Samsung has put AI to work on everything from your sleep quality to your TV screen and what’s inside your refrigerator.
At VivaTech 2026 in Paris, the company announced something considerably more personal and useful: a pet health feature that uses AI to flag potential health problems before they become expensive vet bills.
How does the pet health feature work on Galaxy phones?
The feature is built in partnership with Lifet, a pet health startup that is part of Samsung’s external incubation program
It lets you point your Galaxy phone’s camera at your dog or cat, capture a picture, and uses AI to analyze the image for signs of dental disease, patellar luxation, and cataracts.
Lifet is already offering this analysis through its own website, with a 97% detection accuracy claim, which is attributed to the startup, not Samsung.
While the company has demonstrated the feature as part of its SmartThings ecosystem (with Pet Care service installed), it has yet to announce a release date, supported Galaxy devices, or market availability.
Why does this matter more than it might sound?
The pet health monitoring market in the US is growing quickly, and most of it has been dominated by dedicated hardware. I’m talking about wearable trackers like FitBark and Whistle, or subscription-based cameras.
Samsung is taking the opposite approach. The SmartThings Pet Care feature doesn’t require any new hardware or subscription. It works with the Galaxy phone already in your pocket.
Depending on how well the accuracy holds up in the real world and how well Samsung integrates it into the SmartThings ecosystem, the photo-based pet health detection feature could become indispensable for pet owners who would otherwise wait too long to notice something was wrong.
Like other AI-based health analysis tools, Samsung clearly mentions that this one doesn’t replace a professional veterinary diagnosis. However, if the combination works well, it may put the company in a category with no direct competition.