I have 4 cats and 1 is so over weight. I needed to be able to have food out alot for the kitten but still watch my older fat cat. This cat feeder dispenses small amounts multiple times a day I love being able to choose how often it was dropping food. Also being able to ask Alexa to feed the cats was convenient. It does plug in or use batteries so if you don't have a plug in no worries. We've been using it for about 2 weeks now off batteries it doesn't seem to be slowing down. So flying through batteries doesn't seem like it'll be an issue. It is very large and holds lots of food.