Furbo Mini 360° Review: A Sharper Camera, Ten Treats and a Plan

The smaller Furbo is the one most people should look at first, and the reason is not the price. It is that Furbo quietly gave the Mini a better camera than the big one. The cost of that trade is a treat tank you can fill with ten pieces and a plan you are expected to buy.

The Mini has the sharper picture

On Furbo's comparison page, the Mini 360 is listed with 2K QHD video and 8x digital zoom. The full-size Furbo 360 shows 1080p and 4x zoom. Both rotate through 360 degrees, both have colour night vision, auto-tracking, two-way audio and barking alerts.

So the headline question, what you give up, is not about video. It is about everything around the lens.

What you give up

Size and treats. The Mini is 3.6 x 3.5 x 3.5 inches and weighs 0.3 lb. The full-size 360 is 8.8 x 4.9 x 4.9 inches and 1.7 lb. Furbo calls the Mini's dispenser "Lite Treat Toss" and says it holds up to 10 small treats, against 100 pieces in the big one.

That is the whole product decision. Ten treats is a few tosses during a bad afternoon, not a day of reward. If your plan is to train a dog to stay calm by tossing a treat every hour, the Mini runs dry before lunch. Furbo recommends dry, firm, round treats of 0.25 to 0.5 inch, and warns against moist or crumbly ones, so a bag of soft training treats will not work either.

What you gain is a camera that fits on a bookshelf, packs for a trip and watches a cat or a small dog without looking like an appliance. The Mini also takes a feather wand for cat play, and during setup the app asks you to choose dog or cat, which changes the experience it offers. We think the Mini is better suited to cats and small dogs than the name of this review suggests.

The $35 camera is really a plan

Look at the product page twice. The camera is $99 on its own. The $35 price is a Subscribe and Save bundle, and it requires you to pick a Furbo Nanny plan. Furbo's page shows the Standard plan at about $6.99 a month on a yearly plan, with a 30% first-year discount and a first-year bill of $83.92. Monthly billing is $9.99 and, according to independent coverage, has a three-month minimum.

So the first year is roughly $119 for camera plus plan, and later years are the plan alone. At full price Nanny runs about $119 a year, which is more than the camera itself.

Standard includes three days of video history. A premium tier exists, but Furbo's Mini page documents only the standard one, and we did not verify the higher plan's price.

Do you need the plan at all?

This is the point where sources disagree, and we would rather say so than pick the friendlier version. The Amazon listing for the Mini carries a "Paid Plan Required to Activate" label. Some independent write-ups say live view, two-way audio, treat tossing and barking alerts keep working if you cancel; others say the Mini has no free trial and needs a subscription from day one. Furbo's own Mini page does not settle it.

Our advice is practical. Assume the plan is mandatory, price the camera at $99 plus Nanny, and check the live page before checkout. If it turns out you can run the Mini without Nanny, treat that as a bonus.

The warranty is one year on the hardware, shipping is free in the US and returns are free for 30 days.

One detail that annoys

There is no power adapter in the box. Furbo says it leaves it out to cut electronic waste and suggests a 5.2 volt USB phone charger. Most homes have one, but it is a small reminder that the headline price is not the final one.

Verdict

The Furbo Mini 360 is a good camera in a small body, sold with a plan that you should count as part of its price. For a cat, a small dog or a rental where a tall tower will not fit, it is the better Furbo. For an anxious dog that needs a steady supply of treats, buy the full-size model instead.

Skip the Mini if you want a camera that costs nothing after the purchase. Every number here comes from Furbo and from independent reviews, and Furbo can change its prices at any time.