Peeka: Dog & Cat Translator

Peeka

In-app purchases

About this app

What are they actually thinking?

Point your phone at an animal - the cat on the windowsill, the dog at the park, the kookaburra that's been staring at you for five minutes - and tap once. Peeka reads the scene: the ears, the tail, the posture, what's actually going on in the frame. Then it writes two or three sentences in their voice - what they'd say about it, if they could.

No settings. No modes. Point, tap, read.

IT WORKS OUT WHAT IT'S LOOKING AT
You don't pick a species from a list and you don't tell it what you photographed. Point it at a magpie and it knows it's a magpie. That recognition is half the fun.

IT KNOWS THE BREED, NOT JUST THE ANIMAL
A dog is rarely just a dog. Peeka names the breed too — a Labrador, a kelpie, a Staffy — from the shape it can actually see: the long legs and deep chest of a sighthound, a flat face, a distinctive coat. Cats too, when there's a breed to name: a Persian, a Burmese, a ragdoll.

And it stops when it can't see enough. A cat curled nose-to-tail is hiding the exact shape a breed is read from, so you get its build and its coat and no breed at all. Most cats aren't a breed anyway — they're magnificent and they're moggies, and Peeka will say so rather than invent a pedigree. It won't say "mixed breed" to dodge the question either. That's a confident answer too.

IT IS A TRANSLATOR THAT LOOKS BEFORE IT SPEAKS
Most people arrive with one of two questions: what is my dog thinking, or what breed is my dog. Peeka answers both from the same photo. As a dog translator it has one unusual habit — it reads the animal in front of it before it says anything, so a puppy asleep on the rug gets a line about that puppy, on that rug, rather than a stock sentence any dog could have said. Same for the cat on the sill. Same for the kitten who has just discovered the curtains.

WHAT IT WON'T PRETEND TO KNOW
It won't identify a breed it can't see. Curl a dog into a ball and the shape a breed is read from disappears, so you get the build, the coat, and an honest blank. It won't say mixed breed to dodge the question either — that is a confident answer too, and it would be a guess.

IT LOOKS, IT DOESN'T LISTEN
Peeka doesn't record your pet and it doesn't play noises back at them. It reads the picture - the ears, the eyes, the tail, the half-eaten thing in the background - the way you would yourself if you stopped and watched for a minute. That's why it works just as well on a magpie in a car park as on your own dog.

ANYTHING WITH A HEARTBEAT COUNTS
Dogs and cats. Birds - magpies, kookaburras, lorikeets, chickens, ducks, owls. Horses, cows, sheep, goats. Rabbits, guinea pigs, possums. The lizard on the fence. Someone else's dog at the beach. Pets, wildlife, farm animals, the ducks at the pond.

IT KNOWS WHICH ONE IS YOURS
Tell Peeka your animals' names and it remembers them between peeks. It works out which of your pets is in the frame - not "a dog", but Harley - and each reading carries on from what it has already seen of them, so it stops sounding like a stranger meeting your cat for the first time.

A LIBRARY OF EVERYONE YOU'VE MET
Every new species fills a tile - 100 to find. Your readings are kept, so you can go back to the good ones and share the ones worth sharing.

IN YOUR LANGUAGE
Peeka answers in the language your phone is set to. Nothing to switch on.

NO ACCOUNT NEEDED TO START
Peeka is free to use every day, straight out of the box. Make an account only if you want to keep more history across devices.

MORE PEEKS
Peeka Plus and Peeka Pro raise your daily limit and give you longer, sharper readings.

Peeka is for fun. It reads body language and context the way a very observant friend would - it isn't a vet, a field guide, or a substitute for either.

What’s new

A noticeably smaller download and some under-the-hood tidying up. Nothing has changed in how Peeka works.