Review – Xiaomi Smart Pet Fountain

Owning a pet means you have to take care of the pet’s basic needs such as shelter, food and care. You’ll have to make sure to feed them on time and clean up their litter. I can totally relate to that as I own two cats at home. While cats are relatively easier to take care of compared to dogs, there are times when you’re tied up with other commitments. Which is why I got an automatic food dispenser in the first place. Despite so, I’m clearly missing out on one of the most important feeding aspects – the drinking water.

In case you don’t know, cats are extremely peculiar with their drinking water. One of my cats would often flip the water bowl and drink from the floor, while the other cat completely ignore the bowl and drink directly from the kitchen sink instead. Turns out cats just prefer to drink from water that seems to be “moving and fresh”.

When Xiaomi reached out and ask if we were interested to try out their Smart Pet Fountain, I agreed immediately, hoping to find out how useful this product is, especially at the price tag of RM279.

Xiaomi Smart Pet Fountain

The logic behind this product is straightforward. The pump would circulate the water to simulate moving water hence enticing the cats to drink from it. Besides, the circulating water traps cat hair and dirt at the filter to keep the water surface clean.

What you get in the box:

• Xiaomi Smart Pet Fountain
• Power cord
• Filters
• User Manual

The included filters are required to prevent dirt and cat hair from clogging up the pump.

The overall construction is pretty interesting, the top part of the bowl is connected to the water pump which is powered via the pogo pins connection. Lifting the top bowl will cut off the electricity. It uses a 5V low-voltage pump that is quiet and power efficient.

The 2-litre water container is a separated section from the bottom chassis for easy cleaning and refill. Based on Xiaomi’s test scenario, a 5kg adult cat would drink 200ml water per day. Without factoring in evaporation, 2-litre should last 5 days for my two adult cats. In reality, it lasts longer than I expected, about 7 days.

The gentle waterflow minimizes the noise so you don’t have to worry about the annoying water dripping sound. There’s a single button at the front, single pressing the button will switch between Standard Mode and Smart Mode. Standard mode being non-stop continuous water flow while Smart Mode has a timer to run the pump for 10 minutes and pause for 10 minutes. During night time, it will run for 10 minutes and pause for 50 minutes.

Once turning on the water fountain, we immediately launch the Xiaomi Mijia smart home app and pair it to my account. The features are very simple, basically just starting or stopping the water supply and switching between Standard or Smart mode.

The Smart Mode, or should I say, Timer mode, is hard coded to the device. There’s no way for the user to edit the timer such as the intermittent pause time. We don’t even get to edit when night time starts.

One useful feature you do get from the app is the notification of the water level. So I guess it is still worth installing the app, just in case.

So far I have only encountered one issue with the water fountain and it has something to do with the potential short-circuiting of the pump. If you fill the water to the maximum line, make sure the water does not overflow to the pogo pin connection or else the pump will not work until the connection fully dries out.

Conclusion

After setting up the Xiaomi Smart Pet Fountain for a month, my cats have gotten used to it. Now I no longer have to clean the mess they left behind for flipping over the water bowl. Sure, RM279 is a steep price to pay for a water bowl but I can leave the home for a few days without worrying about their food and water. Now I’m just hoping they could release an update to allow us to customise the pump timer.