Rivian R2's Pet Cam Turns the Cabin Camera Into a Window to Your Dog

Rivian is giving the R2 a feature that should appeal to anyone who hates leaving a dog behind in the car: a Pet Cam that streams live video of the cabin straight to the owner’s phone. The capability will arrive through an over-the-air software update, and it builds on the R2’s existing Pet Comfort Mode, which already holds the interior at a safe temperature while an animal is aboard.

The hardware making this possible is the color camera tucked inside the central rear-view mirror — the same sensor that watches the driver for attentiveness while the vehicle is in motion. When Pet Comfort Mode is switched on, owners can pull up a live view inside the Rivian app, or opt for still images delivered once a minute that land on a phone’s lock screen if a widget has been set up.

Don’t expect the same trick on Rivian’s larger models. The R1S and R1T rely on an infrared camera to track cabin activity, and that sensor can’t produce the kind of color footage Pet Cam depends on, so the feature stays exclusive to the R2. Privacy shaped the design as well: Pet Cam ships turned off by default, and it refuses to run if it detects a person inside the vehicle — a safeguard Rivian’s software chief said is meant to prevent the system from being used to monitor another adult.

Rivian hasn’t committed to a release date for the version that switches Pet Cam on. The most recent software build pushed to the R2 and R1, labeled 2026.31.40, introduced the new Rivian OS 2 interface for the R1 lineup, but its notes make no mention of Pet Cam.