Rivian adds a live Pet Cam to the R2
Rivian's 2026.36 software update lets R2 owners check on a pet in the parked car from their phones. The live feed needs a Connect+ subscription at $14.99 a month, the same paid-plan approach Tesla took with its cabin camera in 2022.
On October 7th, 2026, Rivian began rolling out software update 2026.36, which lets R2 owners watch a pet left in their parked Rivian from a phone through a feature called Pet Cam. The live feed needs Connect+, Rivian's $14.99 a month plan. Tesla put a similar view behind its own paid plan in 2022.
Only the R2 gets Pet Cam
Pet Cam uses what Rivian calls the R2's "high-definition RGB interior cabin camera" to show a color view of the cabin in the Rivian app. Owners open a live stream from the app's Gear Guard section, with a real-time cabin temperature badge on the feed. Between streams, the app dashboard and the phone lock screen show fresh snapshot images of the cabin.
Anyone sitting in the car can stop the stream with one tap on the center display.
R1T and R1S owners, Gen 1 and Gen 2, get no Pet Cam. Every Rivian, the R2 included, gets new remote controls. Pet Mode can now be turned on from the app and turned off with a paw icon, and the app asks for a confirming tap either way. The same update brings Rivian Assistant, the company's AI voice assistant, to the R2, and the release notes limit it to cars on Connect+ or a trial.
Rivian says more than 60% of its owners travel with their dogs, a company-reported figure with no stated method. R2 deliveries only began on June 9th, 2026, according to the company's second-quarter results, so by our math the camera starts with owners who have had their cars for four months or less.
The live view runs on a paid plan
The announcement does not mention a subscription. The release notes do. "Pet Cam requires an active Connect+ subscription," reads the 2026.36 release notes as reproduced by the owner site RivianTrackr.
Rivian's own page lists remote camera livestreaming as "Not standard, included with Connect+." The plan costs $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year, and every new and used Rivian gets a 60-day trial. A footnote caps Gear Guard Live Cam at one hour of streaming a day and says interior viewing "requires Pet Mode to be enabled" and "is not to be used for people." By our math, the annual plan costs about the same as 10 months on the monthly one.
Tesla made the same call first. Its 2022 holiday update let owners view the cabin camera during Dog Mode, with the footage stamped with the interior temperature, and it required a Premium Connectivity subscription, Drive Tesla Canada reported on December 14th, 2022. Tesla renamed Dog Mode to Pet Mode in its spring 2026 update, according to Not a Tesla App.
Two carmakers now charge for the pet view
Both automakers put the live pet view in the paid tier rather than the free one. Neither says why. If we had to guess, a dog waiting in a parked car is one of the few times an owner opens the car app with real urgency, and that is a good moment to show what the plan does.
The pattern is familiar from pet tech. PetPace sells its health collar through Chewy but keeps the monitoring subscription for itself. In both cases the hardware is the one-time sale and the plan is the recurring one.
Whether owners will pay is still open. In Rover's summer travel survey of 1,000 U.S. pet parents, 87% said they would pay extra for pet-friendly accommodations. That is a self-reported answer about travel, not car software.
The camera is new. The subscription logic is not.
Photo: Rivian.
Source: Rivian
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