8 Best Automated Pet Cat Feeders 2022, Tested and Researched, we research, test, experiment and use the recommended best pet supplies - learn our way.

Testing an automatic pet cat feeder

1：Spruce Pets / Leticia Almeida
Whether it's during the day or on a short vacation, it's a must for anyone who wants to feed their cat while away. They can also be used to assign precise portions to cats on specific diets, or to automate morning feeding so your cat doesn't wake you up and start waiting for breakfast at the feeder.

We tested and studied 13 different models of automated cat feeders to find the best automated cat feeder for a variety of situations and evaluated their exact timing, partial controls, software, and other features. You can learn more about our testing process in the How We Test section at the bottom of the page.

Our favorite automatic cat feeder is the Whisker feeding robot, which is the most useful and easy to program app of all the feeders we've tested. But we have some other suggestions that may be better for you and your cat, such as the Cat Companion C500 Number 5 Meal Dog and Cat Wet Food Feeder, which uses ice packs to keep food fresher for longer.

Our testers appreciated that the Whisker feeding robot had a variety of intuitive feeding options and was the most useful application of all the feeders tested. The feeders scored particularly high for function, effectiveness, timer accuracy, and portion control.

The robot's design is futuristic and friendly at the same time, although it is certainly on the large side, so buyers should be prepared for it to take up quite a bit of space. Despite its large size, the robot's footprint has been gradually reduced to 9 x 11.25 inches. This makes it feel a little top-heavy, but not so much that you worry about the cat knocking it over -- hitting it with a 10-pound sandbag won't work, and neither will your cat.

Setup out of the box is simple, takes about 15 minutes, and includes downloading and syncing the phone app (scanning the QR code on the back of the feeder) for iOS and Android.

Thanks to the robot's powerful setup, you can easily dial precise mealtimes and service increments, and it allows you to allot a full cup of food up to eight times a day. A dispenser that uses 1/4 cup increments is already installed in the robot, but you can replace it with the included 1/8 cup dispenser to provide more precise partial control (although this reduces the maximum single serving to 1/2 cup).

There is also a setting that dispenses enough food to keep the bowl full, and the feeding robot checks the fluid level every six hours. If your cat is not overeating and you are not closely monitoring the food, this "gravity mode" ensures that the feeder does not overflow while you are away.

The robot's tank can hold up to 30 cups of dry food, but in addition to small round coarse grains, it may need its own hopper insert. It's designed to pour food into the dispenser more efficiently, but also to reduce the total capacity to 20 cups - still a lot of food.

"This app is awesome! One tester said he scoffed at the idea of downloading an app for every newly connected product, and the feeding robot was described as an exception. "This news gives me peace of mind, so I can spend less time worrying about my cat when I'm away." This peace of mind is enhanced by a backup battery that can continue to run the feeder program even in the event of a power outage of up to 48 hours.

In addition to notifying you of feeding times through push notifications, the app also allows you to check food levels, create schedules, and remotely distribute snack-sized services with the click of a button. While we haven't spent enough time evaluating the usefulness of the Robot app's more in-depth features, they offer cat data freaks unparalleled insights: tracking feedings over time, extracting daily averages, and other insights exported from Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to CSV files for use.

Fortunately, Robot doesn't rely on applications. Whether the plan is created through the application or on the control panel keyboard, Robot stores the plan locally and continues to maintain the plan, even offline. An easy-to-read blue indicator light highlights whether the unit is currently running according to program progress.

While this feeding robot has a higher quality feel than other feeding robots tested - its sturdy and reliable components are visually aligned - it is worth noting that the clear plastic food storage space on our test model was broken upon arrival. Our impression is that this is a shipping error rather than any specific