PETLIBRO Automatic Cat Feeder with Camera, 1080P HD Video & Night Vision

I’ve had this product for a long time now, all I can say is good things. It’s a perfect size for my cat. Super easy to clean and disassemble if needed. App connection is fast and very reliable, which I appreciate. It’s also pet proof, when your fuzzy buddy wants to break in and get a late night snack. The locks on it is helpful. Also this machine is durable after dropping it a few times, no scratches or hardware issues. The battery life is also a nice touch, if the power goes out, my cat can still eat! (Yay!) I only wish it would let me adjust and set up smaller portions to feed. Other than that totally worth the money.

I love the product and all its functionalities. It’s super easy to assemble, and to use even easier, just set it and forget it. Oh, and if you forget to buy food to refill the tank, the device will make sure to remind you! Also, super easy to clean and super quiet, my cat loves it! The memory card sometimes has issues working with the device but overall it works perfectly. I wish they didn’t charge such an insane amount of money for their subscription (I guess they found their niche) just so that I can have access to the most basic thing that inspired me to actually buy the machine, but at least there’s the memory card alternative. Anyway, I’m rambling…. But it, it’s worth every penny. It’s a great brand, they make great products, and their customer service is top notch.

PLEASE NOTE: If you already have an ONLINE Petlibro account (which Petlibro says is for purchasing product only) then you WILL have to create a new account using the app. Doesn't make sense, but trust me, I learned the hard way. Beyond that oddity (which drops a star in this rating, as they did not mention that in any of their start up instructions) the product so far seems to be working well: + Build quality is good. Quality parts. However, the auger inside, which feeds the cat food through the bowl is surprisingly small and made of a rubber-like material. I am concerned that could wear out too quickly * Set up is easy (once I figured out why I couldn't even use the app due to account creation lack of info, see above). Just follow the directions, ALL of them, as the app walks you through. I had no problem connecting two of these feeders to my Wifi, which has both 2 gHz and 5. * The Android app is pretty good, until it freezes or crashes, which is too often. This tends to happen when you change any of the settings. * I originally had the "IR Night Vision" turned on but noticed that one of my cats seemed to jump away scared from the feeder once that night vision camera activates. I assume this use an IR light which, according to my research, cats cannot see, but apparently can feel due to extra heat receptors on their skin, compared to humans. I turned it off and there were no more problems. * By default, Two-Way Talk Mode is turned ON. I found this to be a problem, as when I was monitoring my cats while they were near the feeders they were startled and jumped back the second there was an incidental sound on my end. For that reason, I highly recommend switching to One-Way Communication. This can be done by tapping the Settings icon in the main device screen (looks like a hex nut in the upper righthand corner), then tap the Basic Function Settings item, then tap Talk Mode, then tap One-Way Communication. You will still be able to talk to your cat by holding the Talk button in the main device screen, so that sound on your end is heard by your cat only when you want them to hear you. Kind of like using a CB mic. * The notification feature is good and customizable. My cats and I are still in the "acquaintance" stage of these feeders, so i want to know which cat is at which feeder (and shoo the cat who is on the wrong feeder). * Note that this feeder uses grams to express the amount of cat food dispensed. That makes sense, as all kibble is different. Most bags of cat food express recommended feeding amounts in cups. So, you will need to find out via internet search how much 1 cup of your particular cat food weighs in grams. 1 serving on these machines is 10 grams. You can determine how many of these 10 gram "servings" should be done in 1 feeding. * Phone Battery-draining app settings: The instructions walk you through a procedure to keep the app always running in the background, as well as other settings which drain your battery. I get why they want to do that, but I ignored all of that, since my phone battery is 2 years old and is having difficulties with a full charge as it is already.

I was hesitant to buy this based some of the negative reviews but so far, I'm very happy with this feeder! I've done a few tests to rule out the issues that some people have reported and I'm happy to report that I haven't experience any issues in my case. At first, setting up the network and installing software update would fail over and over. What is odd is once I walked away from the unit, about 10 feet, it connected to Wi-Fi instantly, and software also updated instantly. Somehow the cell phone in-hand interferes with the unit connecting to the Wi-Fi signal. I wish I had known this from the start. I was concerned that my router is in the basement on the other side of the house. I was able to connect to 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi and the signal has never dropped so far. I have 5 Ghz as well but the router is too far away and there's too many walls for a stable connection. Besides 5 Ghz is over kill, video streaming works fine on 2.4 Ghz and signal travels farther and works better through walls. I have an AC timer connected to my router and ONT to cut power to both at 4:30am every morning for 30 minutes. This simulates a power outage and the Petlibro reconnects every single time no issues. I tested the backup battery by disconnecting the power adaptor and the unit continued to dispense as per schedule with the 3 D-cell batteries! However, it disconnects from Wi-Fi when running on batteries. This was probably by design to conserve battery. Disappointed as I like to see the food in the bowl and option to manually feed for peace of mind! I found an easy and cheap workaround that maintains Wi-Fi connection on battery power. I connected a cheap $20 4000mah portable USB battery, that is used to charge cell phones, into the USB port and then I plugged a USB phone charger into that battery. The battery is charged and powers the unit at the same time. Not all USB battery packs have this pass-through feature, and I was surprised that this small cheap power pack did. I chose to use a higher quality charger instead of the included charger as I noticed that the included power pack got a little hot when charging this USB battery. I then disconnected the charger from the wall outlet to simulate a power outage and the unit disconnected from the Wi-Fi for only 15 seconds but then reconnected. It's fully functional running on the USB power pack, stayed connected to Wi-Fi and enough power to run for 6 hours! An even larger USB battery will last at least 12-24 hours longer. Keep in mind this is only helpful if your Router & ONT are also on battery-backup/UPS so they are powered during a power outage. I have the smallest APC UPS for the router and ONT that cost $69. Also, the D-batteries are not even used until this USB battery pack is depleted! So technically my current setup will continue feeding per schedule for about 24 hours using both batteries. The unit apparently doesn't draw a lot of power, so I wonder why Petlibro doesn't allow Wi-Fi on the D-batteries or include a rechargeable battery instead of 3 D-batteries. D batteries are not cheap, they will lose power over time and are sold in packs of four, so I have a single battery left over. My USB battery is always 100% charged and ready to go so I prefer this setup. So far, the portion size is consistent and zero blockages. Then again, I am using very small kibble and set to 1 portion for 6 feedings. I need to dispense the smallest portion and feed more often as my cat throws up if he eats too fast or too much. This unit is great as my cat hasn't thrown up at all since, I bought this unit! I wish I could select an even smaller portion. Portion size is bigger when using small kibble. An added benefit of the motion activated camera is that it's also activated when my cat is drinking from the water fountain 12 feet in front of the feeder. I never see my cat drinking water and now I have proof. lol I have not confirmed yet that the low-food alert works but I will update the review if there are any issues. Some users have complained that you can't delete a scheduled feeding. Swipe left and it gives you an option to delete a scheduled feeding. So far, I agree with everything that is being said in the positive reviews and luckily not experiencing the issues in the negative reviews.

This is all plastic parts , so be sure to clean every day or every other day… after 48 hours, according to vital sips.com plastic generates considerable bacteria, if you wait beyond that 48 hours. I boil my water to make sure all bacteria is sterilized. FYI (Vital sips sell all metal water fountains). Note that the last little shoot where it drops into the bowl cannot be removed for cleaning so I wipe it with alcohol to remove bacteria —best I can do on that part. I also put any residual dry food in the oven to make sure it’s sterile when it goes back inside the system because it tends to spill out when you’re cleaning it. Reassembly after cleaning is a bit tricky— the compartment base and the food tank all need to lineup at the side notches shown for the food tank. You might have to fiddle some with the base so that it rotates clockwise into place. I always check the dispense afterwards to make sure I got it together right. “In the box” says it comes with a charger, which mine did not, though I had an old iPhone plug & adaptor on hand. I don’t wish to return it for a replacement because it’s likely to come the same way. Since I have one on hand already I have not deducted for that. Programming it was a little frustrating because the first item you put in is the time of day. If you toggle through any of that, then it was not obvious it came back for reprogramming it. I finally resolved that issue by unplugging it for a while for it to reset everything. (No battery in) The plus/minus key pressed together is supposed to reset everything, but it did not seem to do the time of day. Later I realized it’s possibly a blank input, so it’s easy to inadvertently toggle through that. To get to the change am to pm, you have to change the first number :ie 5 AM to 5 PM by toggling all the way around those first numbers. So it’s easy to make a mistake on the a.m. or p.m. setting. Except for that it’s relatively easy to program and the feeding numbers 1-6 can be reset using the simultaneous plus minus keys together. You can select one of the feeding settings to correct later, but you end up toggling through a lot of extra numbers. The instructions are fairly good, though it did not tell you how to change the a.m. p.m. and the time of day instruction was not very clearly stated. Also, it did not tell you where the unlock button is, it is not the one that lights up. It’s all the way over on the left side. I got this so that my cats would not cry for food at three in the morning! (Multicat household). It does WONDERS for that! Free feeding cats at night results in fat cats which shortens their life according to my Vet. And other health issues from overweight cats. So restrictive feeding is necessary to keep them at the right weight. But they get hungry at night when I want to sleep! Can’t say how long this will last I just got it, the hope is a year minimum because it’s rather expensive to replace very often. The company did throw in overnight shipping included in the price. This was the best feeder according to the reviews, which is more expensive than the lowest priced items. I did not want Wi-Fi connection because that often is the first thing to break on these type of devices. Simpler is better! I chose the black one because it was five dollars cheaper, and the time is very legible because of the contrast! Love that. This is just a fancy alarm clock with a shoot, and storage container; it’s surprisingly rather expensive for what it is… most electronics seem to be overpriced imo.

**addition to this review. I recently had an issue with an error saying the feeder was blocked but it wasnt. After taling it apart and seeing there was nothing blocking it i reached out to their customer support through their website. About 12 hours later i recieved an email with detailed instructions on an update they added to my app and instructions to update app, remove batteries, unplug the unit, then add batteries back and plug it in again. It worked!! After a little over a week of trying to figure it out myself and being convinced it had crapped out after almost a year it's back on track. They were quick to respond and they so far have the issue fixed and I have every confidence they will help out quickly again should the need arise. Full confidence in their customer support and their product. This thing has worked well for almost a year until this hiccup and now we're back on track. So far I have only had it set up for about 30 minutes. Yesterday when it arrived I pulled it from the box and started set up when I realized I needed C batteries and a micro SD card, something I overlooked when I ordered it. No big deal, I went back on Amazon and ordered both those things and got them this morning. Meanwhile, I taught myself how it worked, got it hooked up to wifi, & washed the top portion where food is stored and the bowl. Let it dry overnight. Then when I got up this morning set it up without issue. Not sure why people say it's so hard to set up. But I'm also used to hooking up security cameras, fire sticks, and water leak detection units to my wifi, so maybe I just understand the steps better since I've done it quite a lot. Either way, it's pretty easy, just have some patience with the steps. My only issue really came with the fact that it locks itself like after one minute so when I was trying to get my password in it locked itself, but it's super easy to unlock anyways. I'm not sure if it would have made any difference if it was locked during this process, but the instructions said to unlock it so I made sure it was unlocked during this whole process. I tested it this morning and because I had the other version of this feeder that doesn't have the camera or use the wifi, my kitty Butters, came in to eat a snack as soon as he heard it hit the metal bowl. Added bonus is that it uses a metal bowl instead of plastic. Metal is much better for our fur babies to eat and drink out of. This one will be nice because it holds more than my old one, I can feed him snacks from work, and I can make sure and keep up with his eating habits. I also have it scheduled for his regular feedings twice daily, automatically, which was also easy to set up on the app. The app downloaded without issue. Set up was a piece if cake. All in all, so far, so good. If anything changes I'll update the review.

Good products but very predatory sales tactics if you want to use local storage and not their cloud offering. They do no support multiple subscriptions thru Apple’s ecosystem (App Store) and it feels like they intentionally are making the user experience horrible if you do not subscribe to a subscription. Read on. I have 3 feeders and the Luna Litter box. Listen, I get that subscriptions are everything these days. What bothers me is how Petlibro will NOT let you access History without constantly flipping to Cloud with an Ad. I have an SD card and they intentionally revert to the Cloud offering. What also bothers me is how the performance is terrible when using an SD card. As an engineer, this makes me want to dissect the unit, dump the firmware and decompile the software to see if they intentionally are making the user experience bad when using local storage just to force users to cloud. I would have purchased a subscription but apparently you can only buy 1 product subscription per app/per Apple ID. Lovely. Why can’t you be like Wyze which lets you bind cameras at will. This is completely assinine that they want users to leave Apple’s ecosystem to buy subscriptions direct to have multiple products. This seems like they want to bypass Apple’s AppStore revenues like Epic Games, which is how users forget about subscriptions. I am not really impressed with Petlibro and the impression they leave. These tactics make me want to sell all 4 devices or return them to Amazon. It feels very much dishonest and predatory.

Great and easy to use, program the feeder. Only thing is the voice box it uses it not great. Does not sound like your own voice and isnt great quality, a lot of static when it activates. Now that doesn't bother my dog cuz he just associates the noise its making while talking as his food being filled. But you can change the amount of food it gives and the times up to 6 times a day. I have my dog fed 5 times a day, however it does take some time figuring out how much the feeder actually gives. You can program 1-50 portions for feeding and the portions are pretty small, like a few kibble each. So since my dog is a husky about 70lbs I feed him 5 times a day at 5 portions each feeding and that will give him the same amount as if I fed him twice a day about 2 cups each. To give you an idea on how the portions work! So if you wanted to auto feed twice a day I would look into maybe 20 or so portions for each meal! Just experiment and put it at different settings. The food does need to be refilled every couple days as the tank does not hold as much (it would work a lot better for smaller dogs with smaller food). But it works just fine for what I need while im working!

The machine is great, but night vision doesn’t work

Inmejorable. Puedes programar las comidas con distintas porciones en un dia. También puedes elegir cuando se escuche la grabación para llamar al gato y cuando no. No ocupa espacio y e fácil de programar leyendo el instructivo

I’ve been using this feeder for 2 years and 9 months, and it has become such a reliable part of my routine that I honestly barely think about it anymore. It is always there, working exactly as it should. But if I didn’t have it, it would make a huge difference in my day-to-day life. 1. Reliable and helpful for portion control: it has never let me down. I use it to give my cat two portions of dry food at different times during the day, and it has been really helpful while she is on a diet. 2. Important note about the minimum portion size: with the kibble I use, the smallest portion it dispenses is around 22 g. That works well for us, but it may not be ideal for someone who needs very small or extremely precise portions. 3. Beautiful and well made: it looks really nice in my home and feels very well built. After almost three years of daily use, the quality has held up very well. 4. Easy to clean: cleaning is simple and straightforward. I wash the food bowl every week and clean the food container about every six months. 5. Great camera and useful app features: I use the camera almost every day just because I like checking in on my cat, and the image quality is very good. I do not pay for a subscription, and I still get everything I personally need from the feeder. The app also has useful notification and customization options, including the option to turn notifications off. 6. Helpful customer support: I only needed support once for a minor issue, and they were very responsive. They guided me through the troubleshooting, and it was resolved quickly. 7. Backup power gives peace of mind: I keep it plugged in and also use batteries as backup. Knowing that it will continue dispensing food during a power outage gives me a lot of peace of mind. Overall, I would absolutely recommend it. It is dependable, practical, easy to maintain, and makes life much easier.

Nice and easy to use feeder, with camera that you can see through an app. Really nice to have feeder which has allowed us to easily portion control our cat which needed to eat slightly less. Camera feature is great for when you out of the house and need some reassurance your cat is still getting and eating it's food! Being able to easily change the portions and schedule is great from the app, rather than having to fiddle around with any buttons on the device. Does seem to occasionally go offline for a while, not sure if this is from software updates, but happens every few weeks

اسوأ شي خذيته الاكل ماينزل في الوقت وخرابيط مسوينه مانويل المفروض دايما وايفاي لان بدونه تتعذب وانت تضبطه سيء جدا جدا