Petlibro Smart Feeder Outage Highlights Risks of Connected Pet Care

Smart pet-feeder company Petlibro suffered an outage on Tuesday, giving users a harsh reminder of the risks of relying on smart devices.

Petlibro makes pet feeders that connect to Wi-Fi and, for setup with Petlibro’s mobile companion app, Bluetooth. Users can set the feeders to automatically dispense food at scheduled times, which is handy for pet care when the owner is out of the home.

In a statement to The Verge, Petlibro CEO York Wu said this week’s outage was “related to how the Petlibro app communicates with devices through its online servers.”

Petlibro first acknowledged problems on Tuesday at 5 am PT. It said via a status page that it was “investigating a service disruption affecting the Petlibro app. Some users experienced difficulty accessing the app or controlling devices remotely.”

At 7 pm PT on Tuesday, Petlibro said it “identified a service issue affecting app access and responsiveness for some users” and “began recovery work and system validation.”

Petlibro claims that as of 7 pm PT on Wednesday, “app services have been fully restored and are operating normally.”

“After several hours of monitoring and a full cycle of routine performance, we are confident that the service disruption has been resolved. Our team will continue reviewing the incident over the coming days to better understand the cause and identify improvements to help prevent similar disruptions in the future,” the support page reads.

The page also notes that previously saved schedules should run, but “some activity data may be unavailable,” adding:

Certain records generated during the disruption may not be recoverable, including some device operation history, feeding or litter box records, notifications, cloud-stored videos, and highlight videos.

Wu told The Verge that features requiring an app connection to work, such as the app’s “Feed Now” button, may still be disrupted.

Conflicting reports

Despite Petlibro’s status update, some Reddit users said they were still experiencing problems as of this morning.

Some user reports have also conflicted with Petlibro’s claims about offline functionality. As The Verge pointed out, various users online claimed that during the outage, their devices did not perform any scheduled feedings, performed some feedings but not others, or performed feedings late (examples here, here, here, here, and here).

Petlibro claims that at least some of its feeders can perform scheduled feedings offline. The Granary 2’s page, for example, says, “If the feeder goes offline, remote control through the app will be unavailable, but feeding schedules will continue to run automatically. Granary 2 can also continue performing pet recognition and automatic lid operation directly on the device.”

And Petlibro’s page for the One RFID feeder says, “Scheduled meals continue even during network errors.”

In response to claims that feeders did not perform scheduled feedings while offline, Wu told The Verge that scheduled feedings “are programmed directly onto the device and should continue to run as scheduled without an Internet command,” but Petlibro is “aware of reports from some customers whose devices did not behave as expected, and we are reviewing those cases individually.”

Considering that scheduled feedings are supposed to be stored on devices, it’s possible that a firmware or software problem triggered by the outage prevented the devices from operating as expected. There are other possibilities, like user error, too.

The incident and conflicting user experiences highlight some of the challenges of relying on smart devices for critical tasks, like ensuring a furry loved one gets food. Some users online reported not receiving an email about the outage and being unaware that their pet was not fed for hours.

“I’ve lost trust and don’t have time to find a new solution for upcoming travel. I have someone coming for check-ins, but they can’t come in 5 times every day to give food,” a Reddit user said.

Although companion apps, when they work, can provide remote access and more control options, Petlibro’s situation can make dumb automatic feeders look smart.