PETLIBRO Upgraded RFID 3L Automatic Cat Feeder

We’ve got two cats - one 7 years old and one 5 months old. Both are insanely food driven. We initially were using a timed feed release product (no collar ID/no dish covering), but couldn’t figure out a system of feeding them both with the timed release, even with it releasing into two bowls. Plus, they needed different food for another 7 months till kitten transitions to adult food. The kitten is bold and will push our chubby ginger aside, so the adult cat was beginning to eat fast and vomit. All feedings required adult supervision and it was becoming a real pain since our adult overweight cat needed to also be kept out of the high calorie kitten food. So we broke down and paid what felt like a lot (IS a lot) for 2 of these reader feeders. They are nearly perfect for us, and the downsides are mentioned in some of the reviews I read before buying, but I’ll mention them in my detailed review below to be thorough. BOTTOM LINE (if you don’t like long reviews): I’d buy them again without hesitation but I look forward to future models that improve the products further. Read on if you want the nitty gritty. PROS: The feeders are easy to set up. I hit a few hiccups with the pairing steps initially, but just kept fussing with WiFi and Bluetooth settings until something finally worked. Took maybe 20 minutes of random trouble-shooting (& I’m unsure what made it work). The app is super easy to set up and has a very intuitive interface. Along with setting up feeds (with lots of flexibility across days of the week, etc, the feeders also send usage info to the app telling you when the pet “fed” and for how long. Note that it doesn’t really know they ate, just that they went to the feeder and stood at the open feeder for c minutes. I was into looking at this data the first 48 hours and then quickly realized I didn’t care and haven’t used that info/feature since. But if you have a poor eater or elderly cat, I could see how that would be handy. I was able to “name” both feeders so the kids would mix up food type when reloading the generous canisters on top (will probably last 2 weeks or so). I tried out the recordable audio call, but it was too loud on the feeder and I could immediately tell that it would be annoying to hear when we were home and so I disabled it. The feed release options are in portions of 1/12 (yes, twelfth) of a cup of kibble, so I was able to set up two feedings (am and pm) for the kitten (1/3c am and 1/3c pm) and chubby (1/4c am and 1/4c pm) so easily after some quick mental math. If the kitten seems extra hungry mid-day and guilts me into it, I can do an extra single 1/12c (mouthful) kibble release manually directly from the app from another room to avoid him getting the idea it’s me breaking down when he meows at me. Disassociating me from the feeds has been a game-changer for begging (harassing) behaviors in both cats and we can finally go about our business in areas around the feeders without the cats acting like we came to feed them. Highly recommend. The top of the feeders has a generously sized canister and the lid seems to have a nice gasket seal to keep the food fresh. The tag readers on the cats collars never glitch and sense the target collar when the cat is within 1-2 inches of the reader pad in front of the feed bowl, so it starts opening as they finish the approach. The side guards work well to discourage stealing from the non-target cat, but it won’t work if you have very pushy stealers who smush their head in next to their buddy. We got around this issue by setting both feeders to release at the same time and keeping the portions small - both cats run to their feeders and tend to finish about the same time, so there’s no opportunity for one to come try to steal while the other is finishing. We also set the feeders on opposite sides of the room to further encourage going to their own dishes and focusing on their own food. I have both plugged into the wall, so I can’t speak to the back-up battery life. The door mechanism has an audible opening sound, but it’s not loud or annoying. Just a faint hum as the door opens. They aren’t small, but for what they are I find the low profile. The feeder plastic is thick and seems sturdy. I can’t imagine either cat opening the storage area because the gasket creates a significant suction and there are two release buttons you have to press to open it too. But maybe a batshit crazy cat could attack it and knock the whole thing over to get it to open? CONS: Price. These aren’t cheap and if you have to buy multiple, it’s a tough pill to swallow. For us, it was worth it. The drama and hassle around feedings had just become overwhelming and having it instantly solved is something I would pay for again without hesitation. Other reviewers have mentioned the slow lid closure. It’s true - even the one second closure setting is pretty darn slow. The open speed in my video is the 1 second setting and it closes at exactly the same speed. So if you have a food thief willing to hover nearby, they very well may get some gulps in before the door closes them out (which, by the way, won’t decapitate anyone - my son tried it out with his finger and while it kept closing, the force was mild and he easily removed his finger). I think I saw other reviewers talking about the dish and lid mechanism, which I agree could be a lot better. The dish is metal, which is good for cleaning and longevity, but the food dropping into the small metal dish is LOUD. So loud that I adjusted the morning feed time to be later on weekends because it was waking us. As others have pointed out, the door folds open and partially covers the rear of the food dish when in the full open position. This means that “sensitive” cats won’t find it easy to get the kibble toward the back. Our adult cat uses her paw to pull it forward and our kitten just presses his face back in there - that guy doesn’t care about anything but getting every last bite. The dish area is kinda small and with the side guards on, it’s (by design) a small space. Cats sensitive to whisker fatigue will have an issue with it. Ours seem to manage ok. My last critique is the collars and reader dongle thingy. The collars are not cute (very disappointing for a pricey feeder kit) and the dongle hangs down, dipping into the water bowl when they drink and clattering on that metal food dish when they eat. The collar IS breakaway and neutral light tan, so there’s that. But I plan to swap the collar out for a nicer break away collar and with an AirTag holder made for pet collars. I’ve seen a few Reddit posts of people who have done that and it worked well. The dongle is a little smaller than an AirTag and has a weird raised part where it fastens onto the collar ring, so not all holders will work with this dongle - the first one I tried had too big an opening and it fell out when the kitten got too rowdy. Work in progress. Oh, and in that note, there ARE alternative feeder models that read the implanted animal ID chips. Only one of our cats has that and the feeders I saw that read the ID chips weren’t as well-featured, didn’t hold much food, and looked ugly (IMO). IN SUMMARY, this feeder is pricey but it works well. A few features (bowl, bowl opening area, and collar/reader) are in separate need of an upgrade, but I shopped extensively and this model is the best of its kind for all these features. So we just have to wait a little longer until they or a competitor improves it. I’m nit-picky, but this is a “go for it!” if you need a well-featured feeder solution so you can eliminate the headaches of separate feedings for multiple cats. If we only had one cat, I’d have stuck with our old timed release feeder with no collar reader.