# Cat Mate C500 Digital 5-Meal Feeder

- Source: https://stierproducts.com/products/cat-mate-c500-digital-5-meal-feeder
- Category board: https://stierproducts.com/categories/automatic-pet-feeders
- Placement: #5 of 17 in Automatic Pet Feeders, B tier
- Brand: Cat Mate
- LP on this board: 564
- Last researched: 2026-09-01T06:52:36.383Z
- Method: https://stierproducts.com/methodology
- Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22062813 - every board at once, one dated snapshot per release, same licence, prices and photographs left out
- Reuse: Text, rankings, tier assignments, LP values and verdicts are free to quote and reuse with attribution to stierproducts and a link to the source URL (CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Product photographs are not covered: they belong to their respective owners and are reproduced to illustrate the product being reviewed. Do not redistribute them under this licence.

## Verdict

Maximum simplicity equals maximum longevity. The default answer for scheduled wet food, limited only by coarse portions and an exposed first meal.

## For

- Battery-powered with nothing that phones home or needs firmware updates
- Twin ice packs keep wet food fresh
- Five rotating compartments with a simple digital timer
- Same basic mechanism sold and refined for years - essentially nothing to fail

## Against

- Coarse portion precision
- First meal sits exposed

## Evidence

Consolidated from 11 independent outlets

| Outlet | Said by | Stance | Link | Link status |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Business Insider | Janelle Leeson, Julie Liu, DVM | C | https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/pets/best-cat-feeder | fetched and confirmed |
| Reviewed | Sarah Zorn | B | https://www.reviewed.com/home-outdoors/best-right-now/the-best-automatic-pet-feeders | fetched and confirmed |
| Thesprucepets | thesprucepets.com | B | https://www.thesprucepets.com/best-automatic-cat-feeders-4175145 | fetched and confirmed |
| Facebook | Barb Fritsche | B | https://www.facebook.com/groups/971097242931192/posts/38156994183914697/ | fetched and confirmed |
| CurrentProductReviews | CurrentProductReviews | B | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whbm4zLtLVE | fetched and confirmed |
| Purrfect Picks | Purrfect Picks | B | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLtzsnEnTu8 | fetched and confirmed |
| Closer Pets | Closer Pets | B | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_cFEBficAQ | fetched and confirmed |
| Mommy Churvs | Mommy Churvs | B | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGsD9dhA2_4 | fetched and confirmed |
| DontPickit | DP_Pets | B | https://dontpickit.com/automatic-pet-feeder-guide/ | fetched and confirmed |
| SmartCatFeeding | SmartCatFeeding Team | C | https://www.smartcatfeeding.com/journal/cat-mate-automatic-feeder-review-c500-and-c200-expert-evaluation/ | fetched and confirmed |
| Reviews & Top Picks | catster.com | C | https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/best-automatic-cat-feeders-in-the-uk/ | fetched and confirmed |

## Nearest alternatives on this board

| Rank | Product | Tier | Page |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | PetSafe Healthy Pet Simply Feed | S | https://stierproducts.com/products/petsafe-healthy-pet-simply-feed |
| 2 | Whisker Feeder-Robot | A | https://stierproducts.com/products/whisker-feeder-robot |
| 3 | SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder Connect | A | https://stierproducts.com/products/surefeed-microchip-pet-feeder-connect |
| 4 | Petlibro Air Wi-Fi Automatic Feeder | B | https://stierproducts.com/products/petlibro-air-wi-fi-automatic-feeder |
| 6 | Petlibro Granary Camera Automatic Pet Feeder | B | https://stierproducts.com/products/petlibro-granary-camera-automatic-pet-feeder |
| 7 | PawSync Smart Pet Feeder | B | https://stierproducts.com/products/pawsync-smart-pet-feeder |
| 8 | Petlibro One RFID Smart Feeder | C | https://stierproducts.com/products/petlibro-one-rfid-smart-feeder |
| 9 | Petlibro Polar Wet Food Feeder | C | https://stierproducts.com/products/petlibro-polar-wet-food-feeder |
| 10 | PetSafe Eatwell 5-Meal Automatic Pet Feeder | C | https://stierproducts.com/products/petsafe-eatwell-5-meal-automatic-pet-feeder |
| 17 | Amazon Basics Automatic Pet Feeder | F | https://stierproducts.com/products/amazon-basics-automatic-pet-feeder |

The full board is at https://stierproducts.com/categories/automatic-pet-feeders.

## What this tier means

- B: Good. A solid choice with real caveats worth knowing.

## How to read this

- Each category is researched in four independent runs, one per lens (expert consensus, value, reliability, community pulse). Every run ranks a board of candidates that deliberately includes products buyers cross-shop but should avoid. Placements score on a ranked ladder (LP), and tiers are derived from LP, so no tier is ever assigned by hand.
- LP is this product's points on its own category ladder. It is comparable within a category and not across categories.
- Link status reports what our pre-publication link check found when it fetched the cited URL. It says nothing about the quality of the review.
- A citation with no usable link is listed rather than dropped, and is excluded from the counted total above.

## Image

https://stspimgdevmfyk46r5vwkay.blob.core.windows.net/images/products/cat-mate-c500-digital-5-meal-feeder.webp

Product photographs are not covered: they belong to their respective owners and are reproduced to illustrate the product being reviewed. Do not redistribute them under this licence.