SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder Connect - Requires Hub (Sold Separately)

Why it's worth it

It reads your pet's microchip and opens the lid only for the animal you enrolled, so the cat on a prescription diet keeps her food to herself. The bowl takes wet or dry, weighs to the gram, and reports each pet's intake to the app once you add the hub.

This is the only one that decides who gets to eat. It reads the ISO microchip your vet already implanted, or an RFID collar tag, and the lid opens for that animal alone. Every other feeder here drops food into an open bowl any pet in the house can raid. If one cat is on a prescription diet and another one wants it, that difference is the entire ballgame.

It also holds wet food, which nothing else in this guide will do. The bowl takes about 13.5 fluid ounces of wet or dry, and a neoprene lip seals against the lid to slow it drying out between visits. Built-in scales weigh what's in the bowl to within a gram, and LEDs walk you through filling to the portion you set in the app.

From our review of 5 automatic pet feeders, by James Bennett, Associate Editor

What we like

• +This is the only one that decides who gets to eat
• +It also holds wet food, which nothing else in this guide will do
• +Paired with the hub, the app logs how much each enrolled pet eats and how long they linger at the bowl

What to know

• –It isn't a scheduler
• –The access control isn't airtight