Best automatic feeder after subscription failure

That's a genuinely frustrating situation — you bought a feeder in good faith, the company discontinued or cancelled the subscription tier, and suddenly your cat's entire feeding schedule just vanished. That's exactly the kind of thing that shouldn't happen with a piece of kit your pet depends on. Before I point you toward something better, tell me a bit more: is this just for the one Abyssinian, and what's the main thing you need the feeder to handle — portion control, feeding while you're at work, or covering longer trips away?

That's a completely reasonable position and honestly the right one. The most important things with any feeder are portion accuracy, mechanical reliability, and ease of cleaning — cheap units jam, throw out irregular amounts, and are basically impossible to clean properly, which is a real hygiene problem over time. For Miso specifically, you also want something that won't be outwitted — Abyssinians are clever and persistent. What are you feeding her, wet food, dry, or a mix? That matters quite a bit for which feeder will actually work.

Dry food makes this much more straightforward. My recommendation is the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder Connect — but I want to be specific about why. It reads Miso's microchip, so the lid only opens for her, which matters with Abyssinians who'll raid anything they can reach. Crucially for you: the Connect version uses the Sure Petcare app, but all schedules and portion settings are stored on the device itself. If Sure Petcare ever shuts down or you cancel the hub subscription, the feeder continues running exactly as programmed. You lose remote monitoring, but the core function — controlled portions, set times — keeps working locally. It dispenses dry food accurately, the bowl lifts out and is dishwasher safe, and it's been mechanically reliable for years. That's the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder Connect on Amazon UK.

You can set up to 12 feeding times per day, so three meals is no problem at all. On portion accuracy — it's a controlled-open-time system rather than a mechanical dispenser, meaning it opens for a set duration rather than counting out grams. In practice with dry kibble this is consistent enough that most owners find it reliable, but if you need precise gram-level control, you'd be looking at something like the Arf Pets feeder which has a rotating drum. For Miso at a healthy lean weight, the SureFeed's consistency will almost certainly be sufficient, and the microchip lock is worth more than marginal portion precision for an Abyssinian who'll otherwise just break in when she's bored.

Good call. One practical tip: when you first set it up, run it for a day or two with the lid open so Miso gets used to the bowl position and the sound of the motor before it starts controlling access — Abyssinians can take against new things if they feel ambushed by them. Once she's used to it you'll have no issues. It should serve her well for years without any subscription anxiety.