Review: Sure Petcare Felaqua Connect

We all need to drink more water. For humans, there are apps and even smart water bottles to keep us on track. For our pets, it isn't as easy. We can encourage them to drink more by keeping water fresh and away from food and litter, but if we aren't watching their every move it's hard to be sure they're drinking enough. And forget trying to answer a vet asking how often they drink.

I've been testing Sure Petcare's app-supported Felaqua Connect water bowl for nearly a month, and it has kept me better informed without annoying my two cats more than I usually do. It tracks which pet drank from it and how many ounces were consumed. Small dogs can use the Felaqua too, but it's made for cats as they tend to not feel as thirsty as dogs, which could lead to real problems real fast. We feel dehydration, but your kitty friend might not.

Photograph: Sure Petcare

For the Sure Petcare app (iOS, Google Play) to accurately track which cat is drinking in a multi-pet household, your pets need to be microchipped or you'll need to attach an RFID tag to their collar. Microchipping is standard among veterinarians, and it can help get your pet back to you if they're lost. Without a chip or tag, the Felaqua will still deliver notifications on how much your cats are drinking, you just won't know which cat is lapping up. 

The downside is you have to set up the hub to use the app—it plugs into your router and lets you access notifications and controls from anywhere in the world. I prefer smart home gadgets that don't need a hub, but this one is small and cute with its light-up cat ears. (You can dim them or turn them off in the app.) If you get other products from Sure Petcare, like its feeder or door flap, you won't need to add any more hubs. 

Once I set up the hub and connected the water bowl, adding each cat was easy. The app walks you through getting them close enough to the bowl so it can scan their chips. Just assign their name to their respective microchip number.

Courtesy of Sure Petcare

The rest of the app is straightforward and informative. The homepage shows quick info on each pet, like when they last drank. Clicking on your pet's profile opens up more individual information, like how many ounces of water they drank that day and what their daily average is (how many drinks per day and average time spent at the bowl). It also gives you a picture graph of how much water is remaining in the reservoir. You can scroll back a few days, or open a calendar graph. If you also have Sure Petcare's feeder, you can toggle between the two stats on the pet profiles.

I opted to get push notifications that alerted me when each cat drank, and it told me just how much at a quick glance. Arguably the best feature is that the notification tone is a cat's meow. (I'm easily impressed.) It reminds you to refill the reservoir with fresh water every few days, even before it empties. Cats are very picky about how long their water has been sitting, so it's good to be nudged. 

It automatically recognizes when you remove and refill the reservoir. However, sometimes when I removed the reservoir, it'd simultaneously send a notification asking me to replace the water, which I was just about to do. Cool your jets, Felaqua. 

Photograph: Sure Petcare

The Felaqua uses a shallow, wide bowl, which the company says prevents whisker fatigue (preventing over-stimulation of the whiskers). The water comes out like a puddle, which Sure Petcare says is easier for cats to see (and easier to drink from) than a deep bowl of water. The attached reservoir holds one liter and automatically refills the bowl as kitty drinks. 

It's easy to clean since the bowl comes right out, and there are no pumps or any reason to connect it to an outlet. I've tried a few water fountains that all have to be plugged in, and while it's not usually a big deal, it does mean you're limited in where you can place them. It can also be a little scary having a plug dangling from the device when you're trying to clean it. That said, the Felaqua takes four LR14 C batteries that aren't included, which seems silly considering the price. The batteries go in the base, which doesn't need to be cleaned, but you'll be happy to know the reservoir and bowl are dishwasher safe. 

I like how the Felaqua looks and how lightweight it is, but I wish it was made of metal instead of so much plastic. I wouldn't have minded just a metal bowl either. Plastic harbors bacteria and could potentially cause cat acne, something one of my cats already struggles with despite not using plastic before this. I'm also worried that harsh sponges or cat claws will eventually create knicks, too.

Huxley loves the moving water of his current fountain, which this does not feature, but when I took it away (and kept the regular bowl in the other room), he used the Felaqua without protest. Keep that in mind if you have cats who only drink out of a fountain or prefer running water from the sink.

I always have two separate water bowls out—usually a fountain and a regular bowl. For testing, I removed the fountain. As you'll see in the screenshots attached above, my information isn't fully accurate since they're still drinking from the other bowl too, and I didn't want to completely disrupt their routine (and potentially cause them to drink less). I would definitely need another Felaqua eventually to properly track their habits, and I think any multi-cat homes (or multistory homes), would too. But the $115 price (without the hub) is hard to stomach.

The point of something like this, and the Leo's Loo Too litter box I recently reviewed, is not just to know they're drinking but to be familiar with their routine so you can notice when their behavior changes and quickly get them to the vet before something serious happens. There's nothing I wouldn't do to make sure my cats are safe, happy, and healthy. The Felaqua isn't perfect, but cat parents would benefit from owning it.