Whisker Feeder

Aug 20, 2023

Featuring reliable scheduled or remote dispensing, smart notifications, and a simple app—the only downside is the price.

The Whisker Feeder-Robot belongs to the same family as the Whisker Litter-Robot 4, which we reviewed a little while back. However, Feeder-Robot concentrates on the before rather than the after.

It's designed to dispense food at regular intervals automatically and provides a handy solution for keeping pets fed in your absence, as well as setting portion control measures to keep them healthy.

As the somewhat reluctant co-owner of three cats, I was keen to test out the Whisker Feeder-Robot for myself, to see whether it made feeding the mewling hordes easier (for both me and them).

The Whisker Feeder-Robot is an automatic pet feeder for cats or dogs, which can be programmed to dispense food in programmable cycles. By pairing Feeder-Robot with your smartphone, you can set custom feeding schedules for your pets, delivering quantities that range from one-eighth of a cup to one full cup of kibble, up to eight times a day. Designed to allow remote feeding for your pets, and also effective portion control, its removable hopper can store up to 30 cupfuls of food.

The Whisker Feeder-Robot is a smart pet feeder, suitable for cats or dogs. Thanks to its Wi-Fi connectivity, it can dispense dry pet food remotely via your smartphone. With the Whisker app, you can create feeding schedules for your furries, and drop them a bowlful of goodies at regular intervals.

Using its remote functions you can ensure that your hairy housemates can be fed while you're away from home, and you can monitor their daily intake of food, using any remaining food from each feed as a yardstick.

It works with dry pet food, and the hopper on top has a load capacity of approximately 30 cups of food. It is suitable for any type or breed of cat, and the bowl is comfortably large enough for two felines to graze from, as long as they don't mind sharing.

With the Whisker App, you can customize your pets' feeding schedule, using one-eighth of a cup to one full cup per feed, and up to eight feeds per day.

Retailing for a whisker under $300, this feeder robot ain't cheap. But is it worth it? Let's find meowt.

Besides the Feeder-Robot itself, you'll find an electric power cord, a spare feeding dispenser inside the box, and a Quick Start Guide to set things up.

Feeder-Robot does have a built-in battery, which will kick in if there's a power outage at home. This can run for up to 24 hours in power-saving mode. It automatically switches back to electric power once the outage has ceased, and will recharge the internal battery again.

Therefore, it needs to be placed near an outlet, as this will provide its primary power source.

Naturally, this will need to be somewhere that's easily accessible for your moggies and should be placed somewhere along their usual path of travel to make it as noticeable as possible.

A large removable lid gives way to the hopper beneath, where you pour your kibble or biscuits. As mentioned, there's plenty of space here for upwards of 30 cups, and you are advised to keep the food stores inside the hopper as flat as possible, to aid in the dispensing process.

The hopper insert comes pre-installed but can be removed, depending on how you wish to feed your pets, in terms of quantity and frequency. But for tracking their food consumption and implementing portion control, it makes sense to leave the hopper as is and use the app controls to keep everything in order.

The feeding bowl itself has a sloped design and the lip of the bowl slots into place underneath the feeding receptacle. Perfect if you have messy pets who tend to shove their bowls around the place every time they eat, like protesting toddlers.

There are a few button controls for feed modes and scheduling on the central control panel, including an intriguingly named "Gravity Mode" (we'll get to that). And while it's good to know that the Feeder-Robot can be manually controlled from here, it does rather defeat the purpose of it to do so.

So we'll concentrate instead on its remote functions.

Setting up your Feeder-Robot is refreshingly simple as the Quick Start Guide suggests. You'll find a QR code for the Whisker App inside the instructional leaflet, and once downloaded, the onboarding process only takes a couple of minutes.

Hold down the Wi-Fi button on the central panel for a few seconds, and a yellow LED will light up. Your phone will then prompt you to pair Feeder-Robot with your phone. To do so, you'll need to find the sticker on the back of your robot which has the registration number you need. Screenshot this through the app, and Whisker automatically registers the device with your phone.

From here, you can opt to name your Feeder-Robot (which you should really, it's all part of the fun), and you have the bare bones setup established to program your robot with feeding schedules. Easy peasy.

However, as an optional side quest, you can add character profiles for each of your pets too, if you wish. Add their name, gender, age, weight, and any medical conditions here and the most adorable picture you have of them from your gallery.

Entirely unnecessary for the Feeder-Robot, this feature works better for Whisker's other products like the Litter-Robot, where weight and so on can be used to determine who's using the robot, and how frequently. And, should any abnormal behavior be detected, whether or not a trip to the vet may be in order.

As it is, it's a fun distraction here. It adds more customization to the Whisker App experience for those that want it, but it has no bearing on the functionality of the Feeder-Robot. At all.

If you happen to own one of Whisker's Litter-Robots already, the Whisker App does allow for multiple devices to be registered to your account. Any pet stats on the app can be easily transferred to a new device too, allowing you to establish a network of smart pet robots at home should you wish, if you have an abundance of money to spend.

As per the control buttons on the robot itself, the Whisker App features four different methods of feeding, which can be incorporated into your preferred feeding plan.

Firstly, you'll find the Feed option. This allows a one-off drop of food (in whatever volume you have programmed as a default). Handy as a top-up function, this can be used to provide a quick fix, which won't interfere with any pre-programmed feeding schedules.

Next, there's the Meals function. Using this, you can set how many "meals" are dropped during a standard 24-hour period, and at what times. And the Portion function allows you to determine how much food will be dispensed per meal. This can be adjusted accordingly. For instance, you may wish to provide a more generous portion at a set mealtime, but deliver a smaller, snack-sized portion during the night, to keep them ticking over.

Portion size can vary from one-eighth of a cup to one full cup, but going smaller is a good idea to begin with, as you can always add more if needed, and you don't want to risk overfeeding them.

Lastly, there's Gravity Mode. Less exciting than it sounds, Gravity Mode endeavors to keep the food bowl full at all times by attempting to feed around the clock, every six hours.

The Whisker App will inform you if supplies are running low and display how much food is left in the feeder on-screen. Unless you disable the notifications, you'll receive messages once each feed has dropped, and everything can be reliably left to run like clockwork, once programmed.

The Feeder-Robot is ideal for keeping your pets suitably nourished regularly. It has a tamper-resistant lid that keeps food supplies fresh, and enough capacity that it won't need to be refilled too often.

It's easy to set up and use, and functions faultlessly. While testing this product, I found that it dispensed everything right on time, and in the exact quantities specified. The app interface is slick and intuitive, and changing feeding schedules takes mere seconds to achieve.

Our three cats—Maiko, Pietro, and Wanda—took to it like ducks to water (yes, Pietro and Wanda are brother and sister, and yes, I am a Marvel comics nerd!). And despite Wanda taking off like a jet airplane the first time she heard the sound of the dispensing motor, each of them were happily tucking in by the end of the first day, and continue to do so.

It's great to have complete control over how much food your pets receive, and Feeder-Robot helps establish a good routine, whereby they are fed consistently, but in suitable quantities.

We're currently running a schedule of four small meals per day (a quarter of a cup each time), which works well alongside their canned food, which we give them once a day. With one of their feeds scheduled for the middle of the night, we've noticed a difference in our sleep quality.

A fresh food drop during the wee small hours has meant they are far more chilled as a result, and won't rampage around the house like lunatics during the middle of the night.

Feeder-Robot is a safe and reliable means to feed your cats (or dogs) while you're away from home. Worried that a last-minute work meeting will mean you're back home late? Just hit the feed button on the app, and your fur baby's appetite will be sated in your absence.

It's incredibly simple to use, and measurements are accurate and prompt. Feedings are signaled by a notification on your phone, so you never have to worry about whether food got delivered. It keeps track of how much food is left in the hopper too, so unless it tells you otherwise, you know there's plenty there for them to be getting on with.

The only real downside to Feeder-Robot is the price. At $300, it's one hell of an investment, however you chop it up.

Is it worth it? That's down to you. It performs very well. Down to a tee, in fact. It delivers preset quantities of dry food at times dictated by you. It's great for people who occasionally work away, or are likely to experience delays in getting home each night. And for fledgling fur babies, it's good for providing a "little and often" feeding schedule for their developing tummies.

It offers peace of mind for conscientious pet owners and is versatile enough to allow you to change things up as your pets grow. And if that's sufficient for you to justify the hefty expense of it, then you have your answer.

Rob is a freelance writer with a BA Hons Degree in English and Media Studies and a Diploma in Proofreading and Editing. After several years working in the financial sector, Rob decided to pursue his passion for writing and joined MUO as a Buyer's Guide writer in 2022. Rob is passionate about music, movies, gaming, martial arts, and of course... tech.