CleverPet 4+

The CleverPet has been a great way to keep our active, smart dog occupied while we’re away during the day. The hardware is great -- after a year, it has never jammed, and our dog has never broken into it or flipped it over (although she can push it around a bit on the floor).

The app, on the other hand, is kind of a mess. It has 3 purposes:
1. Teach you what to expect as your dog learns to use the device. It does a good job at this, with videos and text.
2. Allow you to see stats about your dog’s interactions with it. This functionality is pretty anemic, with the graphs not large enough to make out and not high-resolution enough (values are all daily) to do anything with.
3. A couple of key “reset” functions: tell the device you just put more food in it after it had run out, and move back to the previous stage if you want to decrease the difficulty for your dog. I kind of wish these had just been built into the hardware itself (especially the first one, because now I have to have my phone with me to feed my dog, and adding a sensor to tell when new food has been added seems relatively simple).

The app is structured around an activity feed that mixes all the concepts above into one stream of swipeable things, but now that I know how to use the device I kind of wish it was just two buttons and a graph, and the videos were hidden away somewhere else.

Like, actually depressed. She loves the CleverPet and remembers very well how to use it even though it hasn’t been functioning correctly for over a year because of network connectivity issues. She starts desperately trying buttons if I so much as touch the unit. As of April, app support person Vlad said there would be an update within only a “couple of weeks” to fix compatibility issues with newer OS systems and network connectivity. It’s nearly July. Doesn’t look like anything has changed. Huge outlay of money for a toy that has just sat next to her crate for over a year without being used.
And sad dogs are the SADDEST. 🥺
I hope the developers can actually update the app to keep it usable for those of us who have dogs who adore this thing. My pup and I would send you a thank you card. Because when it works - CleverPet is awesome. Please, guys?

I’ve had my hub for a few years now and let me tell you when something goes wrong and you need to get in contact with someone they don’t always respond in a timely manner. For about a week or more I’ve been running it offline. I have reached out a few times to the help team and have heard no response. The crazy thing is there are times when all it takes is the flip of a switch!!!! I know this bc one of the girls said “oh we just needed to flip a switch on our end!!!” 🤦🏻‍♂️ I’ve began to hate this food dispenser so much bc of how much it disconnects! I go out and come home to find my dog hungry bc it’s not connected or something.