A cat is a fairly low-maintenance pet, but you still have to make sure that your cat gets the right nutrition each day. Working a full-time job or traveling for work can interrupt your cat’s feeding schedule. If you are looking for a way to control how much your cat eats and when mealtimes happen – even when you are not at home – you might want to consider the best cat automatic feeder on the market.
Typically cat automatic feeders comes in two varieties. First type is an automatic portion control device in which the owner prescribes the amount of food. The second type ensures that there is a constant amount of food in the feeding cavity at any time.
With plenty of options on the market, it becomes quite difficult selecting a suitable one for your needs. That is why in this article we have reviewed some of the best cat automatic feeder on the market for your easier buying decision.
If you want to skip straight to the find the overall best one, we recommend you get the WOPET Automatic Pet Feeder Food Dispenser.
A Spotlight On The Best Cat Automatic Feeder
Best Cat Automatic Feeder Reviews:
WOPET Automatic Pet Feeder Food Dispenser for Cats and Dogs–Features: Distribution Alarms, Portion Control, Voice Recorder, Programmable Timer for up to 4 Meals per Day
The product is able to schedule up to 4 automated feedings per day using the built-in programmable timer. It is also able to program each meal time easily with a few button clicks on a LCD screen. The food portions can be controlled between 2 teaspoons to 4.5 cups per feeding.
This product pros and cons are as follow:
Pros:
- Helpful in scheduling up to 4 automated feedings per day using the built-in programmable timer.
. - In case of a power outage, the feeder will continue to function on 3 D-size batteries to assure your pet gets fed.
. - Dispense anywhere from 2 teaspoons to 4.5 cups dry food per feeding to sustain any size animal.
. - This product can get your pet excited through its recording service.
Cons:
- No customer service is available.
. - Its bowl is very low which makes it difficult for animal to eat.
Get WOPET Automatic Pet Feeder Food Dispenser from Amazon here
PetSafe Healthy Pet Simply Feed Automatic Cat and Dog Feeder with Stainless Steel Bowl, Holds Dry Cat and Dog Food
This is a simply automatic cat and dog feeder with stainless steel bowl. This is made from BPA-free plastic components and the stainless steel bowl are dishwasher-safe.
PetSafe products has been on the market for nearly 30 years and it is trusted by many buyers.
The pros and cons of this product are as follow:
Pros:
- It can schedule the feeding pattern and is able to conveniently schedule up to 12 meals for your pet; best for cats and small to medium dogs.
. - There is an option to change the amount of food from 1/8 cup to 4 cups depending on your pet’s unique needs.
. - Helps in scheduling smaller meals to help prevent stomach upset for pets who eat too fast.
. - Keeps food fresh and prying paws from stealing food.
Cons:
- Runs on only 4 D-cell alkaline batteries.
Iseebiz Automatic Cat Feeder 3L Pet Food Dispenser Feeder for Medium and Large Cat Dog——4 Meal, Voice Recorder and Timer Programmable,Portion Control
The part where you put the food is built with good leakproof material and this helps the feeder to deliver fresh food at every meal for your pet. This in turen reduces your worries about your pet getting any stale food.
Tip: We suggest you to put batteries into this product so that it can continue to work even when the electricity from the main source is turned off.
The pros and cons of this product are as follow:
Pros:
- This product enables its users to feed your pet 4 meals at scheduled times.
. - Every meal have 1-39 portion control, which can help the pet develop a good eating habit.
. - There is automatic pet feeder with the infrared sensor when the bowl fills a certain amount, the machine automatically stops, preventing food from overflowing.
. - It can record owner voice 10 seconds where you can record your voice calling your pet to come and enjoy their mealtime.
Cons:
- No customer service is available.
. - No rechargeable battery.
Homdox Automatic Cat Feeder Pet Food Dispenser for Cat Dog, Auto Cat Feeder with Timer Programmable, Portion Control & Voice Recording – 4 Meals for Medium Large Cats
This thing is the best invention I’ve ever bought for any animal, ever. My cats had to go on a restrictive diet because of health issues, so every day I’d have to feed them a special amount, at different times per day. I ended up buying this to solve the problem of the person watching my cats not wanting to go through the trouble. While that may have been why I bought it, it has simplified my day to day life in the end and for that, I love it.
The mic and play back is not the best, but that’s not why I got it. It is a wee bit loud when dispensing food, but my cats (and dog who spazzed the first few food drops) have gotten used to it to the point of eating food as it spits it out. I do recommend checking the amount of food often, if you feed large amounts/often. I also recommend that if your cats have a certain amount they’re supposed to eat using a measuring cup to measure how much each setting spits out and seeing if it matches the amount your cats need. If I remember right, 5 was 1/4 cup and 10 was 1/2 for us.
Pros:
- It is able to schedule up to 4 automated feedings per day.
. - It make sure that food is fresh.
. - It allows you to release customized portions amounts of food at every meal rather than leaving an open bowl out while you are away.
. - Has the feature to record the message for your pet.
. - This pet feeder is wall powered and/or battery-powered.
. - In case of a power outage, the feeder will continue to function on 3 D-size batteries to assure your pet gets fed.
Cons:
- No customer service is available.
. - No rechargeable battery.
. - Overflowing can happen at times.
PETKIT Smart Feed Automatic Cat Feeder, Wi-Fi Enabled Pet Feeder, App for iPhone and Android, Work with Alexa, Portion Control, Distribution Alarms, Double Fresh Lock System Auto Pet Food Dispenser
There are many smart feeders on the market now, but I was still happily using a fantastically reliable one (Superfeeder) I bought back in 2010 and used with a smart plug to trigger it. However, I decided to transition my dog from regular kibble to an air dried meat based diet, and needed a smart feeder that would work with a flat jerky-like dog food like ZiwiPeak or The Real Meat Company. The PETKIT company answered my question promptly and said it would work with food up to 25 mm. They did not address the “flat” issue (all other feeder companies I asked said flat kibble/food could jam their feeder), but I can confirm now that this feeder does work with flat food. I’m using the Real Meat Company’s beef food, which is irregularly shaped/sized, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue. Some of The Real Meat Company’s other flavors are cut in large rectangles that might be too big for this feeder unless you break them in half, but ZiwiPeak food should work with it without any problems. For most people this will be a non-issue if they’re using a regular dog or cat kibble.
The feeder seems large for my 20 lb jack russell/rat terrier mix, Beau, but it’s nice and sleek in design and looks fine in a corner (I put it sideways so the tray doesn’t stick out into the room). I have since also bought the PETKIT water fountain, which looks really nice next to it. There are some nice touches, like customizing the lights on the front of the feeder to turn off during certain hours, and I like that the feeding bin is secure and keeps the food fresh with a dessicant bag you should replace every 30 days (I searched on Amazon and see there are many for sale by third parties). At feeding time there is a single beep, then the almost silent feeder door opens and food is dropped out of the chute as the wheel inside the feeder turns. The food I’m using is more like a jerky, so it doesn’t make much noise falling into the stainless steel tray, but if you’re using kibble, it’ll probably sound more like a slot machine. My last feeder sounded like that, and my dog learned to love that sound. The feeding tray is a large shallow square dish which can be removed to clean, but I do wish there was an option to buy a spare bowl (to put one in the dishwasher).
I’m using a high protein food, and my dog only needs 1/4 cup twice a day. The feeder app goes in increments of 1/5 cup, so I use that setting since it’s the closest (and it’s also the smallest amount you can set). You can set different amounts to be dispensed at different times, but you’re basically just setting up one daily schedule (i.e., breakfast and dinner) that will be repeated on whichever days of the week you set it to be active for (i.e., Mon, Wed, Tues, Thurs…). As far as I can tell, you can’t set it to feed a different schedule on different days of the week (i.e., breakfast at 6am on your workdays, but 10am on days off). But there is a “feed now” button that lets you choose a portion and dispense immediately from the app. The app also shows you if the food was dispensed, the set portion, and the time it was dispensed, with an error message if there was a problem (like, “offline”). There is a small inset button on the side of the machine that you can also hold down to immediately dispense food; but it will only dispense for as long as you hold the button (I’m sure to account for pets (cats?) who might try triggering it manually), so you need to know how many “turns of the wheel/dispensations of food” your dog’s portion is to use the manual button. I’m not sure if using the manual button is what messes things up, but I’ve noticed that sometimes when I’m standing next to the feeder and use “feed now” from the app, it will only dispense one turn of the wheel, rather than the usual two turns for the 1/5 cup setting. If you’re using larger portions, one less turn will probably not be as noticeable to you or the pet, but on the smallest setting it’s pretty skimpy.
One other issue to be aware of, is that the app doesn’t have a time indication in it, so it took me a day or two to figure out that the app didn’t update its internal time when my local time skipped forward an hour for daylight savings time. It wasn’t until I looked in the feeding history and saw that it was logging my “feed now” snack times an hour before I had given them (i.e., I hit “feed now” at 6pm, but it logged it as having been given at 5pm). And while it’s not a big deal to me, there are definitely grammar errors in the app, like “Feeded 2/5 cup.” Likewise, it’s also not a big deal that the food bin sensor seems a little off. I filled it about two inches from the top, and it said it was only 60% full. Finally, if you buy this feeder, you might want to have some D batteries on hand to put in before you dump food into the 5 lb bin. If you want to put the batteries in later on (they are just for back up power if your electricity goes out), you’ll have to empty the feeder bin first.
I’ve only had the feeder for a few days, but overall I’m happy with it. It doesn’t have a video camera like most of the others at this price range, but it does have the unique capability of working with unusually shaped and larger sized food without jamming, and at least so far seems reliable. Hopefully the app developer will update the daylight savings time issue.
Pros:
- User can remotely set times to feed your pet automatically.
. - The product is giving easily control both your pet’s feeding time and amount from anywhere using your Apple or Android smartphone.
. - Up to 10 times per day, from one to twenty 5g portions each feeding (5g-100g).
. - The product is very spacious and is having the storage bucket keeps fresh up to 3.3 lb of dry food( about 1.5kg).
Cons:
- No customer service is available.
. - No rechargeable battery.
. - Requires a wireless router 2.4GHz to operate remotely.
Concluding Remarks
Each brand reviewed so far offers the user something different from the other. After comparing the pros and cons, we recommend you get the WOPET Automatic Pet Feeder Food Dispenser.