors.
Pettech Design of the Future
Some pet products are already considering personal design preferences. For example, the Cheerble pet toys come in a variety of colors and patterns. We recently visited a house that told us they decided that their dog’s “favorite color” would be red. Red vase, red pillows, and, of course, red dog toys to match the accent color of their living room.
As the category grows, pet technology designers will need to consider a wider range of colors and designs. Just like the broader smart home category has begun offering a broader range of colors and textures, we should eventually expect to find more choices in terms of color, materials, and covers for pettech devices too.
How do you solve the pet technology home décor challenge? Reach out to our editors if you would like us to feature your creative idea.
