Our favorite automatic cat feeder is the Whisker Feeder-Robot, which had the most useful app and easiest programming of any feeder we tested. Make mealtime a snap with our automatic cat feeders, fountains and waterers. Automatic feeders make FREE day shipping over $
 
 

The 9 Best Automatic Cat Feeders, Tested in Our Lab.

Microchip-controlled pet feeder for cats, app to review data, integrated weighing scales accurate to 1g, can be used for wet and dry food, prevents food being stolen by other pets , rubber-sealed bowls. This automatic food dispenser for cats or small dogs features three g serving segments, for wet or dry food and with a digital timer to allow sections to open at the perfect time.

An automatic feeder for dry food, ideal for both dogs and cats and with 3kg capacity. It provides individual portions at programmed times, thanks to the digital timer, and has a pet-safe cover catch. This automatic food dispenser is ideal for cats and small dogs and can be filled with wet or dry food in five g portions. Automatic feeder for cats and dogs, programme 2 mealtimes up to 24 hours in advance, pet-safe design, suitable for both dry and semi-moist food, easy to clean , battery powered.

With 2 x ml bowls for wet or dry food and a hour timer. Battery operated and dishwasher safe. Automatic cat feeders help ensure your cat gets every meal on time, even if you’re not home in time. These automatic cat feeders have a variety of settings that can provide your pet with up to 4 fresh meals!

Plus, should an accident occur, they can rush your pet to emergency care. And versions with larger storage tanks and advanced programming features can jam and inconsistently dispense food.

After lugging eight pet carriers around NYC, we found that the Sherpa Original Deluxe is the best for taking your small pet on a plane or to the vet. Bringing home a new cat or dog is challenging for you and them. Our picks—for pet beds, bowls, toys, insurance, and more—help ease the transition. We looked in particular for our tester’s design impressions, plus their thoughts on useful features, programming interfaces, software, and how easy each device was to clean.

After testing, we asked testers for more insights into each feeder, including whether they’d recommend it to a family member and what they would want to change most about the product. Once testing in our lab was complete, feeders were mailed out to additional testers for at-home testing with their cats. There are two main size considerations when it comes to automatic cat feeders: capacity and footprint.

Overall capacity varies widely from feeder to feeder, which is a key consideration if you want to use an automatic cat feeder to keep your cats fed while you’re traveling.

While the amount of dry food cats eat can depend on their specific diet, a half-cup per day is fairly standard. Many of our recommended picks can hold 5 liters or more of dry food, which could feed a single cat for more than a month before you would need to refill.

Other feeders have separate compartments that you load in advance—those models typically have a much lower overall capacity. Another consideration is how much space you want to cede to an automatic feeder. Our top overall pick is quite large, and would be hard to miss in a kitchen. Other recommended feeders will take up less floor space.

Our recommended feeders range from barebones models that offer basic options for scheduling meals in advance to fully-featured devices with phone apps and Wi-Fi connectivity. Our favorite features to look for include: battery back-ups in case your house loses power while you’re away , stainless steel bowls which are dishwasher safe and usable for cats with plastic sensitivities , and clear reservoirs that allow you to see at a glance how much kibble is left.

Other features were less important to our testers, or even felt like a gimmick, such as the ability to record a voice message. In our experience, cats quickly learn when they’re going to be fed and hardly need prompting. Since the interface for programming a feeding schedule is completely different from feeder to feeder, we’ve tried to give the best sense possible of how easy or hard each feeder was to program.

Ease of use comes from a combination of intuitive interface and helpful information displays. For most feeders, this means programming buttons and a small LCD screen, but several of our picks can also be programmed through a phone app.

We preferred feeders that offered both options. Automatic cat feeders are either battery or plug-in powered devices that hold and distribute cat food at certain times of the day. Similar to an automatic coffee maker, automatic cat feeders have programmable settings for cat owners to customize meal time.

Feeders with a tank have a timer inside the feeder that causes a door to open and dispense a set amount of food from a container into a bowl below.

This little door shuts once the pre-programmed amount of food has been allowed to fall into the bowl and secures the remaining food in the container. Other feeders have a round tray design, with several small compartments and lid that’s open to just one compartment at a time. At the set time, the tray rotates to the next compartment. Both designs prevent your cat from getting to the food and helps keep the food fresh until meal time.

While multiple cats may have no problem sharing a dish that is kept full at all times, sharing a bowl on an automatic feeder can be problematic. Since only a certain amount of food is provided at each meal, one cat may end up eating all the food while the other cats end up not getting any. Not all cats will be as motivated to eat as soon as the food drops out of the feeder, so slower cats may miss meals if a quicker cat gets to the bowl first.

If your cats have feeding habits that aren’t conducive to sharing a bowl, consider a separate feeder for each cat. There are also feeders that dispense food into two separate bowls, including one recommended in this roundup. Some automatic cat feeders hold several pounds of food, while others only hold a few cups.

Less expensive models typically only hold a few meals worth of food, and more costly options may hold over 3 pounds of food. To help you compare models, we’ve provided the maximum capacity in cups or liters for each of our recommended feeders. While it may seem as though it would be better for a feeder to hold larger amounts of food, smaller containers may help food stay fresh since they’ll be refilled more frequently.

This roundup was written by Andrew Whalen , an editor for The Spruce Pets with hours of experience testing pet products in our labs. Andrew lives with two rescue cats, Church and Wally, who have wildly different feeding schedules and eating habits. Their input and emotional support was crucial to the automatic cat feeder testing process. A previous version of this roundup was written by Adrienne Kruzer , a Registered and Licensed Veterinary Technician in three states who has been writing on pet and vet topics for over a decade.

She has a special interest in animal nutrition, providing a wealth of experience and specialized knowledge that proved invaluable in making the best possible product recommendations.

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You can find out more and change our default settings with Cookies Settings. By Andrew Whalen. Andrew Whalen. Andrew is a commerce editor for Treehugger and The Spruce Pet. Fact checked by Emma Phelps. Emma is an Updates Writer for The Spruce, covering every commerce beat under the brand.

Before joining the team, she wrote under home, culture, and lifestyle beats at Southern Living. She received her Bachelor of Arts in leadership studies and journalism from University of Richmond in Our Top Picks. Best Overall:. Best Budget:. Best with Wi-Fi:. Best for Wet Food:. Best for Maximum Food Storage:.

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Petlibro 7. Petmate