Update 4/25/22: The more time passes, the less satisfied we are with this purchase. Multiple times a day, the feeder dispenses all over the floor because there is no way to keep the bowls in place. Even on the single feeder without the splitter, the cats manage to detach the base to move the bowl. Why can’t you make a single and double bowl holder attachment that secure to the base with more than just gravity?? The feeders dispense at such different intervals and without consistency that the cats have all started to demonstrate food aggression and anxiety. If the feeders are connected to WiFi and set at the same time, why don’t they dispense simultaneously????? At first we were blaming the food motivated cat for trying to tilt the machines for a jackpot, but now we’ve noticed they drop almost 1/4 cup of food if they are bumped at all - with barely any force! Original review: We live with five cats, which is too many imo, but I don't think they could pay the bills without us so we can't move out. During the week, they were great about waking us up at 5am for work (and their mealtime), but I guess they're concerned about those bills because they felt the need to wake us up for work on weekends too. Not to mention, any time we took a few days away they would panic-eat all of the gravity-feed kibble within moments of our departure and we would return to find the house looking like the morning after a kitty frat party. An automated controlled feeder seemed like our best solution, but these are costly. We did our research and this brand came out on top. Pros: *You can feed two cats from one feeder! This was a HUGE plus for us, as we only needed to buy 3 feeders for our five cats. One of our cats is significantly more food motivated than the others, so he received the solo-feeder. *The feeders hold an entire small bag of kitty kibble! We don't use the auto-order feature, because we prefer Chewy, but being able to simply pour a bag into each feeder has been super easy. *The lid LOCKS. Once that delicious kibble is inside, the lid locks so prevent tampering. The "manual feed" button on top can also be disabled to prevent our particularly intelligent cat from serving himself second breakfast (or fourths). *Slow feed options, multiple scheduled feeds, and Alexa pairing to serve up treats between meals? Awesome! Cons: *The bowls don't stay attached to the feeder. So, for the divided feeders, there is no option to hold the bowls in place. The splitter prevents the use of that apparatus. We've experimented with different things to hold their plastic bowls in place, because the sound of the food hitting the metal bowl also scares the cats. It would be REALLY NICE if the company provided grip-mats with the dividers if they can't manufacture a double bowl attachment. Also - the SINGLE bowl attachment is very easily disconnected. That food motivated cat I mentioned? He likes to rock the feeders like a drunk guy tilting a vending machine until a Snickers falls out. The bowl attachment is only held on by gravity, so it separates and when the scheduled feed releases the food falls all over the floor. It's only partially a design flaw, as the other four cats are not tampering with the feeders. *The scheduled feeds are NOT simultaneous - they are sometimes a few minutes apart despite being set for the same time. There is also no consistency to which feeder releases first. We tried unplugging and repairing devices to purposely have the hangry cat's release first, as he tends to bully his way in to the other bowls... but to no avail. Since they are all paired on the same app using the same time, we can't figure out why one will release at 11:58 or 12:00 and another at 12:00 or 12:02 and the last at 12:01 or 12:03. There seems to be no pattern, but it consistently pisses off our cats and makes it hard for them to adjust to the routine, which - in turn - makes it difficult for us to live our lives with unhappy roommates. We would love to try setting one for 11:59, 12:00, and 12:01 to see if they would all actually feed simultaneously then... except you can ONLY feed at 15 minute intervals. *There is no "chime" to alert the cats that is feeding time. When we fed them without robots, we used a handheld clicker to train them. They all respond to that sound and travel to wherever it is coming from. It would be awesome if the feeder could allow for playing a recorded sound. Of course, that would only be useful if the feeders could also work in synchrony. If they truly connected to the Alexa app, I think a lot of these issues would be resolved... but the Alexa compatibility is ONLY to feed a treat on voice command. You can't schedule or include the feeder in Alexa routines. So... we're content with our purchase, but there are still a lot of kinks to be worked out. Hopefully there will be future models with greater compatibility and support for multi-pet households. If anyone else has a way to keep the bowls from sliding, and to prevent hangry food obsessed cats from shaking free loose kibble, please share! He isn't listening to reason.
