The Vergeverge@mastodon.social
Aug 12, 2026, 9:16 PMCats and dogs are missing meals after a popular smart feeder went down https://www.theverge.com/tech/979295/petlibro-outage-smart-pet-feeders
Replies
HTPC NZhtpcnz@mastodon.socialAug 12, 2026, 10:19 PM@verge must be so hard to make devices like these work offline, when digital thermostats from two decades ago can manage a schedule on the device, guess until a tech bro reinvents such technology there isn't much we can do.
Alice Pea (she/her) 🏳️⚧️alice_pea_3526@mastodon.socialAug 12, 2026, 11:48 PM@verge All these things do is read an NFC tag and dispense food if a time state is met, and reset the timer afterwards.
This is a use case that is perfectly doable offline, with the only online feature being outgoing telemetry for it's sensor states.
The company who made this particular auto-feeder that bricks itself whenever the internet goes down, is an absurdely stupid one that doesn't deserve that money.
If you have such a unit, consider hacking it to run #ESPHome or something.
Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSCLordCaramac@discordian.socialAug 13, 2026, 3:07 PM@alice_pea_3526 @verge I feed my cat manually. She meows at me, and then I follow her to the kitchen.