The daily plan
Make the portions and schedule work with your food
Treat a feeder's portion setting as a machine instruction, not your cat's dietary allowance. First establish the food quantity your cat should receive, then measure what the exact feeder releases with that food. Program the schedule only after those two quantities agree in a repeatable way.
Keep four numbers separate
A product page may mention meals per day, portions per meal, compartment capacity and hopper volume. Each answers a different question. Meals per day describes scheduling. Portions per meal describes release settings. A compartment is a container you load. Hopper volume is bulk storage, not an estimate of how long your cat can be left without care.
None of these figures, by itself, is a gram weight or a calorie allowance. Two foods can occupy a similar volume and have different weights and energy densities. Even a maker's approximate grams-per-portion figure should be checked against the exact food you will use.
Measure the feeder before relying on the number
Read the exact manual's compatible food limits and initial setup instructions. With the cat unable to reach the test bowl, place a clean bowl on a suitable scale and zero it. Use the documented manual-dispense function to collect a release at a chosen setting. Record the food, setting and measured amount.
Repeat enough supervised releases to see whether the amount is consistent for your purpose. Check the instructions for priming a newly filled mechanism and keep the hopper within its documented loading limits. If output is inconsistent or pieces jam, investigate that problem before compensating by adding extra scheduled releases.
As a purely mathematical example, if a particular setting repeatedly releases 8 grams of your food, two releases would be approximately 16 grams. That is not a recommendation to feed 16 grams. It illustrates how a measured machine output can be translated into a schedule after an appropriate daily allowance has been established.
Build the daily total outside the app
Include food offered by hand, wet meals, treats and anything served by another household member. Otherwise, the app's total may describe only part of what the cat receives. If someone adds an extra remote meal, record it rather than letting it disappear into the routine.
Use the food's feeding information and your veterinarian's advice for the individual animal; do not derive a diet from a hopper's capacity. The CDC recommends veterinary advice for a safe, appropriate diet. Age, health and special feeding needs are reasons to settle that plan separately from shopping for controls.
Count future releases, not visible compartments
In a rotating tray, an initial compartment may already be open. The C500 maker page distinguishes four programmed mealtimes from an initial meal compartment. A “five-meal” name therefore does not mean five additional openings after you load it.
Write out a simple timeline with the initial meal, each future opening and the next refill. Check whether the timer repeats clock times, uses a delay or supports a date-specific plan. Those differences become important when loading a tray in the afternoon for meals on the following day. The C500 review works through that exact tray configuration.
Test the real timetable
Run the intended plan while you are home. Confirm the clock, time zone, release quantity and which tray compartment becomes accessible. Watch whether the cat can reach the food, eats from the intended bowl and accepts the mechanism's movement. Recheck after a reset, clock change or food change.
For multiple cats, measuring the combined release is only the beginning: it does not identify who ate it. Use the two-cat guide if portions need to remain separate. Once the food, measured output and real timetable are clear, the finder can help match the required scheduling and control features.