Petnet SmartFeeder: Feed Your Four-Legged Friend from Anywhere

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If you’re looking for a way to feed your pet when you’re too lazy to get out of bed, or if you aren’t going to get home in time to feed your furry friend, check out the Petnet SmartFeeder.

Created by Chewy.com, the Petnet SmartFeeder is exactly what you think when that name is brought up, but can do so much more than just your average pet feeder you may have searched for on Amazon.

An automatic pet feeder for both cats and dogs alike, when I first received mine in the mail, you’d think I ordered Sparky a BarkBox, because he seemed to know exactly what it was and instantly fell in love. Currently available on Chewy.com for $109.99, the SmartFeeder is made to make both you and your pet’s life that much easier when it comes to feeding them.

In practice, the Petnet SmartFeeder works completely through a free companion app that allows you to set routines, schedules, and amounts of how much you’d like to feed your pet. What’s more, the app can gauge by the size of your four-legged friend how much food that they think he or she should be fed per meal, depending on the actual food type, and brand, which lists a large variety of brands courtesy of Chewy.com.

Since the Petnet SmartFeeder can interact with Alexa, you can ask your Echo to actually “feed my dog/cat” and it will do that as well. Pretty nifty feature if you are in the middle of something and your pet wants to be fed.

Also within the app, you can see your pets nutrition levels through food analysis. According to our app, we can only truly see the previous day which is a bit of a bummer. Also, what was a requirement of food for Sparky that the app set wasn’t truly enough for him, but you can always give more. It’s good to know that this feature is implemented, so what we’ve started doing is actually offering him more food and we’ve seen a bit of an improvement in his eating pattern.

I believe the only issue we’ve had with the SmartFeeder isn’t actually an issue from the company at all, but with our dog. If you have a pet that chomps down food quickly, and you may have previously had an “obstacle course” feeder to slow your dog down from eating, the SmartFeeder doesn’t have that, as it’s essentially a $100 smart bowl that automatically feeds your pet. There is an elevated add-on that sits the bowl at a slant, however, it’s hard to tell if that actually makes our dog eat slower or not.

Luckily though, if your food gets low, you have the option of refilling your dog food directly from within the app, or it can do it for you if you grant it access. Currently, our food is at 3%, so we will need to order soon. Also within the app, we can test out different brands, as evidently the brand we are using doesn’t provide ample protein and fats, which is good to know.

Update: Jess and I are trying to figure out an issue where the app keeps saying there is no food in the actual machine although there is clearly plenty in it. Not sure if it needs to be recalibrated or what, but this is the first time we’ve had this issue.

If you would like to find out more information about the SmartFeeder by Petnet, you can head here today.

Source: manufacturer supplied review unit

What I Like: I love being able to feed my dog from anywhere I am, but I think the addition of Alexa makes things so much better.Also, being able to monitor your animal’s food intake by the food they eat is nice

What Needs Improvement: Internally the issue of saying that the food is out when it isn’t can be a bit of a problem, especially if you aren’t around at the moment to check when it’s time to feed your dog?

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About the Author

Greg Alston
Diehard Apple fanboy, and lover of all things tech. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Greg enjoys spending time with his wife, family, and friends, live sporting events, good bourbon, Tetris, and pizza. In that order.