Over a decade, my husband and I have navigated the daily ritual of feeding our cat siblings—until they started hating each other. In 2024, disaster struck: we had a child, and our cats were no longer top priority. Automated feeders seemed like the saviour, but they came with their own set of headaches.

The search for the perfect feeder began online, with promises of raccoon resistance. Two PetSafe programmable feeders solved basic problems, but constant battery changes and an arcane interface drove us mad. We then tried VOLUAS feeders, which looked sleeker and quieter, only to find them chewed up by our cats after a trip.

Stuck with the PetSafes once again, we’ve learned to live with their limitations—like the grating noise and clock drift that let our bully cat hog food. Despite their flaws, they remain functional, but not without sparking an almost irrational irritation in us all.

The journey of finding tech solutions for cat feeding has been a reminder of humanity’s eternal quest for convenience and control over nature's chaos.