HAiDannys AI Pet Feeder using Home Assistant & AI Vision
🐾 HAiDanny's AI-Powered Pet Feeder (Home Assistant Blueprint)I was so tired of constantly searching for a pet sitter every time I went away. I needed a way to guarantee my cat was actually getting fed, but I had a huge problem: standard "dumb" smart feeders just drop food blindly. Whenever I used one, the other animals wandering into my backyard would eat all the food!So, I spent the last few weeks building a massive Home Assistant Blueprint that uses LLM Vision (OpenAI/Gemini) to completely manage my pet's diet.(Bonus side-effect: My cat doesn't even wander the neighborhood anymore! He stays close to the yard and spends his time testing the automation, trying to figure out how to trick it into giving him more food 😹)This automation doesn't just drop food on a timer, it completely manages your pet's diet using AI vision!Here is what your feeder will now do automatically:🐾 AI Pet Verification: It doesn't just trigger blindly on motion. It uses AI vision to verify your actual pet is at the bowl, ignoring shadows, robot vacuums, or passing humans.💡 PRO TIP: The AI is only as smart as the instructions you give it. To make sure the feeder only triggers for your specific pet and doesn't hand out free meals to the neighbor's cat you need to write a highly descriptive prompt. Here is a great example: "Analyze this security camera footage. I am looking for a black cat. Look for silhouettes, glowing eyes (IR reflection), or a black shape on the floor/furniture. Ignore motionless objects. Respond ONLY with exactly one of these two strings: 'black_cat_detected: true' or 'black_cat_detected: false'"👀 Visual Bowl Confirmation (The Magic!): After dropping food, it takes a second photo and uses AI to visually verify that the kibble actually made it into the bowl.💡 PRO TIP: You have to provide a good input for the LLM to actually spot the feeder bowl. Our blueprint comes with a predefined input that you can customize based on your needs! 🚨 Smart Fail-Safe & Jam Alerts: If the automation triggers but the AI sees an empty bowl, it instantly sends a critical alert to your phone, complete with the picture. But here is the smartest part: it does not count the grams, and it does not reset the 2-hour feeding timer! Because the AI couldn't confirm the food, Home Assistant treats it as if the meal never happened. 🔌 Offline Failsafe: Never worry about a disconnected or unplugged feeder again. If the device loses power or Wi-Fi, the system instantly sends you an offline alert, and follows up with a "back online" notification the exact second it reconnects! ⏳ The 5-Minute "Smart Retry" Window: To prevent your feeder from spamming you with hundreds of alerts if it breaks, the automation locks itself for 5 minutes after running. If your pet begs during those 5 minutes, nothing happens. BUT, if your pet comes back after those 5 minutes, the AI realizes they still haven't eaten and will automatically try to feed them again! 🛑 Strict Diet Control (Fully Customizable): It tracks every single gram fed throughout the day. You can set your pet's exact daily limit right in the setup menu (it comes pre-filled at 104g as an example, but you can change it to whatever you need). If your pet hits that daily limit, the kitchen is safely closed until tomorrow! ⏱️ Customizable Anti-Double-Feeding: Did they just eat and are already begging for more? The automation remembers their last meal and will ignore them based on a cooldown timer you set (e.g., block feedings for 2 hours). 🌙 Nighttime Lockout: You set the exact "Start Time" and "End Time" for the automation. Once the end time hits, the feeder goes to sleep for the night so you (and your pet) aren't woken up by midnight snacks. ⚖️ Dynamic Morning/Evening Portions: Pets are usually hungriest right when they wake up and right before bed. You can customize the automation to drop a double portion during the early morning and late evening and stick to single portions during the day! 💡 Early Morning Lighting: If your pet is an early riser, the automation can briefly flick on a nearby light so the camera (and the AI) gets a perfect, clear view (optional step). ⏭️ "Skip-A-Meal" Memory: Did you give them a big treat? You can easily tell the system to skip the next scheduled meal without messing up your main code. 📱 Rich Photo Notifications: Every successful feeding sends a beautiful notification straight to your phone, complete with a photo of the bowl and a progress report of their daily grams. 🕵️♂️ Transparent AI Logging: Ever wonder why a smart home automation didn't trigger? You don't have to guess. The AI writes plain-English notes directly into your Home Assistant Activity feed (like "Pet not fed! Ate recently" or "False alarm. AI rejected image"), giving you complete visibility into its "brain." 📦 What’s Included in the DIY Starter Kit The Custom Blueprint: The heavily tested HAiDannys_AI_Pet_Feeder.yaml file to import directly into your Home Assistant. The Ultimate Setup Guide: A foolproof, step-by-step PDF manual. It holds your hand through creating the necessary helpers, setting up auto-cleanup scripts for your hard drive, configuring the AI prompts, and troubleshooting like a pro. 🛑 What You Need Before BuyingTo use this Blueprint, you must already have: A working Home Assistant hub. A Wi-Fi Smart Feeder and Pet Camera already integrated into your HA dashboard (smart bulb optional). An active AI Vision API Key (OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google) connected via the LLM Vision integration. (Don't have these set up yet? Check out my Pro Package below, where I will personally jump on a 1-on-1 call and we will do the integration together!)Do you have questions before buying the blueprint? Drop me an email: haidannyautomations@gmail.comReady to build the smartest pet feeder on the planet? Click "I want this!" to get started.
Get it → haidanny.gumroad.com