PETLIBRO Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeders, 8L/34Cups Automatic Dog Feeder with 5G Wi-Fi, Automatic Cat Food Dispenser for Airtight Storage, Space Pet Feeder with 187mm Large Food Tray for Cat & Dog

Great Auto pet feeder – big for cat
Needed an auto feeder for large male cat that won’t stop eating food & throws up if fed more than about 1tbsp – .8 oz of food. Received the PETLIBRO Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeder yesterday.Seemed Easy for me to set up.Instruction manual minimal. App. required. Downloaded android app. version. Must be able to log in with wifi. (Logging in is a pain, but app makes scheduling easy.)Must be plugged in with usb- c cord & small wall wort. 4 -D cell batteries for back up (not included.) Unit shows a red light when operating on battery which becomes white when plugged-in. Did not try to use plugged-in wo batteries.With App., I easilly scheduled feeding every 2 hours between 7am-9pm, everyday, & Min. amount dispensed (1/12 th cup, which is great – about 20 pieces of fancy feast kibble.) Initially filled hopper with 1/2 a bag of fancy feast. Didn’t work. Added the other 1/2. Total of 3# – WORKED GREAT. Stainless bowel is very large – large enough for big dog (several meals), so no cat whisker fatigue, but really too big for cat. Easy to open canister & fill. Vacumn sealing occurs after every dispensing & can manually push a button to initiate vacumn seal if open the top. App. has option to feed on demand.Cat hears something before scheduled feeding. He is still startled by food dropping into stainless bowel, so waits before approaches. He is not bothered, as keeps eating, while the very faint post-dispensing vacumn sealing occurs.The unit seems very large for the needs of 1 cat. A 3# bag of fancy feast cat food fills about 1/2 the hopper, the upper portion. I’m glad I splurged to buy the vacumn sealing version because of food hopper size, functional food volume seems to require the hopper to be half full & cost of better prescribed cat food.Regardless>>> excellent feeder!!Recommendations: Make a smaller version for very small animals & a manual button for option to perform an immediate feeding, & include a screen to manage manually & provide way to use app wo logging in.Note: Weighing cat to make sure we are feeding enough – Vet recommended weightPetLibro will make it easier to leave our house cat for a day and allow cat sitter to care for him when on vacation. (Impossible to find anyone to cat sit if cat needs feeding more than 1-2x per day. )

Vet recommended!
7/2024 update: I’m getting a continuous error now that says air pump failure. It sounds like the motor that vacuums the air isn’t even running anymore, even when I manually press the button. I found a support video and followed all the troubleshooting steps and that did not help either. I’ve emailed support and used their in-app support request, and I haven’t had any responses in several days. Changing my review from 5 stars to 2, because it still functions as a timed feeder but for the high price I would have expected the unit to last longer than 10 months.Original review:I’m a veterinarian and decided to try out this pet feeder for my cats. The concepts of keeping the food vacuum sealed make sense to me, as the oils on foods can become rancid over time when exposed to air, and flavors and scents of the food can change over time and reduce interest in food. This is a pretty high-tech gadget, requiring the Pet Libro app to set feeding schedules and monitor status of the device. It does have an indicator light on the front to let you know when something is wrong (turns red from white) but you need the app to confirm what it is. It has great error messaging: food outlet blocked, vacuum seal failed, food quantity low, and so forth. I didn’t have any issues with getting the feeder onto wifi. I did have two instances where the unit disconnected from wifi and it was a little challenging to get back on. There IS a way to do this without deleting the feeder from the app and starting all over. If it happens again I’ll update what I did, as there are no clear instructions for resetting the wifi without resetting the feeder. I connected it to my 2.4ghz IOT network and things seem more stable.While I can’t speak to the efficacy of the vacuum on food preservation, I can speak to what I think is hands down the most important thing about this feeder: the ability to thoroughly clean the storage and feeding mechanism!!! It’s so easy and everything comes completely apart for deep cleaning! And it goes back together easy, which is a plus. I waited until the low food notice came on, then took everything apart to clean with soap and hot water. This is the only way to get the old oils off the plastic and to ultimately keep your pet safe. I absolutely love it, as my old unit had a conveyer belt that I could never get clean.This is a really great idea. I recommend this product and their wifi pet water station as well. I’m now a big fan of Pet Libro and will recommend this wherever I can.