This product does exactly what it claims to do, which I love. It keeps my big kitty from eating my little kitty’s food. This allows me to keep my fat cat on a strict diet and monitor exactly how much and what kind of food she is consuming. It does work. I just have 2 difficulties with it.
1. I can program it to stay closed always, until my small kitty approaches for food (if I put a collar on my small kitty). OR I can program it to stay open until my big kitty comes sniffing around (if I put a collar on my big kitty). Small cats is sensitive and skittish, big cat is brazen. So I put the collar on the big cat and have it set to be open unless the big cat comes near.
Unfortunately, this means that every 16 hours, the feeder will warn me that my small kitty hasn’t eaten. It doesn’t detect the small cat because I don’t put a collar on the small cat. So every 16 hours, the cat feeder beeps loudly 3 times, every 5-10 mins, until you hit the check mark button on the machine. I have a variable schedule, meaning that I get woken up occasionally at night because of the “your small cat hasn’t eaten in 16 hours” alarm. Not great.
My second and more significant qualm is how bright the lights are. IF the beep alarm is going off, the entire screen turns bright blue, which has woken me up several times, in conjunction with the simultaneous beeping. Even if no notification is happening, the blue light around the button (that is always lit) is crazy bright, and I have to cover it up with a cloth or item of clothing, nightly.
I like the product, but they need to allow for more specific settings on sounds and lights. A “sleep mode” with a timer would even work. Like phones have. Technology is great, but not when you’re trying to sleep.
