this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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316
Pet owners say smart pet feeder outage led to furry ones going unfed (arstechnica.com)
submitted 3 days ago by new_otters_raft@piefed.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
124 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This feels like bad design

Smart pet-feeder company Petlibro suffered an outage on Tuesday, giving users a harsh reminder of the risks of relying on smart devices.

Petlibro makes pet feeders that connect to Wi-Fi and, for setup with Petlibro’s mobile companion app, Bluetooth. Users can set the feeders to automatically dispense food at scheduled times, which is handy for pet care when the owner is out of the home.

In a statement to The Verge, Petlibro CEO York Wu said this week’s outage was “related to how the Petlibro app communicates with devices through its online servers.”

Some user reports have also conflicted with Petlibro’s claims about offline functionality. As The Verge pointed out, various users online claimed that during the outage, their devices did not perform any scheduled feedings, performed some feedings but not others, or performed feedings late (examples here, here, here, here, and here).

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[–] ogy@fedia.io 12 points 3 days ago (4 children)

i don't have one yet, but we're planning to get one so we can go on overnight or even maybe 2-3 day trips without having to rely on someone coming around to feed the pets

[–] kurwa@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The cheaper non smart ones work all by themselves, no cloud needed. They don't have an app to control it unfortunately though.

[–] ogy@fedia.io 3 points 3 days ago

nice, that's probably what we'll go with, thanks 🙏

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 points 3 days ago

God forbid the user have to push a button on the device itself.

[–] laithness@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

overnight is fine but for 2,3 days still have someone drop by to check if things are fine at least once. i read horror stories of cats being cats and landing badly from a sleeping spot and breaking a leg, or cats in a freak accident turning on the hair dryer which proceeded to blow warm air into the apartment for the whole night. and of course insanse stuff like that will happen when nobody is there to check in.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I think that he means just put 2-3 days of food out.

If the cat eats wet food, that'd have spoiling problems, but I suppose that it'd probably be okay with dry kibble.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

And if the power goes out?