PETLIBRO Automatic Wet Food Cat Feeder

Update #4/final update 5/13/25: upgrading my score from 1 to 3 because the "dealbreaker" issues I already listed haven't happened in the past few months (e.g. I haven't had the feeder get stuck on the first meal of a schedule past it's start time with no notification; I have not had any errors that I didn't get notified about in months). There's still those "app quirks" like the feeding logs being wrong, the manual open/close buttons not always working. I am leaving my previous comments here because I think it's still important to note they happened, but I've changed my mind since things have gotten better since the first month. I think I would buy it again for the convenience, but I am also looking forward to seeing more competition for wet food feeders that can actually hold enough food for 3 days. Update #3: tl;dr buy it if you think this is worth $100 (or whatever price it bumps up to) to be buggy from the get-go, and randomly stop working with no warning some time in the first few months, when it's out of the free return time period. I would NOT buy it again with all that I've experienced while owning it, because now I clearly got to babysit and waste time troubleshooting when failed meals don't show, go looking and spend more money on alternatives. I hope they fix whatever hardware/software issues it clearly has, and figure out a way to improve it so the feeder has some sort of fallback when there seems to be issues with the app... Update #2 3/17/2025: contacted support. While they did respond, they told me to use a option I confirmed doesn't show up in the app when they claim it should - "Reposition schedule." They gave me a bunch other random troubleshooting steps. Then I had a 2nd feeding skipped this morning. Scheduled 4AM to 8AM, saw at 7:55AM feeder wasn't open. No errors or warnings in the app - this time it just showed "Waiting to feed." Connection lights correct. Update #1 3/11/2025: reducing to 1 star. Had it scheduled to run at 6AM this morning and it didn't feed. Got no notifications about any issues from the app even though my notifications settings are set to include network issues and got none for that timeframe. It's been connected the whole time from what I can tell - I scheduled the meals after midnight last night, nothing in the logs show any issue with the app talking to the feeder since that time. Didn't notice the missed meal until it didn't run at 11:30AM for the next feeding, when I was around to notice. Then saw the first meal is "unknown status" on the schedule. It's plugged in, connected to WiFi, no issues with the feeder lights, how is it unknown status? "Open now" button didn't work to force it out. I had to redo the entire schedule for it to open the feeder, but at least that did work. Judging by other reviews, you should expect this feeder to fail. Guess you can judge for yourself whether that's worth your money. I don't think it's a coincidence it is failing outside the 30-day money back guarantee, especially with so many people reporting issues. Not even sure if it's worth it to contact support based off other reviews...might update this review again if I contact them and have any luck. The app is already flaky on statuses as I mentioned below. I also regularly see "preparing to feed" after it's open and been feeding for 30+ minutes per schedule. Many times I've tried to set the schedule, after the save, it's changed the date for the meals (e.g. setting for 3/11 and then notice after the save it appears as 3/12 instead). One other note: I did order 2 extra feeding trays through the PetLibro site. They were $15 each, so an extra $30 on top of the regular cost here if you don't want to clean your tray daily and want the feeder to do the "3 days of feeding" as advertised. Original review: Have been using this on/off for about a week. During this time, I am not keeping it continuously plugged in as I am just getting my cat used to the feeder, and as he is getting fed 4-5 times a day I am putting out separate bowls for some meals too. I tend to schedule 2-3 meals a day with this feeder (starting with early morning before I have to wake up) and do the rest without the feeder. tl;dr: it does the basics of what it needs to do for me, haven't had any of the bigger issues others have reported (i.e. skipping meal schedules), but I am seeing hurdles to me utilizing this for all my cat's meals since he's had to go 100% wet food. Pros: - Didn't have any issues with the setup, but might be worth noting I am comfortable with tech, and our Wi-FI signal to the feeder is usually listed as "High." - I've had no issues with the scheduler working. When I check the slots I set overnight, they're empty of the food that was set out, app reflects "Feeding." I have noticed it also closing the feeding slot as I've schedule it to end when I am around for that. It shows preparing 30 minutes prior to feeding, and has rotated per schedule, the few times I've "monitored" it. Food seems to be warm enough for my cat when it is out, while the bowl still feels a little chilled. - I have the device sound set to normal, and do hear a ding sound when a meal is set out. My cat has also learned this means to check for new food. - When I am unplugging it, I periodically get a notification that the feeder is disconnected (the "network notifications" in settings), but only 1-2 times a day. Not sure though if it is supposed to be sending these more often. The two options are "no repeated notifications within half an hour" and "..within 1 hour." Might consider this a "con" if you are having issues with your home network and would want to know more frequently. I think I only got 1 disconnected notification when it was plugged in, and had no issue with that schedule. Cons: - Censors/PetLibro App specific: I keep getting logs that the cat "came to eat" when he was sitting on my lap or somewhere that is not even close to the feeder. The feeder is about 6 feet away from me when I work from home, and I will see logs popping up when nothing could be "actively" triggering it. This is also happening with pretty much every meal to some degree - it'll track "came and ate" for periods of less than 10 seconds repeatedly over the span of a minute, or sometimes just one log of "came to eat for 2 sec" every minute. I think it might have also recorded me a couple of times when I walk by it. Fortunately I haven't needed this information to be accurate, but I now know I wouldn't be able to rely on this if we were away long enough to have peace of mind. Probably would want to supplement this with a pet camera or some other tracking if you actually need to know. At this point, I wish I could turn this tracking off since it's just spamming the Logs with incorrect information, but I am not even finding a way to do it in the Settings...so I guess I'll just ignore the Logs going forward. - The lid can be stubborn when closing. I've had to make sure I hear the "click" because it will appear to be fully closed when it isn't. - Why aren't additional bowl trays easily available to buy? This does not make any sense to me. I see other Q&A mentions you can contact support for more, but you shouldn't have to do that. I'd like this a lot more if I could buy a pack of these trays to quickly replace a dirty one with a clean one to repopulate with the next meals, and not need to be handwashing the same one at least daily if I were to solely use this feeder. - App specific: You can't mark all the messages in the Message Center as "read." You have to manually go into them and click them to get marked as read. Other notes/comments: - It would be nice if there were more slots in the feeder. I am trying to feed my boy 4-5 times a day (he likely has either a motility disorder or early inflammatory bowel disease, and we are currently monitoring him on just his wet food that hasn't been triggering problems), and I won't be able to do that with just one of these feeders unless I am washing it 2x daily, or buying a 2nd feeder. - Would also be nice if they had a stainless steel/non-plastic version of the tray. - App specific: would be nice if you could save schedules as drafts/save them without starting them. The manual says to not open the lid or change food after the plans have been saved, but that means if you need a new schedule, you gotta wait until you've already prepped it to set the schedule up. I have not tried testing this with any schedules more than 1 day out for the reasons mentioned above - there's not enough slots to feed my boy for even a full day. I haven't placed any backup batteries in this yet, so can't speak to how well those work.