// WIRED US/UK — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Birdbuddy vs. Birdfy: Which Budget Smart Feeder Should You Buy? (2026)
Hard to believe, but smart bird feeders have been around for six years.
The idea started with Birdbuddy (then styled Bird Buddy), which launched a Kickstarter campaign in November 2020 for the world’s first app-connected, AI-powered smart bird feeder. Birdfy followed in 2021 with its first camera-equipped feeder, and today the two companies remain the most popular brands in the smart bird-feeder space, with a sizable catalog of offerings, including smart bird baths and smart nesting boxes.
Thanks to two new releases from Birdfy and Birdbuddy, you can now get a premium smart bird feeder experience for under $100—something that just a year or two ago would have cost $200 or more.
I tested both Birdfy’s Rookie and Birdbuddy’s Nook in my backyard for four weeks each, noting annoyances, especially helpful features, and which features were available without a subscription.
While both have a significant number of pluses and minuses, Birdbuddy’s Nook, despite costing $20 more and failing to capture every visit, came out just slightly ahead due to its more premium hardware experience.
Released in October of last year, Birdfy’s Rookie was positioned as a smart feeder for beginners, with USB-C charging only, no solar (though you can buy a more expensive model that has it), and no complicated assembly process. It functions basically as a lightweight gravity pet feeder with a 1.3-liter seed capacity and a camera on the side—just snap the three main pieces together, charge the camera, and you’re good to go. It can only be pole- or wall-mounted, not hung.
While I loved the simplicity of the Rookie and appreciated that it uses the same excellent app as the pricier Birdfy feeders, the 1080p camera’s picture quality was noticeably lower than the Nook’s, and while it did capture every bird that visited, there were also plenty of false-alarm motion detections.
I also found some significant drawbacks to the design over my four-week test. First, though the feeder itself is IP66 rated for water resistance, there’s no overhang on the roof, which means water is going to get into the seed if it rains (as it did off and on throughout my testing period).
Second, the lid just sits loosely on the top, so it kept blowing off whenever there was a big gust of wind. And third, perhaps most frustratingly, because the camera is on the side, it didn’t do the greatest job capturing larger birds, though the camera lens stayed relatively clean, being farther away from the action, and small-bird shots were well framed. Birdfy advertises the battery charge as lasting seven weeks, but my test unit lasted less than two.
One big advantage the Rookie has, however, is its seed capacity. At 1.3 liters, it’s only slightly less voluminous than Birdfy’s popular original feeder, which packs 1.5 liters. (Though note that this still pales in comparison to Birdfy’s Bamboo feeder, a top pick in our guide to the Best Smart Bird Feeders, which holds 3.5 liters.)