Surefeed monitoring in Home Assistant

In this post, I would like to show you how I monitor the Surefeed* food bowl in Home Assistant.

Surefeed* food bowls can read the chips implanted in pets and open automatically so that only the right pet can access the food.

This can make sense if a pet is fed special food or, as in my case, one of the two cats eats both cats’ food.

This worked well for a while, until the greedy tomcat realised that if he was quick enough, he could get to the food bowl before it closed. He blocks the flap from closing with his head and can eat in peace.

To prevent this from happening in future, I bought an Aqara vibration sensor*. In addition to vibration, this sensor can also measure the angle of inclination.

I stuck it onto the flap of the Surefeed*. If the angle of inclination is 0°, the flap is closed. At approx. 90°, the flap is open. However, if the angle is somewhere in between, the flap is only half closed and I can use Home Assistant to notify me that my greedy cat is stealing food.

I also sent this automation to the Spiel und Zeug YouTube channel. You can watch the video here, starting at minute 12:18.

Here is my code for automation:

alias: "Notify: Cat stealing"
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: numeric_state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.vs_livingroom_angle_y
    above: 20
    below: 70
condition: []
action:
  - service: notify.mobile_app_sm_s911b
    metadata: {}
    data:
      message: "The Cat is stealing food again!"
mode: single

What do you think of this type of integration? Feel free to write your opinion in the comments. Get ready for more automations.