The Best Automatic Dog Feeder with Timer Functions

Reviewed by Anthony Dewitt

Owning a pet is one of the best privileges in life and a big responsibility. No matter how much you dote on your dog, though, there will inevitably be times at which you won’t be around to watch over the household and feed him or her. Fortunately, there are automatic dog feeders with timers that will allow you ensure proper dog nutrition by not only making sure that your dog gets fed, but that he or she gets fed at the right time and in the right way.

If you’re on the lookout for the best automatic dog feeder with a timer, you’re in luck – with complied a list of the top feeders out there. If your goal is to find the best tool to keep your dog fed, we’ll show you exactly where to find the perfect automated feeder.

Best Automatic Dog Feeders With Timers in 2021

The most important thing you’ll do when looking for your best automatic dog feeder is figuring out which features are the most important ot you. Below are some of the best automatic pet feeders available today, each with features that help them stand out from the crowd and that make them worth your time.

Smart Feed Automatic Dog and Cat Feeder, 2nd Generation

At their core, automatic dog feeders are supposed to leverage technology to help you make sure that your pet gets fed even when you’re not able to get up and get to the food dish. While timers are fairly standard in this field, the truth is that modern dog feeders really can do so much more. If you are already invested in Amazon’s Alexa ecosphere, you will be pleasantly surprised by how useful this automatic dog feeder from Smart Feed can be. In many ways, this feels like the next generation of automatic feeder. While it’s great for dogs, it’s a perfect automatic feeder for cats as well.

An awful lot of what makes this feeder the best comes from the Alexa integration. You can set timers and alerts for feeding your dog as often as you wish, but most of the special features revolve around using Amazon’s virtual assistant. It’s very easy to tell your dish to dispense more food randomly and you can even use Alexa to order more dog food once you have run out. This is really the next logical step when it comes to the best automatic dog feeders, with all the bells and whistles you need to stay convinced that you’re using a thoroughly modern device.

There’s more to like here than just the Alexa features that makes this the best feeder, though. Both the bowl and the dispenser lid are dishwasher safe and very easy to clean, for example, and you’ll have plenty of options available to make sure that you can feed your dog precisely as much dog food as he or she needs. The automated feeder also works very reliably, so you’re not going to have to spend much time worrying if your dog is actually getting fed while you are out of the house. Though no feeder is perfect, this one really does feel like it comes close. Even if you don’t get one yourself, it makes a great gift for your favorite dog lover.

WOPET Automatic Pet Feeder Food Dispenser

Every dog is different, and that holds true for them as much during feeding time as it does during any other time of the day. If you are looking for an automatic feeder to dispense food fresh when your pet needs it, it’s important that you find one that is going to be able to keep up with your dog’s individual needs. This WOPET Automatic Pet Feeder Food Dispenser may not be a smartphone integrated dog feeder, but it does a remarkable job of letting pet owners dictate exactly how and when their dogs will get their food even when they are not around to do the feeding themselves.

The best word to describe this WOPET feeder is customization. Almost everything about the dog’s food experience can be customized, from the amount of times the dog eats each day to the portions for each feeding. You can also customize your dog’s eating experience by recording a quick message that will be played during feeding time, helping your dog to feel more comfortable with the machine. The feeder even has a battery backup so you can make sure that your dog gets their food correctly no matter what else is going on in your home.

Despite all the features included in the device, this is machine is actually quite old-school when it comes to operation. Everything is done through an LCD control, which will let you handle everything from meal timing to portion control. With a huge reservoir for food and a solid design, you can generally set this machine to go and then forget about it until it’s time to refill the feeder – all the while keeping the food fresh. It may not have all the fancy features of higher-tech feeders, but it more than does the job.

Healthy Pet Simply Feed

What are you looking for in an automatic dog feeder? Is your goal to find something that has the most number of unique functions? Or, like most dog owners, do you just want something that is going to be able to reliably feed your dog? If you fall into the latter category, you’re in luck – this dog feeder from Healthy Pet not only manages to leverage technology in a way that gives you plenty of options for dispensing food, but it also ensures that your dog will get fed in a timely manner.

The automatic settings on this dog feeder are quite nice. You decide both how often you want to feed your dog, and how much food to feed your dog each time. This feature is nice because it gives you a much better chance to train your dog to eat their food at specific times throughout the day (1). The machine also has an excellent slow feed feature, which portions out your dog’s food a bit at a time to prevent the animal from eating too quickly and getting sick after each meal.

There are also some nice quality of life features that are present in this automatic dog feeder. You can decide whether or not you want it to plug into your wall, for example – the four D batteries are cumbersome, but they allow youto bring the feeder with you on the road. The machine is also relatively easy to clean, with only the internal conveyer needing to be washed by hand. This is a solid piece of engineering that does exactly what’s needed without requiring too much work. Consider this to be a baseline against which you can judge most other machines.

WESTLINK 6L Automatic Pet Feeder Food Dispenser

Automatic food dispensers are incredibly important for those who are unable to feed their dogs food on a regular schedule. Whether it’s due to work or a physical inability to do so, you still want to be able to look out for your dog’s health whenever possible. This product from WESTLINK puts a little bit of personality back into the process of feeding your dog, allowing you to personalize your dog’s feeding experience and to ensure that they still associate the sound of your voice with the knowledge that they are safe, healthy, and well-fed with food. It’s not the most ambitious feeder out there, but it is one of the more reliable.

Perhaps the most unique feature in this model is the ability to record a brief voice clip. Present in a few other dog feeders, it’s still a nice little touch for those who are worried about their dogs’ well-being. The function allows you to record your voice so that your dog can be called to his or her meals verbally, both allowing you to continue on with your training and to help keep your dog happy. On top of that, the unit also lets you have a little more flexibility with placement than most, as you can choose to use battery power or even a USB cord to keep this machine working.

Of course, you still get all of the features that make an automatic dog feeder so useful in this feeder. You’ll be able to program in up to four different meals a day for your dog, with different meal sizes available to make sure that your dog gets exactly the right amount of food fresh when they need it. Everything is done through a simple interface directly on the unit, so you won’t have to worry about any outside apps here. The feeder is easy to use and it will ensure that your dog always gets the perfect meal exactly when he or she has been trained to expect food.

Athorbot Automatic Pet Feeder

The great thing about automatic dog feeders should be that they largely take care of themselves. Outside of refilling the hopper, these should largely be devices that you can leave on their own. Unfortunately, many low-end dog feeders tend to have problems when it comes to the functionality of their internal mechanisms. While these aren’t life or death problems, they can make the automatic feeders far less useful than they ought to be. Fortunately, Athorbot has taken some steps to ensure that their automatic dog feeder works as efficiently as possible and that it won’t suffer some of the more common automatic feeder problems.

Reliablity is really the biggest factor for those who love this pet feeder, and Athorbot does a good job making sure that your pet gets food exactly when it is most needed. This has been done by gently redesigning the interior of the feeder, ensuring that it’s less likely to get backed up or to have some kind of failure in the conveyor belt when dispensing food. While these might seem like minor things compared to the long list of features that are usually touted for automatic features, they’re often some of the most important for dog lovers.

Beyond that, the feeder really seems to have most of the bells and whistles that you’d expect from a modern automatic pet feeder. The unit is designed so that your dog can’t get into the tank, it has a great voice feature that will allow you to use your own voice to call your dogs to eat their food, and you can take apart the machine to clean it out a bit more easily. There are even two different power options so that you can be sure that the feeder works even if the power goes out. All in all, this is a solid feature that will meet the needs of most consumers.

Roffie Dog Food Dispenser

When you’re looking at automatic dog feeders, it’s a good idea to go into the process thinking about exactly about exactly what you need. There are a lot of different features out there, some of which are more important to specific users than others. If your goal is to find an excellent dog feeder that is going to allow you the ability to customize your dog’s meals while still maintaining a regular feeding schedule, this might be the best feeder for you.

Most of what you’re going to get from this particular feeder can be seen in other feeders across the board. The biggest thing that differentiates this one from the bulk of the other automatic dog feeders on the market is the size of its hopper. It can hold up to twenty-four cups of food at one time, allowing you to worry less about how often you refill the machine. Beyond that, though, you’re looking at a device that really takes the greatest hits from a number of other automatic feeders and incorporates them into an attractive package.

The basic features are nothing to sneeze at, though. You can schedule up to four meals with this feeder and each of them can be schedule to dispense different quantities of food. This helps owners so that they won’t have to train their pet to stop barking in anticipation of food when meal time comes and goes and their bowl is still empty. The feeder also has a great voice recording feature, which will allow you to call your dog to his or her meals even when you can’t be around – a nice supplement to their favorite chew toy or dog bone. There’s nothing here that you won’t see in other dog food dispensers, but that’s because it incorporates most of the best features on the market.

FAQs

Are automatic feeders good for dogs?

The short answer here is that automatic feeders are perfectly safe for dogs. There’s no moving parts on the outside that can cause your dog pain and they don’t actually do anything to your dog’s food that could hurt him or her. It’s essentially just a device for ensuring that your dog gets food when he or she needs to eat, so there’s nothing that you have to worry about as a pet owner insofar as your dog’s actual health is concerned.

As you might imagine, exactly how good an automatic feeder is for a dog is going to vary greatly on how it is used. These feeders are spectacular training tools for those who want to make sure that their dogs understand that they can only eat at certain times, vital accessories for those trying to keep their dogs on strict diets, and absolute necessities for those who physically struggle to feed their dogs. With that said, these tools shouldn’t take the place of interacting with dogs and it’s very important that pet owners pay attention to how well the units actually dispense food.

How does an automatic pet feeder work?

Automatic pet feeders aren’t terribly complex, though newer models are adding in all kinds of extras that make them more complicated. At the most basic level, these devices are simply large reservoirs of food that are released at specific times and in specific amounts as determined by the pet owner.

The most basic automatic feeders actually only have two relevant parts – the hopper and the bowl. The user can set a time (and often an amount of dog food to be dispensed), and food will drop out of the hopper and into the food dish. More complex feeders make use of a conveyor belt to move preselected portions of food from the hopper to the bowl, but they work on largely the same principle. Most modern automatic feeders make use of a simple control panel that allows users to set feeding times and portions, though some of the higher-end products also allow users to control the device through an app.

Buying Guide

If you’re looking to buy an automatic dog feeder, it’s not necessarily the brand name that should grab your attention. Instead, you’ll want to pay attention to some specific features in order to ensure that you get the automatic dog feeder that fits your needs. This buying guide will discuss a handful of features that tend to help buyers choose their ideal feeders.

Hopper Size and Food Bowl

One of the most important features of any automatic feeder is the size of the hopper and food bowl. The amount of food that the hopper holds will determine how often you have to interact with the device, so a bigger hopper is usually better. Owners of larger dogs should also prioritize larger hoppers, as they’ll typically wind up feeding their dogs larger portions of larger-sized dog food. Cat automatic feeders, on the other hand, can probably do with a smaller hopper size.

Feeding Schedule

The next major feature has to do with how many meals per day you’ll be able to plan for food distribution. It’s very common for modern feeders to be able to dispense four selected meals per day, but it’s important that you pick something that works with how often your dog eats. Many feeders now come with a ‘slow feed’ option, which portions out food as your dog eats so that he or she won’t get sick from eating too fast at one particular feeding time. There’s no perfect number of scheduling options when it comes to automatic cat feeding or dog feeding, so pick a model that feels right to you and offers an appropriate number of meals per day.

Portion Control

Portion control is a slightly more modern feature, but it is nonetheless one that’s become quite important. Portion control allows the user to determine how much food is dispensed into the bowl at a time, which can be useful for helping dogs that are on a diet. Since felines are better at rationing than canines, this feature is not as important in a cat automatic feeder. For dispensing dog food, on the other hand, it’s likely a different story. If portion control is important to you, you’ll also want to figure out whether or not you can determine the portions of each individual meal or if you’ll have to set one portion for every meal. While this won’t be a major factor for everyone, it’s important to some.

Interface

The interface for your automatic dog feeder matters more than you might think. The easier to use the interface, the more likely it is that you’ll keep using it as you go forward. Full color interfaces are becoming more common, but even simple LCD screens can be more useful than knobs and levers. Note that some feeders are now starting to become smartphone enabled, so those who want a finer degree of control have the option of using an app. If user accessibility is important to you, you’ll definitely want to look at the user interface before you make a purchase.

Ease of Cleaning

Simply put, you need to know how easy it going to be to clean out your automatic feeder. Many feeders can come apart so that you can clean them out without having to reach inside, while some are even made with a dishwasher safe food bowl and hopper. Most people are going to want to find something that allows them to perform the least amount of labor possible, but be aware that you are going to end up having to clean out any automatic dog feeder that you end up buying.

Extras

Extras are really the bells and whistles that help to set two otherwise identical products apart. Some automatic dog feeders will allow you to record your voice to call your dog for meals, for example, while others might allow you to set tone-based alarms. These are just minor features that probably aren’t going to end up selling you on a dog food feeder on their own, but they will help you to determine if one product is better than the other. Don’t base your choice solely on these features, but look for them where you can.