PetLibro Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeder Review
Does the PetLibro automatic cat feeder live up to the hype?
Credit:
Reviewed / Camryn Rabideau
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Dry pet food, or kibble, is popular among pet owners because it's easy to store, but that doesn't mean you can just throw it in any old container and call it a day. To maintain the freshness of both dog and cat kibble, it's important to keep it in an airtight container, and unfortunately, some automatic pet feeders don't have a tight seal on their food tanks.
With this problem in mind, PetLibro recently released its new Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeder. The feeder connects to your phone, allowing you to create an automatic feeding schedule for your pet—so no more 3 a.m. wakeup calls—and it also keeps the food as fresh as possible.
I've used several automatic cat feeders to varying degrees of success, and I was curious to see if this new technology was a game-changer or just a gimmick. Here's what I found after testing the device for several weeks.
PetLibro affordable, easy to use, and sets up well portioned meals for cats.
$200 at PetLibroAbout the PetLibro Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeder
Dimensions: 17.8 x 16.9 x 9.8 inches
Weight: 9.4 pounds
Food tank capacity: 8 liters/34 cups
Portion size: 1/12 cup
Materials: ABS plastic, stainless steel
Connectivity: 2.4GHz, 5GHz
The PetLibro Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeder is the latest product from the brand, which sells several other popular pet feeders. This new model stands out from the rest due to its vacuum-sealed food storage compartment—the feeder creates a low-pressure, low-oxygen environment by pushing air out of the tank to keep your pet's food fresh for longer.
The feeder can hold up to 34 cups of food in its tank, and despite being marketed as a product for cats, you can use it to dispense dog food, as well. Through the PetLibro app, you can create a feeding schedule with a maximum of 10 meals per day, and you can customize the time and quantity of each one. When it's time for a meal, the feeder automatically deposits the set amount of food into the stainless steel bowl, which can easily be removed for cleaning.
What we like
The feeder is easy to set up and dispenses accurate portions
It's easy to set up and use
One of my biggest complaints about automatic cat feeders I've used in the past is that they can be really complicated to set up. Thankfully, the PetLibro wasn't like that at all. After unpacking the feeder, all I had to do was attach the bowl and plug it in, and it was ready to go.
Connecting the feeder to the PetLibro app was similarly easy. I saw that some Amazon reviewers say they had trouble syncing the feeder to their phone, but mine connected on the first try. (There are two PetLibro apps, so make sure you're using the right one—it should be the regular PetLibro app, not PetLibro Lite.) All I had to do was input my Wi-Fi password, and the app took care of the rest.
Once the unit was connected, I was able to create a feeding schedule for my cat, Piper. I set up two daily feedings—one at 8:30 a.m. and one at 6 p.m.—and selected to feed her 1/4 cup at each meal. You do have to select meal sizes in quantities of 1/12-cup, which can be a little confusing. For instance, the 1/4 cup that I choose for Piper shows up as 3/12 in the app. Besides that, creating a schedule was quick and easy, and it started working right away and has dispensed her food on time ever since.
The feeder dispenses accurate portions
I'm always curious if automatic feeders are dispensing the right amount of food, so I actually measured how much kibble the PetLibro was dropping into Piper's dish at each meal. I used the app to dispense 1/2 cup of food, then transferred it into a measuring cup. I was happy to find that it was exactly 1/2 cup of kibble! I ran the same experiment with 1/4 cup of food, and the dispensed portion was similarly accurate.
I try my best to keep my pets at a healthy weight—sometimes easier said than done—so I was really pleased that the feeder was giving Piper the right amount of food at each meal.
It keeps your pet's food fresh
The main feature that sets this automatic feeder apart from other models is that it's supposed to keep the food vacuum sealed for freshness. Before I started testing, I wasn't sure how it would accomplish this, but the process is actually quite simple. After you close the lid or the feeder dispenses a meal, it pumps out any extra air from the food storage tank. You can actually hear this happening, and there's a button on the front of the feeder that lets you pump the air out manually, if needed.
Plus, when you remove the feeder's lid after it's pumped out extra air, you can hear the seal being broken—it makes the same sound as when you cut open a vacuum-sealed package, so it does seem as though the container is truly air-tight.
What we don't like
You have to rely on notifications to know when the food tank needs to be refilled
You can't see into the storage compartment
I don't love that the food storage tank on this feeder is opaque. I like to be able to visually monitor the level of food inside my cat's feeder to know when I need to order more, and I can't do that with this model. There isn't a way to easily check the food level in the app either, so you really have to rely on push notifications to tell you when the tank needs to be refilled. I'll be the first to admit that I get notification fatigue most days---when there are too many pop-ups on my phone, I stop registering what they're saying, so it does make me slightly concerned that I may miss a notification that it's time to refill the feeder.
By comparison, the Feeder-Robot, which I've used for several years, has a see-through tank, as well as a large light on top that turns red when the food level is low. I appreciate these visual cues, as it reduces the risk of the feeder running out of food without me noticing.
Should you buy the PetLibro Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeder?
It was easy to use and proved to be extremely reliable.
Yes, it's a reliable automatic feeder that will keep food fresh.
Over the course of testing, I was impressed with the PetLibro Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeder. It was easy to use and proved to be extremely reliable, so I never had to worry about whether Piper was missing her meals. I had no issues setting up or scheduling the feeder, and true to its claims, it pushes any excess air out of the food storage tank to keep your pet's kibble fresh for longer.
This automatic feeder, which retails for $200 at full price, is fairly expensive compared to other models, but I can confidently say it's much easier to use than other cheap options I've tried in the past. It's definitely worth the added expensive if you want a model that's reliable and will keep your cat's food from getting stale in storage.
