Bought two of these units for our two former feral cats who are still skittish when encountering unusual noises and unfamilar objects. May not have been necessary but I took my time to gradually introduce them to the feeders, bowls and associated noise.Set up both feeders with small scoop option (nice feature) and placed them on the floor, side by side. Cats, being cats, carefully checked them out. The first few times I lightly placed (lightly dropping) kibble in the bowls; when the cats were comfortable woth the noise and eating from the bowls, I then moved on to manually trigger the feeders so the cats would become accustomed to the noise of the pellets being released (gentle motor whine and kibble hitting the plastic dish) while I was in the room. They were concerned initially with the noise (quieter feline version of coins dropping from a slot machine but their payout was in edible bits.) Once they were comfortable with one mechanical feeding a day, they were settled down enough to eat from the attached bowls without constantly looking around. Now they are somewhat attuned to feeding times and often wait in the room for the units to disperse their kibble.Both cats are enthusiastic eaters but the larger one uses his size to take over what he feels is unclaimed food. It was necessary to synchronize the distribution time and portions so both cats would be fed. Next time I’ll save time by using the power strip method mentioned by another owner; however, I was able to sync them close enough that feeding times are not battles with one winner and one loser. The mechanical mechanisms have worked fine so far. Portions are fairly consistent since both units are set the same setting. Nice to have up to 4 feedings a day and control over the portion sizes per feeding. After checking portion quantity often, I now feel confident that both cats receive the desired quantity per day.Initially, I thought the voice recording would not be necessary since the descending pellets are noisy. I’ve set up the voice recording on one of the units only. It’s a short message which repeats 3 times. This feature has been a useful alert and use it daily.The units are powered by USB cords. We’ve experienced one power outage since the units were set up. Back up batteries were installed; the units were not affected in the least. Again - nice feature.Being able to see the quantity of kibble in the container is a plus. The clear top is secure from opening by pet paws but convenient and handy with fingers.Neither cat has knocked over a unit but have turned them slightly in search of one or two pieces of kibble that bounced out of the bowl. Easy to realign when needed however.Our cats are comfortable with these units. We are very happy with them. Two months in use, they fit our needs now and envision they will continue to do so, hopefully for some time.A few surprises:The directions to replace the large size food rotator with the small size was confusing. Once I figured out one does not need to take the whole unit apart to replace this piece, it all made sense. Replacement in our second unit was quick.Seemed odd to use a 24 hour clock to set feeding times. It works but odd.Would be nice to be able to control the number of times the voice recording is activated. Ours repeats 3 times, more than necessary.