Wireless Whiskers Automatic Pet Feeder

    I purchased this pet feeder in order to be able to feed my two cats for extended periods of time automatically.  The cats eat very differently from one another.  One will eat any food she comes across regardless of how full she is or who the food belongs to, and the other just grazes eating very periodically in small quantities.  My problem was that the grazer would leave her food too long and the other cat would eat it as soon as she finished her own.


    To operate the feeder, you have to assign each pet their own passive RFID tag which goes on their collar.  The tags cost about $13 and the unit comes with 2 of them.  Then you set up the pet's name and feeding regimen (minutes per day) on the Wireless Whiskers feeder.  You can specify if the feeder doors default to stay open and only close when the pet has run out of time, or you can set the doors to default to stay closed until a pet with feed time approaches to activate them.

Problems I've had:
1.  The door opening and closing has a mechanical whir sound that scared my cats.  They were afraid to approach the unit when the doors were closed and would run when the doors opened.  We had to set the unit to keep the doors default to open.
2.  The RFID tags are detected by a sensor in the front of the unit.  This assumes that the animal is directly in front of the feeder.  My cats were clever and discovered that if they ate from an angle, the doors would not close.  I had to use kitty litter tubs to build a wall of sorts to stop them from doing this.
3.  The solution to problem #1 caused a problem where one of my cats would sit nearby the unit and snatch some food out whenever the doors were open.  The unit would detect the cat, then close the doors (took about 3 seconds).  The doors would stay shut for 15 seconds or so, then open back up.  Then she would snatch some more food and repeat.  This behavior went on regularly and over the course of a few months, the cat gained a significant amount of weight from overeating.
4.  The keyring on the RFID tags was very thin and weak.  My cats each got theirs caught on something and ended up getting stuck and ripped the tag right off.  The feeder could not detect the cats' feeding without their tags being worn.  I replaced them with sturdier keyrings and everything was okay.

Conclusion:
    Overall, I'd say this is a good product.  It is certainly moving in the right direction as far as features and capabilities.  I would certainly be interested in getting a newer model that refines some of the unit's shortcomings.  I'd like to see the build quality improve and the manufacturer's website get a serious facelift.