Technology

This article says it's an issue with smart devices. It isn't. There are issues with them (mostly security), but this isn't that. This is an issue with making always-online services that have no need for it. There is absolutely zero reason this device should ever connect to the internet. The intranet should have everything it needs. The device should have its own clock (which I'm certain it does, or it wouldn't operate), and a connection should only be needed to change settings. Maybe it should expose itself to be connected to externally by your app to change settings or check status when you're away, but it shouldn't require a connection.

That's the kind of limitation I have on mine, but that's because I have a wireless zigbee plug instead of a real timer, but it's because I can better change schedules. It's reliable like 95% of the time, which is good enough for normal use, but I'd be pissed if I paid for an AIO unit that required an active connection to work. At least mine is all on my own network, so it's (usually) my own fault when something goes sideways

wtf why is it requiring wifi for a mechanism that should simply just rely on electricity if nothing else?

It needs wifi????

It is bad design. The entire system control could be on a microcontroller inside the machine itself. There's no reason to route data through a cloud server just for basic functionality (other than greedy data farming, of course).

That's a single point of failure, and not even very reliable, for something that provides a basic necessity to a living being.

That being said, any pet owner who relies on an automated feeder and doesn't check it regularly to make sure it's working properly, is neglecting their pets. They share a portion of the responsibility here.

Still, I wish products marketed for pets were regulated better to ensure safety.

automatically dispense food

Okay

use an app to set it up

Makes sense

cloud outage caused missed feedings

wtf? Doesn’t the thing have an internal clock? Doesn’t it just set a cron job? Seriously, if you want to farm data all day long, do that and just send it back. But if having to be online to do its core function is required, that’s extremely poor design.

The level of sophistication of our pet feeder at home is a fistful of kibble pulled out of a bag and dropped in a bowl. If we're away, we have a good neighbour who drops in to check on the cat, or the cat stays with my family. I'm an IT professional, and prefer my house to be as dumb as possible.

Of course I will post a picture of my cat when mentioning him. His name is Nemo.

I have a Petlibro, but one of the old ones that has no cloud connection and no app. You just program it on the feeders interface itself. From a mechanical standpoint they are pretty awesome and feeding the proper amount of food is so much easier than doing it manually.

These smart gadgets could be good but they are so terrible. I bought a discount smart LED bulb. I was like let's try it out, it can't be that bad. Then I realized why was it discounted:

The lightbulb does not work without being connected to the internet, it just flashes in the most annoying way.

Nowhere on its box it was written, hey you have to connect this lightbulb 24/7 to the internet. Just some nice things, like you can dim it and change the colors. Not to mention these shady apps selling your data, asking access for your contacts, pictures and files.

They far overdid the opportunistic predation in many ways.

I can easily imagine a nightmare, where everything people own, get locked down this way. The world is going into that direction.

To everyone criticizing the people who bought the device: It is sold as being capable of running without internet, and it often does. The problem is that some update along the way broke this functionality ( maybe on purpose ).

The device has 3 D batteries to survive even power outages.

I'm not defending the company, I absolute despise them, they lied to consumers and should suffer a class action lawsuit.

And this is why you use local only devices fools.

Get yourself a Zigbee Pet Feeder and pair it with Home Assistant and you're good to go.

Why can't these schedules be held locally in the device memory.

Repeat after me: Local control. Local control. Local control.

"The Cloud" is just other people's computers.

Sounds like a dumb way to feed your pet that the device can't work without the cloud. Nothing new but still you have to be real stupid to buy a device that will one day be cut off when the company abandons support.

Again, why do we need to unnecessarily complicate stuff with multiple IoT options?? Why can't it have a fallback offline like idk...a SIMPLE TIMER? Or is it another case of "AI integration" into yet another thing which doesn't need AI!

Happy user of petlibro here and I'm very happy that when I bought it, I went explicitly for the non wifi - non cloud connected version.

My fish tank feeder had a clock, and I set the times. To feed it. There shouldn't be any smart needed.

“So we create an unnecessary dependency to force them to upgrade whenever shareholders demand it. There’s a slight chance a malfunction will starve cats to death buuuuuut….”

I have someone coming for check-ins, but they can’t come in 5 times every day to give food,” a Reddit user said.

You can pamper your cat however you want, but your cat is not going to die if they don't have someone portioning out food five times a day.

This feels like bad design

Every modern tech product is.

Hmm... Maybe they should make people feeders.