I tried the Xiaomi smart pet food feeder and now I think I will have one more [Review]

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As the name suggests, an automatic pet feeder is an electric contraption that releases precise portions of food for your pet at pre-programmed times throughout the day.

Xiaomi sent me his new smart pet feeder to test and revise for a week. This was my first experience with an automatic pet feeder, so I won’t be able to compare this with other earlier products. But if this is your first time considering investing in one of these products, this article is for you!

I learned that an automatic feeder is essential for any pet parent who needs to feed their pet while they are away. It doesn’t matter if it’s just while you’re at work on a daily basis, during short periods of travel, or even to make sure your pet is sticking to their specific diet.

I can’t deny the sweet relief I felt as I slept last weekend without my cat constantly meowing at my bedroom door to be fed and instead knowing that my cat will be having breakfast at on time with minimal effort on my part.

My first impression of the Xiaomi Smart Pet Food Feeder when it arrived at my doorstep was its simplicity. I took the reasonably sized white power tower out of its box and was surprised to find only two other items inside – a large square bowl and a power cord.

Size and capacity

The sleek and simple design feeder only takes up 31 x 18 cm of floor space once you attach the large square stainless steel bowl to the main feed tower. In fact, most of the feeder’s total footprint is taken up by the large, shallow feeding bowl – which I was extremely happy to find.

Wide, shallow design bowls are ideal for medium sized cats and dogs such as Chihuahuas, Pomeranians, Beagles and Corgis as they allow pets to comfortably reach the base of the bowl without straining pressure on sensitive whiskers or throat.

In addition to this, a magnetic strip is used to attach the food bowl to the feeding tower. I thought this was a nice little detail that made setup much easier while giving the whole product a premium, sleek feel.

In terms of capacity, the Xiaomi Smart Pet Food Feeder can store up to 1.8 kg of dry food, which totals up to at least 20 feeding days, depending on how often and how much you feed your pet daily. your pet. as well as the size of your croquettes.

Speaking of kibble size, Xiaomi Smart Pet Feeder states that it can only dispense oval-shaped kibble with a diameter between 5-12mm. I tested the feeder using two different sized kibbles I had on hand, and had no issues with either.

Features

I liked that this product had all the basic functionality you would expect to find with an autoloader.

It uses an AC adapter with a chew-resistant cable that plugs directly into your wall outlet and a battery backup option (it uses four AA batteries which are not included) to ensure power programs run continuously even during power outages.

You can schedule an unlimited number of automated meal times per day, which can be customized to any minute of the hour and with the ability to control the amount of servings to be served each time (the feeder can dispense portions as small as 5g and as much for 150g of kibble each time).

The feeder uses a large stainless steel feeding bowl, which is the recommended material for pet food bowls due to its durability and cleanliness (did you know that plastic food bowls can cause acne in cats?).

A desiccant slot and desiccant canister are also included to keep your pet’s kibble dry. The product manual requires changing the desiccant cartridge every month – which I have to admit felt like a chore. Fortunately, these desiccant cartridges can be purchased from your favorite Xiaomi e-commerce platform.

The Xiaomi Smart Pet Feeder isn’t called Smart for nothing. This product not only needs to be connected to your home Wi-Fi, but is also fully programmed and controlled via an app on your phone.

Ease of use and efficiency

It took me about 45 minutes to set up and program the charger.

This included the time spent connecting the charger to my home Wi-Fi (it insists on only using a 2.4G Wi-Fi signal), installing the Xiaomi Home app, setting up the app, and scheduling the meal times and setting up an extension cord (my cat’s current setup didn’t have an available power outlet nearby and the AC adapter cable is only about 30cm long),

I was relieved to find that despite being a Xiaomi Smart product using the Xiaomi Home app, it worked seamlessly on my Apple iPhone and is available on both the Apple App Store and on the Google Play Store. The app was surprisingly simple to use yet detailed enough to customize it exactly to your pet’s needs.

As well as notifying you whenever food is dispensed, the app will also remind you to refill the tank when food levels are low. The feeder detects this using a built-in sensor (I was warned to refill the tank when there was about 175g of kibble left, which equaled 7 meals for my cat).

The feeder itself has a manual dispense button and LED indicators that let you know if the feeder is connected to your Wi-Fi, when food is about to be dispensed, and when the levels of food are low.

In-app features also include a child safety lock option, a food compartment cleaning guide (in case you misplace the paper book manual) and a countdown of the number of days until you need to change the desiccant cartridge.

That being said, there are no other controls on the charger itself. Everything must be programmed and controlled via the app.

Global mark

I have listed most of the things I like about this product, although there are a few cons to mention as well.

There is no viewing window on the feeder itself to gauge how much food is left inside. Instead, the product uses a sensor inside which then sends you a reminder through the app, making the whole charger entirely dependent on the Xiaomi Home app.

On top of that, the feeder only supports dry food and will run the same schedule every day, which means you can’t schedule different feeding times for different days or feed your pet dry foods. wet food using this feeder. Luckily, you can continually reschedule feeding times to your liking through the app.

The need to use a desiccant cartridge seems like a hassle to me. While completely understandable in our hot, humid country, it’s not something I look forward to doing every month (don’t we all just prefer a set-it-and-forget-it system?).

Bearing in mind that this is the very first automatic feeder I’ve tried, I give the Xiaomi Smart Pet Feeder a solid 7/10.

In the end, the Xiaomi Smart Pet Feeder is made up of reliable components that fit together intuitively and work perfectly for the whole week I had to test it. The phone app and notifications gave me the peace of mind I needed knowing my pet was fed on time, every day.

Buy your own Xiaomi Smart Pet Feeder at RM459 at Shop.

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