I have several automatic pet feeder bowls. I have 2 Amazon brand and they do pretty well but the lid is what turns and the cats can pry those off easily. I have a Petmate bowl that the lid is like Ft. Knox but it has 5 slots, only 4 are useful and it takes 4 D batteries. That one hold one ice pack. I have another feeder that has 3 slots so only 2 on delay with good ice packs. So I've been seeking better all the time. When I go away it's only for a weekend but some of my cats aren't the "just leave a bunch of bowls of dry out" type. I have cats that take meds. I have cats that don't eat unless there's canned food. I have cats I have to wet dry food because it's the only way they keep it down. So advantage this bowl. The lid is tight and I can reinforce it to stay on with Gorilla tape and the inside will still move. Listen my cats can be heathens and they will find a way to cheat and get food early, so this foils that plan. Now my little 21 year old cat likes stinky fish canned cat food. Who am I to deny her? The ice packs mean she'll get a couple extra canned meals while I'm gone. Better than my may or may not show up pet sitter achieves. I wouldn't trust them past 24 hours in the summer depending on the location in the house, but maybe 36 hours if placed right at an AC vent. So on to the charging. You can charge this and then flip the switch to off to save the battery and your settings of time and meal times will remain. Because setting times is tedious- there's only increase, not decrease so if you pass the minutes you want it has to scroll through. You can speed it up so it's fine. It took me a bit to realize how to unschedule times. At first I scheduled all 5 just to test that the bowl moved. Then I wanted to remove times and yes it's in the instructions. Say you want to reduce to only 2 times those times have to be in slots 1 and 2 then long press the set. You can't do 1 and 5 and skip 2, 3, & 4 which I can do on the tedious bowl with the 4 D batteries, but once I figured out this one is more simple, I'm happy. That will sound weird, til you get the bowl and then it makes sense. The charge after I fully charged has held for 5 days so far and there's no reason to need more than that because of the number of slots in the bowl. Anyway as one who owns many divided autofeeders, this one seems to check all the boxes- rechargable, holds charge, more slots, ice packs that cover all the slots, ability to do 1-5 feedings a day, secure lid. This price is comparable for what you get. You can save money if you don't need the fitted ice packs. Also I use the flat ice packs in human lunch bags at times.
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