The best smart pet bowls are joining a growing number of gadgets designed to make your life as a pet parent a whole lot easier. Given how much our pets love mealtimes (and who can blame them?!) a smart pet bowl can come in handy for both weighing the food and granting access to it.
Smart bowls cover a range of gadgets, each with their own tasks that they're trying to make easier. The most common type of smart bowls have weighing scales built into them to help you measure out each serving – whether you're using best dry dog food or the best dry cat food, a smart pet bowl can help give out the perfect portion every time. These smart bowls are a great option for pets who are carrying a few extra pounds and with some coming with additional slow feeder attachments, you can also control how quickly your pet can eat.
Smart pet bowls don’t come with lots of fancy features, their main draw is that they can help to keep your pet’s health in check. In addition to weighing food, several also offer a smart unlocking feature that works in conjunction with your pet’s microchip or an RFID collar tag.
If you’re out of the house a lot and are looking for something that will both weigh and control portions and release food on a schedule, we recommend checking out some of the best automatic pet feeders. But if all you’re needing is something a little more advanced than a regular food bowl, a smart pet bowl should suit you perfectly. We've also included some more niche options in our best smart pet bowls list, including several smart water bowls.
The Quick List
Best smart pet bowl overall
This stylish looking smart bowl would feel right at home in even the fanciest of kitchens. The built-in scales to help you weigh out a perfect food portion, while the large capacity means it’s suitable for almost any size of pet.
Best smart pet bowl for multiple pets
The clever gadget uses an RFID reader to make sure that only the allocated pet can access the delicious food inside. It’s an expensive gadget, but if you’ve got multiple pets it’s one of the best ways to separate out their food and stop greedy moggies from scarfing it all.
Best slow feeder smart pet bowl
The Honeywell Smart Pet Bowl ticks all the boxes for a food-weighing smart bowl, while also coming with a slow feeding insert to help slow down ravenous cats, helping to prevent digestive issues.
Best programmable smart pet bowl
This unique-looking RFID feeder ensures that only the assigned pet can access the food inside, but it also has programmable meal times to make sure your pet is eating at the proper mealtimes.
Best large smart pet bowl
This Eyenimal smart pet bowl is about as simple as smart bowls come (any simpler and it’d just be a bowl). It holds food for your pets to eat, and it weighs the amount of food you put in. We especially love that it comes in an extra large size for bigger dog breeds.
Best smart pet bowl for water
Smart bowls don’t just cover food — this smart water fountain gives your pet access to fresh, clean, running water all day long, and the dedicated app means you can control the water flow and get refill warnings direct to your smartphone.
Best smart pet bowl for outdoors
If you live in colder climates, this heated water bowl from Toozey could be an essential item for your outdoor pets. It keeps their drinking water from freezing over when the temperature drops, so you don’t have to worry about them when winter comes around.
Best smart pet bowl overall
Despite its unassuming looks, there are a lot of nice touches in the PetKit Smart Bowl, from the way you can remove the metal bowl to wash it (under the tap, not in the dishwasher), to the angled, sunken design that means spillages aren't a problem. On top of that, you, of course, also have the digital scales embedded in the unit.
Being able to weigh your pooch's food while you're pouring it means you're not guessing about how much you're giving your canine companion, so you shouldn't have any problems with feeding them too much or too little. The bowl is also accompanied by an app – it's a little rough around the edges, but it will make helpful suggestions about the size of the servings that you're measuring out.
At 1.7 liters of capacity, there's plenty of snack space here for even the most greedy of pups, and you can adjust the scales to show kilograms or pounds, so there's no confusion about how much you're measuring out. You know how much your dog has eaten, and you know how much you need to buy too.
That large capacity means this is quite a chunky bowl – it measures 305 mm x 285 mm x 115 mm (that's 12-inches x 11.2-inches x 4.5-inches), so make sure you've got room to accommodate it wherever you want it in your home. The rubberized grips underneath the bowl help to stop it from moving around.
Low maintenance, easy to operate, and key for keeping your pooch healthy and well-fed, there's a lot to like about the PetKit Smart Bowl and the mobile app that comes along with it, even if it doesn't have any features that are particularly advanced or flashy.
Best smart bowl for multiple pets
If you're prepared to spend a little bit more money for something that's truly smart, then then the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder is definitely one of the best microchip food bowls we've seen to date – we’ve listed it in our guide to the best automatic pet feeders, too. As the name suggests, it'll open up based on the proximity of a cat with a particular implanted microchip or RFID collar tag, so it's a great way of giving different pets different diets (or keeping out the neighbor's cat).
Even if you've just got one kitty, you can use the pet feeder to monitor how much they're eating and how often. If you attach the Sure Petcare app and hub (sold separately), then you've got a really comprehensive way of monitoring your cat's diet and nutrition while you're out of the house.
You get a single bowl and two half bowls included in the kit, and these can be replaced and even color-coded using the accessories that are available (you could have different colored pet feeders for different cats, for example). The bowls are sealed, which means the food is kept fresh until your cat is ready for a snack.
One set of batteries should be enough to keep the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder going for around six months, and the whole unit is easy to clean, so you won't have many worries in terms of maintenance. There have been reports of some aggressive cats outsmarting the tech (and getting in the way of more placid cats once the bowls are unlocked), but for most felines it seems to work well.
If you want to know as much about your cat's eating habits as your smartwatch tells you about your exercise regime, then this is the smart pet bowl that you need. Yes it's on the expensive side compared with other options, but it's a worthy investment.
Best slow feeder smart pet bowl
The Honeywell Smart Pet Bowl is a smart weighing bowl with a sleek and premium design despite the affordable price tag. It has a built-in scale so you can weigh out your pet’s food, allowing you to manage their food intake precisely if they’re on a specific diet.
While the outer section of the bowl is plastic, the section where food goes is a removable stainless steel insert, which is perfect for easy cleaning. It also has a slow-feeding insert if your pet is prone to rapid eating. The bowl has a two-cup maximum capacity, so it’s suitable for both cats and dogs (up to medium sized breeds).
There is also a Honeywell Smart Pets App which you can use to connect the smart bowl to your smartphone to monitor your pet’s eating habits. As with all smart gadgets, the smart bowl will eventually need recharging, but this is made simple thanks to a USB-C charging socket on the outside of the bowl.
Best programmable smart pet bowl
It might look like an astronaut has left their helmet lying around in your kitchen, but the Lesotc RFID Automatic Cat Feeder is actually a high-tech feline food management system. It works in conjunction with an RFID collar tag, only opening the door when the correct pet comes knocking at its doors. This stops your other household pets from stealing their food, ensuring they get a good meal while preventing other greedy pussy cats from overeating.
In addition to only letting the right kitty through the door, the Lesotc can also be set for specific meal times, helping you to further control your cat’s diet. You can even record a personalized meal call to trigger when it’s mealtime, training your kitty to expect food at certain times.
You can power the Lesotc RFID Automatic Cat Feeder using either the included 5V adapter Type-C cable or four AA batteries, depending on whether you have a suitable wall socket nearby or not. The Lesotc has 12 reviews across two listings, with positive reviews praising how well the RFID system works. Some customers have noted that the window for your cat to stick their head through can be a bit snug, and the device beeps loudly when the door opens and closes, which could be annoying.
Best large smart pet bowl
If you need a smart bowl but don’t want anything too smart, then this Eyenimal Smart Bowl should pique your interest. It’s a bowl, and it comes with a built-in set of scales to help you weigh out food portions. No fancy apps, no complicated settings to mess around with, just boom — get bowl, add food, weigh food, done.
OK, we lied. You can change the measurements between pounds, grams, ounces, fluid ounces and milliliters depending on your needs. It has a simple two-button interface and an easy-to-read LCD screen to show you the weighed food amounts.
There are two size options available: a 2.2 cup that’s ideal for cats and smaller dogs, and a 3.5 cup version that’s more suitable for large dog breeds. Beyond that, it’s powered using 2 AAA batteries, the underside of the bowl has a non-slip texture to stop it moving around as your pet is feeding, and the stainless steel bowl itself can be removed for easier washing.
Best smart pet bowl for water
And now for something completely different. While most smart bowls are designed to help you monitor your pets’ feeding habits, the Geeni PetConnect Smart Pet Water Fountain is all about making sure they have access to fresh water 24/7.
Many pets (especially cats) prefer to drink from flowing water sources instead of static water bowls, and this smart fountain provides that, while also giving you a bunch of tools to help control and monitor their drinking habits by setting timers and adjusting water flow. There are three different flow modes to choose from to suit your pet’s preferences. It’s also not just a fountain — the Geeni PetConnect includes a built-in water filter to make sure that the water stays fresh and clean even after being cycled for several days.
The whole thing can be controlled via a dedicated app, letting you control the flow times, including settings for intermittent flow. It will also give you real-time notifications on your smartphone when water refills, filter changes, or cleaning are required. You can even hook it up to Google Assistant and Alexa if you’re already using them for your smart home tech.
Best smart pet bowl for cold weather
Another smart bowl that sits outside the usual dietary management group, the Toozey Heated Water Bowl is designed for a simple but vital job — it keeps your pet’s water bowl from freezing over in cold environments.
The Toozey has two temperature settings — low and high — depending on how cold it gets where you live. Low is recommended for temperatures above 14℉ to avoid the water getting too hot, while the high power mode can be used in climates below 14℉ to stop the water bowl from freezing over even in very cold weather.
It has a 85 oz capacity and it’s mains powered, with a 6ft steel-wrapped charging cable to prevent damage (both from mother nature and naughty pets). While it can be used indoors, it’s obviously going to find the best use cases out in the yard, so you may need an extension cable to get it set up outside.
How to choose the best smart pet bowl
The best smart pet bowls should first and foremost meet all the requirements of any regular bowl that your pet would eat from. It needs to be large enough to hold an adequate amount of food for your pet, which will vary depending on their size, species, and breed. If you’re using a smart bowl for a cat, you should also aim to get a wide and shallow bowl for them to help avoid whisker fatigue.
When it comes to the actual smart features of the smart bowls, it depends on what problem you’re trying to help solve. If you want to manage your pet’s food portions for a specific diet, then a smart bowl with an integrated set of scales will do the job nicely. Our main recommendation here would be to aim for a smart bowl that has a removable section for the food – ideally made from stainless steel as it’s antibacterial and easy to clean.
If you’re trying to stop pets from stealing each other’s food, then an RFID/microchip smart bowl or feeder is the way to go. These handy gadgets use a clever scanner that matches up to a tag on your pet’s collar, meaning the feeding window will only open for the correct pet. This keeps greedy feline thieves and pilfering pooches out of food that doesn’t belong to them. The benefits to this are twofold – you make sure the intended pet gets all the nutrition they need, while also preventing the other pet from overeating.
We’ve also put some different types of smart bowl on our list that solve more niche, but still important issues. As long as you have a clear idea of the problem you’re trying to solve, there’s a very good chance that someone has made a high-tech pet gadget that can help you.
Regardless of what type of smart bowl you go for though, power is the last major concern. Smart gadgets need to be powered, and that means either batteries or a mains power connection. If a device uses the latter, be sure that you’ll be able to reach a plug socket from wherever you’re planning to put the bowl, or you’ll find your smart bowl is just a very expensive regular bowl with a plug hanging off it.
