Smart pet feeders allow pet owners to keep a tight check on their animals' meals. The Internet of Things ecosystem is full of unique and interesting products, including pet feeders. What happens, though, when these devices require online connections to function and the feeder's backend stops responding?
We've seen what happens when smart device manufacturers go out of business or stop supporting older models. As old gadgets grow dumber or become paperweights, people's investments in intelligent scales or smart speakers vanish.
Nonetheless, the cost of the harm may be calculated in terms of lost money. But what happens if you leave food for your dogs in the smart feeder for a weekend vacation? You're confident since it's never let you down before, but suddenly the service goes down.
Fortunately, no pets died as a result of the Petnet Gen2 smart feeder backend going down for more than a week, but this might have easily happened. Several Petnet customers complained that the gadgets had ceased responding, according to a BBC article. Furthermore, the firm did not respond to messages.
An official firm Twitter account sent an update to users after a week of silence. "We're looking into a system outage that might affect SmartFeeder users" (2nd Gen). SmartFeeders will look offline, but scheduled automated feeds will continue to dispense at the proper time. Please accept my apologies for any trouble this may cause. "
The problem appears to have been resolved a few days later. However, the corporation has yet to provide an explanation for the outage.
Smart Feeders and App functionality has been restored as part of a system update. Please power cycle your Smart Feeder by turning it off and on from the power switch if you notice a red ring. "
It leaves an unanswered question in the air. Can you rely on an IoT gadget to perform the same job at all times?
Especially one that is critical to a living being's existence like your smart pet.
Social Plugin