The dog Max (voiced by Louis C.K.) misses his owner when left at home. (Photo : YouTube / Illumination)
Petnet has recently announced that their third-party servers that were rented had problems which led to their smart pet-feeding devices unable to feed customers' dogs and cats.
The Petnet pet-feeding device is one example of an Internet of Things (IoT) product that relies on Internet connectivity. It allows users to set a feeding schedule for their pets so that they will still be able to eat even with the absence of their owners.
However, the recent server problem prevented the devices from working properly. Some pets were left unfed due to the problems and it has angered some of the customers who are supposed to be enjoying their vacations.
Petnet said that the problem has now been fixed and their servers are up and running again but has told their customers earlier that they should feed their pets manually when the servers were still down, BBC News has learned. Remote feedings and the feeding schedules were affected by the server downtime.
Petnet told customers earlier: "We are experiencing some difficulties with one of our third-party services. This is currently being investigated, and we will provide you with more information as we receive it from our partners. Please ensure that your pets have been fed manually until we have resolved this issue."
The third-party servers were apparently being rented by Petnet from Google, The Guardian reported. Petnet said that there were no redundancy backups and that it was down for 10 hours.
Google or Petnet did not disclose the exact nature of the server problem. Petnet CEO Carlos Herrera claimed that around 10 percent of their customers were affected by the downtime of the servers.
The good news is that the Petnet devices still reverted back to the previously set schedules by their owners which could still mean that pets were still fed but probably at either an earlier or later time than the currently set time. Petnet users can change the feeding schedule of the smart IoT device through a smartphone app.
Petnet smart feeding device costs $150 and connects to the Internet so that the users can remotely control or set the feeding times. It becomes handy for when users are out of the house so that their pet dogs and cats will not go hungry.
