A Raspberry Pi Pico W now monitors whether Jason's cats actually eat after the feeder dispenses food. Most automatic feeders stop at dispensing. This one doesn't.
The feeder adds two verification layers on top of standard timed dispensing: a weight sensor under the bowl tracks food consumption, and an ultrasonic sensor confirms a cat-shaped object is present at the dish simultaneously. Early builds had the ultrasonic sensor emitting noise within a cat's audible range, disrupting the feeding behavior it was meant to track. That issue is now resolved. The system logs data, communicates over Wi-Fi for remote monitoring, and is fully programmable in ways commercial units are not.
The full build video is worth watching specifically for the sensor calibration problem and how Jason worked around animal behavior throwing off automated detection. The wet food gap remains open: this rig handles dry food only, and solving the canned food equivalent requires a separate class of hardware entirely.
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