Do you think that your pet gives a sh*t that it’s the weekend and you need to sleep in? My cat certainly doesn’t. Every Saturday at 7 am my cat Strachu meows a serenade “I’m hungry!!”. And he doesn’t give a hoot that you went to bed late last night because: (cross out false one) you were at a party / you worked / your child didn’t let you sleep.

That is just one example where a remote feeder would come in handy.

An automatic “Smart” Pet Feeder integrated with the Smart System in your home gives many possibilities for doing it.

• You can set up a detailed meal schedule.
• You can put the food automatically after detecting a pet near the bowl. Although in this case, a lot depends on the pet itself.
• You can also just sprinkle some cat food remotely using your smartphone at any time and from anywhere.

What does my project have?

• Embedded presence (PIR) sensor to detect if the pet is nearby.
• Embedded beeper to inform the pet about the meal.
• Activation can take place locally or via WiFi (ESP8266).
• Separation of the electronic part for washing takes seconds, and no tools are needed

How does it work?

At my home, the Pet Feeder works as follows:

• When the embedded PIR sensor detects that the cat near, I get a notification on my phone that it is probably hungry.
• I can decide if it’s the right time to eat. If so, I can give him some food.
• Besides, I have the option of giving him food manually. If I decide that it’s time for dinner. That’s why I put a Buzzer on the PCB. It’s gonna notify the cat that there is food in the bowl.
• I set up a schedule that dispenses a portion every day at 7 AM.

PCB

The main brain is an ESP12F module with an ESP8266 chip on board. It controls the 28BYJ-48 stepper motor via the ULN2003 driver, reads data from the PIR module, supports the button, LED, and the Buzzer. And it communicates with our Smart Home via WiFi.

And it looks like this:

Case

The case itself is almost completely 3D printed. Only the legs were made of wood to make it look nicer :)

In addition, the housing easily separates the electronics part from the rest of the housing. This makes it easy to clean the part that comes into contact with food, without fear of the PCB getting wet.

Additionally, I have prepared a video in which I show the entire process.