As a seasoned traveller, I’m often asked to take advantage of the generate Dollar to Pound exchange rate by friends. 

Earlier this week I drove miles and miles around the South Bay of California on the hunt for a Dropcam Video monitoring camera.

This little device can broadcast live video images from your house to your phone or tablet, and will be all the rage here in the UK next year.

The £250 camera seemed like a sensible idea for my friend, given that she regularly worked away from home.

But it wasn’t household security on her mind – instead to eavesdrop on her beloved cats.

The average animal lover in Wiltshire may only just be about comfortable with micro chipping their moggy or having a magnetic collar that opens the cat flap, but if US shopping malls are anything to go by, our pets will end up as hi-tech as you or me. 

One of the most popular gadgets for pets here in America is the Eyenimal, a collar that finally answers the age-old question of what your animal gets up to when you are at work, thanks to its built-in video camera.

With a battery that lasts two days, you can take the collar off, plug it into your computer and see just how busy, or lazy your pet has been. 

And if you are worried that your dog isn’t getting enough exercise, you can now track how many steps that man’s best friend walked today – thanks to the Fitbark – a dog version of the popular digital Fitbit pedometer. 

In the same way as big companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft are working on creating next generation wearable technology, like smart watches – they are now working on technology that will improve communication between us and our animals – gathering information about their wellbeing through heart rate and body sensors. 

As a nation of animal lovers, surely it’s just a simple matter of time before our pets look like they’ve rolled in an electrical store.