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techydude
5
Sep 18, 2016
Here's some clarity:
The Chinese manufacturer of these is PetWant: http://www.petwant.com/Pet-Feeders.html
Other retailers are calling it all sorts of things. This is common practise.
The model here on Massdrop is the PF-103, featuring wifi connectivity so you can program it & remotely interact live via a (free) smartphone app.
The model other people here are mentioning on Skymall appears to be the PF-102, visually almost identical and with near identical features OTHER THAN THE WIFI / REMOTE ACCESS featureset, although for $60 (presumably not including shipping) with their 40% discount, that's an awfully attractive price if you don't care about the remote/smartphone features of the PF-103.
The difference in price to get those features (that require not just wifi connectivity & significant processing power over & above the simple PF-102, but also a cloud service to broker the connection between you out there on the internet with your smartphone and your pet feeder back at home) are well within the ballpark of reasonable.
I haven't yet looked into reviews suggesting issues with food jamming - but I will. Perhaps it's the size of the kibble that matters here.
Despite the attraction of the wifi / remote features, we're currently just beginning to enter a horrific wave of IoT - Internet Of Things - security blunders and disasters, with no end in sight, and based on the weight of evidence I have no reason not to expect this product to exhibit similar gaping lax security (like, a stranger/hacker being able to watch and listen to your room, and you'd never know). You're also dependent on this manufacturer continuing to offer their cloud service essentially free for the years of service you'd expect from such an appliance. There's plenty of history to show that expectation is often not met, not even by the biggest players in the fledgeling IoT gadget market (looking at you, Nest/Google). Buyer beware.
Having said all that, I'm very tempted to give it a go, and have a hard look at its IT security.