WiFi Pet Feeder

A WiFi pet feeder with camera feeds the dog or the cat on a schedule and lets you watch it happen.

• Why a WiFi pet feeder with camera beats a plain timer
• Two way audio, and the voice recording
• Eight meals a day, each portioned separately
• Read this: dry food only
• Capacity and power

Why a WiFi pet feeder with camera beats a plain timer

Any timer can drop food into a bowl. The point of a WiFi pet feeder with camera is that you can see it happen.

The camera in the front shoots 720p with infrared night vision to about ten metres, so you can check from anywhere that the food actually went in the bowl, that the animal came and ate it, and that the hopper has not jammed. Without that, an automatic feeder is a thing you hope worked.

Two way audio, and the voice recording

You can hear the room and talk into it, which for a dog left alone is worth more than the feeding.

There is also a 10 second recording that plays every time it feeds. The animal learns to come when it hears you rather than when it hears a motor, which is what stops food sitting in the bowl until it goes stale.

Eight meals a day, each portioned separately

Up to eight feeds, each with its own portion size, set in the app.

That is what a cat needs if it has to eat little and often, and what a dog on a controlled diet needs if the vet has set a daily amount. A feeder with one portion size and two feeds is fine for a healthy adult dog and no use for either of those cases.

Read this: dry food only

It takes dry food between 2 and 10mm. Wet food and large biscuits will jam it, and a jammed feeder while you are away is worse than no feeder.

Check the size of the kibble you actually buy against that range before ordering. If your animal is on wet food, this is the wrong product and no setting will change that.

Capacity and power

The hopper holds 4 litres, which is a week or more of dry food for most animals. Fill it, set the schedule, and check the camera.

It runs on DC 5V and joins 2.4GHz Wi-Fi directly, with no hub to buy, in the Tuya or Smart Life app. It is an indoor device rated for minus 10 to 40 degrees, so a covered veranda is fine and open sun is not. For a fish tank rather than a dog, the automatic fish feeder is the equivalent. The app is documented at tuya.com.