Customer Ratings & Reviews

PROS: + High-resolution 2k video and images look great in wide or normal aspect ratios, with good sound quality for videos + System does a good job of correctly identifying birds and providing interesting information about them + Software has worked great for me, with no connection issues or dropouts, and plenty of nice features for amateur bird watchers + Bird Buddy app is excellent, with a great design and easy to use/navigate + Solar panels seem to do a good job of augmenting the need to remove the camera to charge as frequently + Social features are great, being able to share your postcards and livestream as well as view others who are sharing + Sizeable bird seed capacity once loaded and long battery life for the camera + Multiple mounting options CONS: - Quality of the feeder itself (apart from the camera) feels pretty cheap, with all hard plastics and plastic clips. Would worry about durability if a squirrel or large animal got to it, or in a heavy storm - Food reloading can be awkward to annoying, depending how/where you mount the feeder - Premium subscription AI features can be nice but currently feel undercooked today SO-SO: * There is an optional “premium” subscription which locks some nice to have features behind a paywall (higher bitrate photos/video, AI insights, bird naming etc.) which are nice but not essential in my opinion * Loading/removing camera and connecting to solar roof can be a bit awkward, especially with seed already in the feeder * This is a camera, so you need to be careful where you mount it (which the app/instructions do tell you about). You don’t want it pointing at your house/other people’s properties where it can pick up people/identifiable information in images. Individual care needs to be taken for data privacy THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT As someone who has gotten into amateur bird watching in the last couple of years, and who is also a tech nerd, the Bird Buddy Pro is right up my alley. Starting with the unboxing, most of the packaging is compostable or recyclable, which is a nice touch out of the gate compared to the plastic heavy packaging I am used to with other products. In the box you get a quickstart guide which takes you through set-up, a seed scooper for refills, mounting materials, the feeder housing, and the camera. Set-up (outside of the time it takes to charge the camera out of the box), is very quick, with the majority of the time being spent creating an account in the app, pairing the camera with your phone and then mounting the feeder (or hanging it with the included hanger on a pole). The camera itself is small, with minimal interactivity on the camera itself aside from a power button and status light. The feeder housing is not too big, about the size of a small bird house, but is made entirely of hard plastics, which feels pretty cheap. In most cases this isn’t an issue, but if a squirrel or racoon was to try and rip the feeder down, I could see it being damaged quite easily, as even the hinges are plastic. Even trying to remove the solar roof to flip it around (since it is reversible), felt like I was going to snap the plastic clasps which hold the roof on. I just wish it felt a bit more durable of a feeder. Thankfully, the camera itself is quite nice, and is clearly where the majority of the cost goes. It features a 2K max resolution, which does look really good in video and screenshots (see some attached to this review). If you want to save battery or bandwidth, you can adjust the resolution lower as well. You can also capture slow motion videos if you prefer as well. The camera attaches to the feeder housing using a magnet on the back, which holds the camera vertically in-place nicely. To fill the feeder, you use a small opening on the upper back of the feeder, which is also how you get to the USB cable that connects from the roof to the top of the camera through the housing. It’s a pretty tight space, and because the opening is on the back and not the top, you have to tilt the feeder forward to fill it properly with the included scoop, which isn’t shaped well for loading the feeder. Depending how you have it mounted, or if you already have seed in the feeder, this can get awkward as seed may fall out or you may have to take it off the mount to load. It wasn’t a huge deal in my case, since I have it hung with the included metal hanger on a pole, but if I decided to mount it, I could see it being annoying to refill. One other important note about mounting the feeder is that you need to be careful where you hang it so you are not pointing the camera at your own house or other people/properties. The app makes it clear this is not a security camera, and so you need to be careful about picking up other people’s information in the background, which could limit where you place the feeder. Most of our feeder’s are in our front yard, but we put this one in the backyard because of this reason, to ensure better data privacy, especially if you are planning to share your livestream or photos with the community. In terms of the software, largely everything is great. The app is really friendly and easy to navigate. It does a great job at what it sets out to do, classifying birds, giving you facts about them, taking great photos and videos, letting you save them, share them, share your feeder stream with friends/family, and more. You can share your postcards (collections of videos/photos) with others easily without them needing to download the app, which is great. If you have multiple feeders or people with feeders, you can get a family premium subscription so you can get additional benefits as well. Firmware updates are easy, although it prefers you take the camera out of the housing so you can plug it in to do them. The premium subscription (monthly or annually) gets you things like unlimited cloud storage, higher bitrate images/videos, an AI chat feature which lets you ask pre-selected questions of the AI about the bird(s) in the image, you can name your repeat visitor birds, you can view more bird feeders from around the world, get some discounts, and get access to beta software. All-in-all, the premium subscription is nice to have if you use the app a lot and get a lot of different kinds of birds, but it isn’t essential to get the most out of the product, at least not yet for me. My favorite feature is being able to name the birds and have the AI identify them when they come back, but at least so far, this has only worked with middling success. It says it will get better with additional photos labeled, so we will see, but I often have to label the photos myself, at least to start. The AI chat feature is also nice, but only lets you enter pre-selected questions, so it can only be so useful once you use them on a specific bird, although an open-ended chat feature is coming it says. But even without these features, the feeder images/video is great, and it will still tell you a lot about the birds, which is nice. All-in-all, I really like the Bird Buddy with the Pro Camera. I wish the feeder itself felt a bit sturdier/durable, but at least so far after about a week I haven’t had any issues with its quality, so maybe I am overly cautious. The camera is excellent, the software is very well designed, the included features are great and the premium features, while maybe not enough to justify their cost today, are nice to haves for avid birdwatchers, especially if they continue to be built out. You don’t have to deal with ads for example even with the free version, which is amazing. All-in-all, I think this is a great product that is on the verge of being almost perfect with some minor design and quality tweaks. I really have very little to complain about in my usage, and I am excited to look at their other products for future bird feeder additions!

📦 UNBOXING: Inside the box, you’ll find the basics of what you need to get started—the camera, the bird feeder house with a pre-installed detachable solar roof, a metal hanger, a universal pole mount with screws, a seed scoop, and 1x USB-C to USB-C charging cable. In addition, you’ll have the documentation for getting started either using the pole mount, or with the metal hanger. 🛠️ SETUP: Setup is very easy, and if you’re a beginner like myself, you should know that the pole mount needs a pole a 1” diameter. I went to my local Wild Birds Unlimited store to acquire their Advanced Pole System mount along with a separate adapter to connect to the Bird Buddy’s pole mount. Prior to setting up the Bird Buddy, you should charge the camera unit via USB-C for around 2 hours or until the Blue light begins blinking. Once it begins blinking, that is a sign that it is ready to begin pairing. For me, it was pretty quick to begin blinking after putting it on the charger. I installed the Bird Buddy app, went through the setup process (which requires a Bird Buddy account), and set up the camera over a 2.4GHz only Wi-Fi connection. Another thing to note is that you will want to make sure your wireless router is placed closer to your Bird Buddy so that the wireless signal is sufficient, otherwise you may encounter issues with connectivity. I then installed the pole mount to the bottom of the feeder using the 4 included screws, then installed the camera unit. The camera magnetically attaches to the feeder, and then through the back of the feeder I attached the solar roof to the camera unit via USB-C. Afterward, I used the bird seed scoop to fill the back of the unit with bird feed. 💪 BUILD: The feeder itself is made of a durable plastic, while the camera unit has a 5MP sensor. The solar unit is placed on the right side of the house, so you’ll want to Bird Buddy is designed to be weatherproof, so should be able to withstand both heat, rain and colder temperatures. But in more extreme weather circumstances, the app can also send you a push-notification so that you can bring it indoors. 📹 IMAGE QUALITY: Image quality on the Bird Buddy is excellent, and should perform its best when your Wi-Fi signal is good. It’s important not to place the camera in direct sight of sunlight so that your image isn’t washed out. It should also be noted that you can opt for the following resolutions: • 720x960p30 video (720p) with 5MP photo capture. • 1080x1440@30fps video (1080p) with 5MP photo capture. • 1536x2048@30fps video (2K) with 5MP photo capture. • 1536x2048@30fps video (2K ULTRA) at higher bitrate with 5MP photo capture. • 960x1280@90fps slowmo (960p) with 960p photo capture. In my testing using the 2K mode, I noticed that photos I took in-app during a livestream were output in the same resolution as the video, which is 3MP. So I can only assume that the 5MP (1944x2592) photo capture is reserved for the postcards feature where the camera takes pictures of the birds for you when a visitor arrives. The 2K ULTRA mode is also a premium-only feature, so you’ll need to subscribe to a plan to receive the best quality footage. Under ideal conditions, image quality is sharp, colors are vibrant, and there aren’t any aberrations or artifacts while watching the stream or in the photos captured during a stream. The Bird Buddy does not have a strategy for nocturnal activity since it lacks night vision. It disables automatic capture during night time to save on battery for daylight capture. And since it asks you for your location during setup, it should know the times for sunrise and sunset to better identify windows of opportunity. 💿 SOFTWARE: The app itself is pleasant to use, and lets you view your feeder’s livestream as well as view captures of birds from other Bird Buddy users who choose to share their footage. You can also subscribe to some curated feeders to view their visitors, but many feeders are premium only, which is a bit unfortunate. You can learn about different bird species and even use an AI chatbot to ask follow-up questions about the species of bird. But asking questions is a premium feature, and free users get 1 token to use towards the AI chatbot per 24 hours. You can also save a collection of videos and photos from your own feeder or other feeders to build up a collection of species and share moments with guests and your family—should you opt to subscribe to a family plan. When you save to your collection, you can learn more about the species and also see more videos and photos of the species from feeders that you have saved from. You can download photos and videos to your phone, share a link to others, report sick or injured birds, or report incorrectly identified species. 🛜 SIGNAL: One issue I encountered in my testing was wireless signal reliability. I have a Netgear Orbi 970 mesh WiFi 7 router which is a pretty powerful system in terms of signal strength for 2.4GHz devices, and my Bird Buddy is less than 20 ft away from a node with only a window in between. and while my setup went smoothly, it eventually stopped letting me connect to the livestream. When I did a bit more diagnosis, it was clear to me that the Bird Buddy was connecting to a node that was much further away. After disabling that node, it eventually connected to a better node (still not the closest node), but eventually this failed, too. In my limited experience, the Bird Buddy is perhaps less reliable with mesh networks and prefers simpler network configurations with a single access point. There are other older IoT camera devices in and outside of my home that rely on 2.4GHz and have not exhibited these issues, so I hope that the folks at Bird Buddy work to iron out some of these nuances. One suggestion to Bird Buddy is that they show SSIDs with MAC addresses so that users with mesh networks can select a specific node, or they would need to update their firmware to improve node priority for mesh networks. 🔋 BATTERY: By itself, the Bird Buddy camera should last 10-30 days, but thanks to the solar roof, this is theoretically indefinite. I’ve been looking at the battery status on a daily basis, and it’s generally been over 90% charged. This will obviously vary depending on your Bird Buddy’s activity, weather and positioning, but I think it’s fair to say that as long as you have good placement of the solar roof for best access to sunlight, you won’t need to worry about the battery dying. 🧐 CONCLUSION: The Bird Buddy won’t guarantee that you’ll have bird visitors at your feeder, and it might not be optimal for certain home networking environments. But when it does work, it’s clear that the Bird Buddy is a labor of love by the team that’s working on making it a good experience. If you have a simpler home networking configuration and can place your Bird Buddy near the router, it can make for a more fun bird feeder experience. But with some features behind their premium plan and some networking issues, it’s hard to give it a firm recommendation right now.

I’ve been eyeballing these bird buddy feeders from a distance for a while and it seems like this new solar model really hits the sweet spot. I didn’t want another gadget that was going to be a hassle, but I also didn’t want one of these things if it had inferior video or an expensive subscription requirement. This guy ticks all those boxes. You don’t even have to charge it! We’ve had ours for well over a week now and with the solar feature my battery is currently showing 92% - and that’s in a backyard where there are several tall trees (not to mention a house) that prevent the feeder from getting an entire day’s worth of maximum exposure to the sun. So that’s a huge win, in my book. I’m really curious to see how well the battery holds up over time, and also just curious to see how things go in the coming fall when the days start getting shorter. But right out of the gate I’m incredibly glad I have the solar version if for no other reason than the battery life is something I just have not had to think about at all thus far. Of course, all that’s secondary to the software side of things. A great battery is only worthwhile if you’re getting good images and video of birds at your feeder. And I’m also very happy to say the quality has been pretty on point in that regard. I think I could improve things a tad by finding a different spot for my feeder; the app does tell you to avoid pointing it in directions where you’re going to get a really bright background and that seems like solid advice. Depending on the time of day the background can be fairly blown out in some of the videos. Since we have bears in the area where I live, I don’t just want to put this feeder anywhere though so it may be a compromise I have to live with; more importantly, the foreground imagery is stellar and that’s where you’re really going to see bird activity anyway. Videos look good and you can do 2k for free. I suspect 1080p is going to be completely suitable for almost anyone using this though and primarily rewatching the videos on their phone or tablet. It’s using some HDR algorithm so colors pop but don’t look too unnatural to my eyes. All in all, I’m again quite happy here. It’s certainly a cut above the two other trail cams I own. Also, it’s super straightforward to install, there are no SD cards to mess with, and if anything I’m finding it’s sensors are actually stronger than I need them to be. Sometimes videos will continue to record well after a bird has left, presumably because as the bird left their motion caused the feeder to rock back and forth a bit. It’s not a big deal and I think it’s something I can adjust in the app settings. Speaking of the app, I think there’s a lot of promise here. I love the look and general design of it. And it definitely has a lot of functionality. I will say I found it a tad confusing at first and it wasn’t real clear to me that any captured videos or photos from a single bird visit will eventually show up on the home tab not unlike cards on an Instagram feed. It’s a pretty clever layout - I just had no clue that’s how it worked at first. I was seeing birds from feeds around the world. (Which also exist in a separate tab called BB TV - which is kinda awesome! It’s just bird TV, ha.) It’s real easy to save your videos and pics, but I kind of wish it just automatically added everything to the “collection” tabs in some organized (by day?) way that I could then later go through and keep what I want. That may be a personal preference thing though, so YMMV. All in all, it’s a solid app and they keep making updates so I expect good things. The livestream lags a bit just in relation to the actual event. I can look outside my window and see a bird and not get an alert about it until well after the bird is gone. So, I think maybe the livestream really should be considered just that - only use it when you want to pop in and check on your feeder. If you try to hop to it every time you get an alert you may be disappointed to find the live view is then empty by the time it connects. (I should say, I have good WiFi and the feeder is pretty close to my house. I’d do some real research if you intend to put the feeder more than fifteen yards away from your home WiFi.) But software is also where I will ding the Bird Buddy a tad. My biggest complaint? I found it darn near impossible to find clear, simple pricing on their website about their subscription plans. The onboarding in the app made it seem like I really HAD to have a subscription to use the app, and that is not the case. Just accept the trial (not even sure you can opt out) and then cancel before the week runs out. If memory serves, it is specifically a trial for the family plan - which allows you to let other users log in and livestream. Without this plan though, you can still do all the basics I mentioned above. I think all you’re really missing out on is some sort of 2K ultra video quality and the ability to give birds that repeatedly visit your feeder a name. That seems fun, but not vital. The species identifying feature is pretty cool, but not perfect so I’m hoping to see this improve over time. But mainly I just don’t think a company - especially one with an eye towards conservation and helping animals - should be anything less than up front about the pricing of its subscription plans. Bird Buddy: you need a “pricing” tab on your website! Just put it right at the top. That would go a long way to complete the otherwise very good presentation of this product, from the packaging, to the app, and to the feeder itself. Cool feeder and really looking forward to having it over the summer. We’ve had birds (and squirrels; buy spicy seed!) flock to it from within hours after hanging it and they haven’t stopped since. Hope it will continue to get use for years to come.

Wife and I love animals! We have a bird feeder in the backyard but it’s kind of far away from the house. We had to do binoculars to really see them up close…UNTIL NOW! Bird buddy brings a 5MP pics and 2K HDR video to bird watching from the comfort of my cell phone. Got it out of the box and it feels well built. It comes with a pole mount, fill cup to put the seed in the back of the bird buddy and a metal hook, a quick start guide, some documentation and stickers. The camera needs to be charged prior to usage so I got that going. I plugged it in and did not see any lights light up on the camera. I guess it charged because it worked later when I got it set up. I would have liked a light to let me know. Next was setting it up outside. I initially was going to use the metal hook to put it on a limb of a tree until I could figure out a more permanent placement but as I tried to put the hook into place on the top of the bird feeder…I noticed that the rear hole where the metal wire was to go was already occupied by the charging cable from the solar panel to the video camera (see pic). I looked at the instructions a couple of times but could not make the hook work out. It seems the metal hook is too small? Or the power cable was in the wrong place…regardless, I could not figure it out. To be fair…maybe I just was not seeing it right? So I went to the local bird store and bought a good poll system mount. Pole mounting is really the better way to go anyway. With the camera feature, I want a stable platform to record the birds anyway. The poll and mount worked great. I would have liked the mount to be metal instead of plastic but the plastic works ok. So I got the mount, charged battery (I guessed) and placed the camera into the housing. It was tricky to get the solar panel usb plug to plug into the camera. The angles are difficult but do-able. Next was to load the feeder. The opening is small and they do provide the feeder loading cup which you will for sure need do to the small opening. The app is nice and easy to get going with. They also have a bird channel where you can see other people birds from their feeders which is nice. The app is rated a 4.8 with 43K reviews and I found it to be a good app as well. AI will help ID the birds which is cool. Some other considerations are to be sure to mount it where it will get sun and you have good wi-fi. I like the idea of the solar panel to charge. I have that for my security cameras and it is really nice! The last step …Bird watch!!! The camera quality is really good! Overall 4 out of 5 stars. The concept is fun and the video and pic quality is really good but the design and functionality of reloading the food and a hanging option was a little frustrating. You also have to remove the camera to do system updates which will be a pain. BUT…. If you love birds and really want a front row seat, you can’t go wrong despite the noted frustrations above.

I have always loved watching the birds at my feeder but they tend to be rather small. I also like to take pictures of the birds but doing so means a lot of waiting. I came across Bird Buddy that combines the two and decided to give it a try. Overall it hits the mark fairly well. I get some decent pictures along with cool video of the birds coming to the feeder and I don't need to sit and wait for them to come. This version comes with the solar roof and I feel its almost a must for convenience. It does need some sun to keep it charged. Gray skies seem a bit iffy. The setup of the house and camera charging take about 3 hours with most of that being the initial full charge of the camera. Connecting the app was fairly simple but had a few hiccups. Once you get past that, you are practically in cruise mode from here on out. It took about 3 days for the birds to feel comfortable to visit it. Once they did, it gets a fair amount of action. By default the camera taking video and pictures is automatic. I felt like it was not capturing enough of the action so there is an option to tell it to go crazy. That setting is working very well. You get a 45 second video of your visitors with an accompanying 5-7 pictures. Using AI, the birds are identified. Because I put wild bird seed in the feeder, so far all my visitors have been House Finch's. It would be really cool if some of the Bluebirds would hop on. The way the house is designed, there is a large landing pad in front of the camera. I wish the birds understood that was where they were supposed to feed from. More frequently they either feed from either side or simply just hop into the house and feed. This causes a lot of videos to either capture their backsides or nothing at all. I have it set in the widest view possible but the camera really wants you to be much more centered. The video quality is good at 2k. The picture quality is good at 5mp. There is an option to capture slow motion. That causes the video to go down to maybe 960p? It is acceptable quality on a phone. On my 11" tablet the resolution quality definitely takes a hit. You can live stream the camera and that is fun to watch when you get some birds feeding. You have the ability to take pictures while watching the live stream but there is enough of a delay between the button press and the actual picture that you won't find it useful if the bird is bouncing around. From the app you can share your feeder with other friends and family. This is a nice addition and really easy to use. It's fun to show off your feathered visitors to others.

I’ve always enjoyed putting out a feeder and casually watching birds stop by. I have some friends and family members who are quite intense about bird watching, with species-specific knowledge, dedicated binoculars, set aside bird watching time, etc. The Bird Buddy has been loved equally by all of us. The feeder itself is well constructed and comes with very clear setup and mounting/hanging instructions. I placed my feeder with the solar panel facing south, which has basically made it maintenance free. The storage area holds plenty of feed. Even on cloudy days, the camera’s charge has never fallen below 90%. Speaking of, camera quality is excellent. Pictures and videos of visitors are crystal clear. And WiFi signal has been holding strong. But I think where the Bird Buddy really shines is its software. Despite its kinda creepy bird with a booty logo (just me?), the app is well designed and easy to navigate. First time users have a thorough checklist tutorial that you can click through. Whenever you have a visitor, the Bird Buddy saves both video and pictures to your feed. These are called postcards. Each entry identifies the type/species of visitor and provides you with fun facts about them. You can even name birds that stop by frequently. Something I LOVE is that the app, at least on iOS, does not send you a push notification for every visitor. You get one summary at the end of the day. Thank you software team for not clogging up my notifications. You can also access a live view of your feeder and scroll through video submissions from other Bird Buddy users. Each feeder you own can be shared with up to 10 guests who can download the app and view pretty much everything you can as the device owner (with permission of course). This leads me to the one thing that I don’t love about the Bird Buddy. You need a subscription to access all of the aforementioned app features. At the time of writing this review, an individual plan costs $5.99/mo or $59.99/yr and a family plan costs $9.99/mo or $89.99/yr. I for one am tired of subscriptions, especially when the cost of hardware is already so high. That’s really my one gripe. I knew about the subscription going into this venture and as long as you know about it too, you’re going to love everything else.

TL:DR - I really wanted a bird for this review to show case, but nothing yet, but the picture is fantastic. I like the fact it’s solar charging. I 100% see myself needing to charge this, but I do gain about 10% to 15% in the mornings when the sun is directly hitting the solar panel so it won’t be long. I do hate that a lot of the fun stuff is paywall’d, but the basics are there for free and not that bad. All in all, super happy with it and once we get a bird, my daughters will LOVE it!! — Quick Pros and Quick Cons Pros - Super easy to set up, the app is nice. Great picture. The solar panel seem to extend the battery life tremendously. Cons - Subscription to get all the features, the build seems cheap, challenging to refill seeds. I couldn’t get the hanger to balance properly. — The build seems very cheap, almost like it was 3D printed which I can’t confirm. That said, it’s not “bad” cheap, seems sturdy enough and does the job, it just doesn’t feel premium if that was your thing. It comes with an included hanger, but I couldn’t get that to balance properly. So I ultimately ended up mounting it to my deck. Which worked out better in the long run. I have a mesh network in my house and it’s probably 25 feet from one of the nodes, but the node is interior and the bird feeder is exterior and for me it has a ‘medium’ connection strength vs the amazing connection I was expecting. It does connect and I can live stream no problem with it, but it has me wondering if I had a single point would it even be able to function outside for me. I really wanted to wait on this review until I got a bird on the feeder, but unfortunately for me no birds were tempted to visit yet. We do get a lot of birds in our area so it’s only a matter of time, and I’m going to be super excited when they do visit. Especially my girls. They absolutely love animals and this will be awesome for them. Any sort of bird feed will work it seems. And for stands, it seems like most will work too. However pouring the seed is a pain in the butt. You have to be so careful so it doesn’t spill everywhere. I wanted my little girls to do it, but it’s hard for a grown man to do. I can’t imagine threenagers, and fivenagers doing that on their own. Lastly, I don’t regret it, though I didn’t get to fully use it due to no visitors, but I know when we do get one it’ll be awesome! Overall I’m happy with it.

The Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder is a fun device to have. It has a camera that can record up to 2K resolution at 30FPS. It also can take photos up to 5MP. This feeder has a container for bird seeds. I ended up going to the store and purchase a bag. I didn’t know which to get but just got one that was the most inexpensive price. It had different bird species on the bag but I was not sure what birds flew around my backyard. There are some hummingbirds and other smaller birds that fly around. I was interested in this product because I wanted to identify those birds. This will do it. When I bird flies to the feeder and eats the seeds, the camera will take a photo/video of it and will try to identify what bird is it. It has Bluetooth to connect the device to the app. Then it will connect to your wifi. I have a mesh wifi network and coverage is fairly well outside the house. I don’t lose connection with my phone. I use that as an indicator of how the signal is in certain spots. Setting it up is not that difficult. It found an update, but this process took some time. It comes with a way to hang it off a tree or branch. You can also get a pole and attach it on top of one. I tried to find a PVC pipe but could not find a diameter that fits well. I ended up getting a dowel and wrapping painters tape around the tip to give it more grip. I moved it around the backyard where I noticed small birds would hang out or fly around. One area, did not have wifi coverage so I had to move it again. I moved it in 4 different areas. No birds captured yet. I’m not sure if the seeds I got are attracting the birds or what. Also, the wifi signal strenght is lower than what my iPhone indicates. I am guessing the antenna may be weaker than my phone. Overall, I like the device. The wifi signal needs a little improvement. I am still trying to find a spot for it as I have not yet gotten it to capture any birds. It also lets you check out other bird feeders in other places. That feature is cool. There is a premium service for more features. I cannot find the price on their website or app. I quick search reveals $2/monthly or $20 annually. I do not want to start a trial until I can get birds on the camera. The premium account is optional and not a requirement.

The Bird Buddy is a compact bird feeder with a great camera. To get started, simply follow the instructions to charge the camera for at least 2 hours and then re-attach the camera and get the Wi-Fi set up through the free app downloaded with a QR code. The app is easy to use alerting your phone of a visitor or a lot of activity at the feeder. You can sign up for additional features with the app for $89.99 a year, but so far, I'm not planning on going past the 7-day trial. The paid version of the software provides higher quality video, the ability to mute certain types of birds and the ability to share access with family and friends. The sharing might be the reason I would keep the subscription. The app is great at recognizing over 1,000 species. Being a novice at bird watching, that is my favorite part to learn what some of these other birds are besides the finches I typically see. I have attached a few pictures to show how it gives the species, but then also one of the Chickadees that our cat often watches, we were able to name. So now we know when it comes and visits, all by the power of AI being able to recognize the specific bird. That is a very neat feature. Overall, I gave the feeder a 4 instead of a 5 because of battery life. It advertises for up to 30 days on a single charge, but after a week with limited sun we are down to 15% battery life. Without the full sun, the charging just hasn't been able to keep up, so at some point I am anticipating having to bring the camera in to charge in the next day or so. It is not ideal but the camera dismounts easily so, while it is inconvenient to bring the camera in to charge, you can do it with little effort. In the end, I’m able to look past some of the battery life frustration because of the great video and easy to use app and features. If you are looking for a feeder to give you a closer look and find out which birds are visiting, this feeder will be a lot of fun.

Bird Buddy - Smart Bird Feeder with Solar Roof (Pro Camera Version) Summary: Awesome way to feed and watch birds! Use: We're new to the area and there are a lot of trails both local and regional. We've started exploring many of them and have come across a few birds during our adventures. We have been talking about possibly starting up a new hobby such as bird watching since we have so many species in the area. We even have a trail area designate bird watch where a large flock of vultures congregate over a nice and secluded path with moss covered rocks and gentle streams. The Bird Buddy, we thought, would be one way we could watch birds up close, feed them, and learn more about what to see as we're out and about. While I was a bit skeptical about the performance of the unit, I have to say I'm impressed. The unit's setup is pretty straight forward thanks to the companion app that allows you to manage the feeder. We waited a few days to post this review because we hadn't had any visitors. Just when I thought, well I guess I'll do it now... along comes a toast notification "Post Card" from the Bird Buddy: we had our first visitor! I've ordered accessories for the unit: a wall mount to make it more stable and protect it from the nasty winds we experience, and a water bottle/feeder to allow birdies to have a sip whilst feasting on our fancy bird food. The camera quality is awesome, and it really excited us! I hope we see more visitors now that one has took-the-leap. Read on to learn more... Pros: * Aesthetic. It is a simple modern aesthetic. It should fit in with most designs. We think the color will work well to provide a pop once wall mounted. * Camera. The quality of the images and videos is surprising. I expected some blur or noisy images, but no - every time I connect, it looks pristine. Stills are 5MP and videos are 720P. It seems modest, but I think it's a reasonable compromise for a solar/battery powered device. * Capacity. The feeder can hold about 4 cups of seed. The included cup is sleek and makes filling the unit easy. As far as battery is concerned, we didn't put out with a full charge. I think it was 98%. After about 2 days, it is at 97%. The unit goes to sleep at night. The solar panel helps to keep the unit fairly topped off. * App. The app makes setup a breeze. It is no different than pairing anything to your phone. Just follow the instructions and you'll be up and running in no time. The unit also features over-the-air updates which makes keeping the camera's firmware updated. New features like "deep sleep" are made available this way. Follow instructions to ensure updates are successful and timely. * AI augmentation. The Bird Buddy's camera comes with AI augmentation. The unit can recognize species and, when it does, tells you a brief blurb about them. It's a fast way to learn about birds visiting your home (particularly when your bird book is not immediately available). You can name birds, too, and organize your photos and videos into collections by species, name, or all. When birds visit, the Bird Buddy will send you a toast notification and as "Post Card" showing your visitor. You can then share the video clip with friends and family to share the fun. You can also use the AI to ask questions to learn more details. * Accessories. There are a few fun accessories available for the Bird Buddy. Suit holder, water bottle/bowl, and perch extender, and wall mounting bracket for example. I've ordered the mount and water bottle to help keep the unit secure (no rocking in the wind), and to offer birdies some water on hot days. Cons: * The enclosure roof of the feeder is a bit strange. There are perforations for the hanging hook - but the effort and fit feel off. It is supposed to be snug, so it's not a con, but I feel the design could have been better. I think some folk might be afraid to bend the hook or even damage the feeder. * Solar power cord. The solar panel's power cable to the camera runs through the feeder's roof line into the feeding chamber. It is a bit awkward. My suggestion is to run the cable through the camera enclosure's opening and connect it while not-yet-inserted and then insert the camera into the camera housing at an angle to ensure best fit AND contact with the magnet. The magnet contact is important as the camera will not operate without proper contact. Additionally, the units micro-LED may remain lit and startle birds. The magnet contact ensures that turns off (i.e. "ready"). * App. As much as I like the unit, I am a bit annoyed by "premium" features that can only be unlocked via a membership. At least there is a 7-day trial - so that should help you decide just how much value you want to extract from this feeder. Subscriptions are the trend these days and it does cost something to keep these videos and AI online and running - so I'm not surprised, but a month or two included would have been nice.

No complicated assembly will be necessary for this bird feeder. There are only a few steps from opening the box to placing the feeder, but patience may be required for getting the feeder properly placed. The camera fits inside the charger and has a large battery inside which should easily provide many weeks of coverage after a full charge. No AC converter is provided, so I used the same one that I use for my smartphone. A USB-C to USB-C cable is provided with the house, and let it get juiced for several hours. An indicator LED shows when the battery is charging. You next download the Bird Buddy app for your smartphone, IOS or Android, and you need to use the app to set up your camera. I went ahead and established an account through the app before I even tried to set up the camera. Next, I paired the camera with my smartphone, and had to download a firmware update which took a while. The software warned that the process could take as long as a couple of hours, but mine was finished in well short of an hour. You can sign up for a one-week trial of monitoring features which notifies you of when you have visitors at the feeder and sends a digital postcard of the bird and identification of the species. You will get both still pictures and videos of visitors. Here is where patience comes in. Many factors affect the kind and quantity of birds you will attract. I moved the feeder around several times before I found the most ideal spot. I may have to experiment further. It takes several days before birds attempt to feed. The instructions say you may have to wait as long as two weeks. My visitor came quicker, but some were uninvited. One problem that I expected was from the abundant squirrel population in my yard. I have a brick veneer house which squirrels can easily climb. Mounts can be purchased for the side of the house, but that will not work with squirrels who can climb the brick. I went to a hardware store and purchased a Shepard’s pole. My first location try brought only squirrels. They were able to climb up an adjacent azalea bush and jump directly on the feeder. A squirrel can deplete the birdseeds in the feeder in short order, and when they come, they certainly affect whether birds will try to feed when squirrels are around. Yes, I got postcards when squirrels visited. The software has an option to ignore squirrel visits, but I would rather know they are coming, so that I can make further adjustments to avoid them. I finally was able to mount the pole away from bushes and trees to get the best results. I wound up having to grease the pole to make it impossible for squirrels to climb it. That worked, but it is a messy and temporary measure before I can find an alternative. There are attachments that you can add to the pole which are designed to defeat squirrel visits, including a collar for the pole that looks like the devices vets use on dogs and cats to prevent them from licking themselves after surgery or injury. I am told these are surprisingly effective. The sharing aspect of the software is very rewarding and exciting. My family members are notified when a new bird species visits and can use their smartphones to view the birds with me. The software also allows you to see what results users around the world are getting and the kinds of birds they see. With a paid subscription, you can add up to 10 people who can visit your feeder whenever they want and also get postcards of new visits from new visitors. The battery is barely depleted after a week, but I will have to wait and see if the solar panel will keep it charged indefinitely without my intervention. The instructions do not promise such because weather and other variables come into play. I do anticipate periodically having to take out the camera for a recharge, but removing the camera is simple task. I have attached some pictures of my “catches” so far, and find the Bird Buddy is becoming an addictive hobby. If you are fascinated by birds, you ought to try this device. I highly recommend it.

I’ve always said I’m going to turn into an avid bird watcher one day, I’m just one pair of binoculars purchase away. I have an app on my phone to identify bird calls, and I love the movie ‘The Big Year’, a movie about traveling the world to spot rare exotic birds (starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson). So when I heard about a smart bird feeder that would send me alerts with photos and video clips of new bird visitors, and help me identify the species of bird with some cool AI smarts, I was all in! In the box you’ll find the bird feeder, a bird feed scoop, the wireless outdoor camera and some instructions for installation. Downloading the app and connecting to the unit were a breeze and I was up and running in no time. Once connected to the camera, I plugged it into the feeder’s solar USB port (which is so cool to have it keep a charge just by being in the sunlight), loaded it with some bird seed I got from my local hardware store (not included FYI), and got to finding a spot to hang my bird feeder. The app will guide you through some tips on how to find the best spot so that you won’t get glare in your bird photos (Bird Buddy calls these Postcards and sends you alerts for each new visitor). Now, I had to hang up my unit and then leave town for a few days. After the first day and not seeing any activity on my feeder, I thought perhaps my unit had malfunctioned or its battery had drained. Bird Buddy did note that it could also take some time for birds to make it a regular stop, so I waited patiently. Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long, the second day after installing my feeder I was notified of a “new visitor”, a cute little male house finch (which the app identified). A quick google search indeed showed the same type of bird, so the app was spot on! It’s red head and sing-song chirp were captured on video for me to watch, as were a handful of stills for me to save or download. I think the community this app is building, in that you can share your bird clips and photos with others who have the app, is pretty cool. I also like that I can name the visitors that stop by my feeder. I named my first visitor, a male read-headed house finch, Larry Finchgerald, a not to my Arizona Cardinals. So far I’ve had a BLAST refreshing my feed and checking my phone for notifications of new birds that stop by. I’ll likely have to wait a bit longer for it to be a regular stop for my neighborhood birds, but it’s just so cool that I can enjoy an aspect of bird watching with the least amount of effort required. This thing would make a perfect gift for really anyone. It’s just a neat, fun experience to see native birds up close.

I live on some land outside of town and have fed birds year-round for many years. I was pretty excited to try out the Bird Buddy and get some close-up pictures. I’ve been using it for about a week now and I’m really enjoying it. We have raccoons that clean out our feeders after dark, so I need to bring the more delicate Bird Buddy in each night. Because of that, I elected to just use the hanger bar which I slip over a branch on a tree. That works pretty well, but after the leaves come out it’ll defeat the solar charging. However, since I have to bring it in every night anyway, I can easily top off the charge. The Bird Buddy is all plastic (except the metal hanger), but it’s pretty sturdy plastic—like the Fisher Price toys I remember. Time will tell, but I’m hoping that it’ll hold up to the elements for years to come. It doesn’t hold too much bird feed, but again that’s not a huge problem since I bring it in every night and can refill it. Getting the app installed and the Bird Buddy setup on my WiFi was pretty simple. The only minor issue was I never got a notification about the software update until after I had installed the feeder outside. I had to bring it back in, plug it into the charger and run the update, but that was only a minor setback. Then, once the birds figured out there was tasty stuff in the feeder, I started getting alerts on the app. After a couple of days, the word was out, and dozens of birds started using the feeder. The notifications were entertaining: “You’ve got birds!” “Rush hour at the feeder!” “Rush hour at the feeder!” It was fun to start looking through all the videos and snapshot pictures that it took. It was really good at identifying all the different species that showed up. With all bird traffic, I’m not sure how/when it decides to take its “postcards” and send notifications. There have been times when I looked at the feeder and saw some redwing blackbirds on it, but it never sent a notification about them. I’m sure it must have some filtering or “cool down” period between notifications or my phone would just constantly blow up. It does have a feature to detect cats and warn you if it sees one near the feeder. I didn’t test this outside on the tree, but it did work unexpectedly inside. The first evening I brought it inside and my cat decided to check it out. I forgot the camera was still on until I got an alert on my phone, “Cat detected!” So, that feature definitely works. Overall, I’m happy with the feeder. It may not be perfect, but it makes me smile to see all the bird mugshots and videos. The slow-motion video feature has been a lot of fun. We’ve had a few days with wind gusts into the 40mph range and it’s fun to watch them fly in to land on the perch like they’re hotshot Navy pilots landing on a carrier. I probably won’t pay the $90/year subscription for the few extra features, but I’d say the price of the feeder is worth it for the entertainment.

The Bird Buddy solar bird feeder is a unique and innovative device that enhances your bird-watching experience. Its AI-powered 2K camera captures high-quality 5mp photos and videos of visiting birds, while the user-friendly app automatically identifies the species. The video quality can be adjusted (720p, 1080p and 2k) to decrease data use and improve the live stream if necessary. You can even choose a slow motion mode of 120 FPS and 960p to really get great images of the fast movers. Premium users can choose a 2k ultra setting for even higher resolution video. Users can even name their frequent visitors! The system also provides alerts for sick birds and potential predators. If you are not getting enough postcards you can set the camera to Frenzy mode that increases the number of saved shots but this will use your battery faster. The Bird Buddy feeder is easy to set up for hanging or pole mounting and offers various accessories for customization. Its solar panel, which can be positioned on either side for optimal sun exposure, ensures continuous power for the camera after an initial USB-C charge. The feeder also features a convenient seed loading cup and a roof that protects the camera connection from rain. Users can adjust settings to manage guest viewers, conserve battery life, and customize media quality, audio, and camera field of view. They can also share their photos and videos to the bird buddy community and all while contributing to research on bird populations and migration. A premium subscription unlocks additional features and is available for $89 per year after a trial period. Overall, the Bird Buddy solar bird feeder offers an exceptional bird-watching experience with its advanced technology, ease of use, and valuable research contributions. This was an unexpected fun and fulfilling experience, I think most families will enjoy the bird watching experience Bird Buddy provides.

Bird Buddy is the “smart” birdfeeder pioneer that launched with great fanfare in the bird fan world on a crowdfunding site a few years ago. It’s “smart” because it automatically captures video of visitors, identifies the species and then shares with the owner. The Bird Buddy Pro is their “latest and greatest” model with 2K/5mp camera upgrades like HDR, improved focusing, a wider field of view, and overall better clarity. It also has audio so you can hear the happy chirps of your patrons. This is what makes the Bird Buddy Pro educational and entertaining. I liken the experience to being the producer of your own Animal Planet video podcast. This is the joy of Bird Buddy, but, unfortunately, in my use and opinion its pain points diminish the experience. Bird Buddy is a cloud-supported system requiring an account, but not a paid subscription. It does offer subscription services, but they are unnecessary to enjoy the Bird Buddy. I avoid subscriptions and did not opt-in to Bird Buddy’s, so I will only cover the “out of the box” experience here. Bird Buddy offers a free 7-day trial to its subscription service that offers things like upgraded camera clarity, unlimited storage, and live video sharing with friends and family. The key benefit of a subscription is unlimited storage. Without one photos and videos are only available to save for 7-days. THE “DUMB”: DESIGN, AND (UN)INCLUDED ACCESSORIES I lusted to own a Bird Buddy ever since I first read about it but I always had more pressing needs. Now that I have one, I’m torn. For its cost, I’m underwhelmed for a few reasons, but mostly because of its weak value proposition and annoying design elements of the feeder. My biggest Bird Buddy Pro disappointment is its premium priced but comes barebones with still more needed to buy, at least in my case. In the box is the feeder housing, the “pro” camera, and a solar panel roof. It also includes two of three possible mounting possibilities, a pole mount (BYO your own compatible pole) and a metal hanger. (Personally, I don’t consider the hanger as a good mounting option because wind, squirrels and racoons could knock it off and there goes your expensive video camera.) Other “must have” (to me) accessories like the wall/fence mount and extended perch to attract larger birds like cardinals are extra cost. These are standard items in competing smart feeders and at the Bird Buddy’s premium price their exclusion is a big miss. Out of the gate, my user experience is not joy but rather feeling nickel and dimed. I don’t want to paint an entirely negative picture of the Bird Buddy feeder because it has nice features too. So, before I get to my next gripe, a few things I do appreciate. Unlike other smart feeders, the camera module attaches magnetically. This unique feature is both cool and convenient in two ways. 1) It allows charging the camera without having to take the entire (dirty) feeder inside. (Charging is needed even with a solar roof, but I’ll get to that later.) 2) it easily swaps into another Bird Buddy product like the hummingbird feeder or water fountain. Another plus is the feeder is waterproof to keep the enclosed seed storage area and USB-C connector dry. Overall build quality of the feeder is excellent. But the seed refill process. Oh boy, what a production. It’s accomplished via a small triangle door at the top of the feeder. A special shaped scoop is included to assist refill. Even with that, in my experience, it’s impossible to refill the feeder without removing the feeder from the post (or I suppose wall or fence if that is how it’s attached). It’s such a tedious process it’s a legit reason not to buy this feeder. My own solution is to use a flexible funnel. I’ve posted a picture of the door and scoop for a visual. It feels like “how to easily fill the feeder” was not a design priority. I’ve seen other smart feeders (with solar and also water proof) that fill by swinging the hinged roof open. This gives open access to the entire feeder, no special scoop or funnel needed. Further down the complaint trail, the solar panel roof with just one panel on the right side (when looking at the Bird Buddy). Competitors have two panels which makes more sense since the sun isn’t at a fixed location. A panel on just one side means peak charging is limited to either the morning or afternoon, depending on where your feeder is placed. The reality of this, in my experience the solar panel can’t maintain full battery level. It just extends the time between having to plug the camera into a wall charger. To illustrate, after 3 clear sunny days my battery has gone from 100% to 88%. The panel on just one side also limits placement of the feeder. For example, say your backyard faces west. That means your feeder and camera must face south for the panel to catch the morning sun. If panels were on both sides the camera could either north or south and catch the sun ray’s from dawn to dusk. That’s it for what I think are the feeder’s hits and misses. Agree or not, I think they are important points to know going in given the cost involved and that the camera is proprietary and can’t be used in a non-Bird Buddy product or used offline with a physical storage card. CAMERA-SOFTWARE-SUBSCRIPTION The “Buddy” in Bird Buddy is the camera and the software and services it relies on. To activate the camera, download the intuitive Bird Buddy app (iOS and Android) to set up your account and then follow the pairing instructions. The process was smooth for me, though it took longer than expected to pair a camera. You’ll know it’s working because you’ll see live video in the app. You can tweak some options, but the default settings are best for most. A couple of interesting app options is the ability for the camera to ignore other animals like squirrels and cats. Now just fill seed in your Bird Buddy, hang it, and wait for birds to discover the new restaurant in town. Be patient. In my experience word travels slowly here. I write this is mid-March and some birds have returned, but April is the big month here. So, unfortunately, I can’t report my experience of my first bird visit. But the app offers key moments at other feeders around the world so I have a good idea what to expect when that happens. This is an entertaining feature, and something only a cloud-based service can offer. I love seeing birds not native to my area. The quality of the videos I’ve seen made me feel like I was at the feeder. Audio, contrast, lighting, color, detail, all excellent. No complaints at all on the quality of the camera. While the camera cannot remotely zoom you can set it to stream either wide or close-up. The magic of any smart bird feeder is that it snaps mug shots of your visitors when you aren’t looking. But if you are watching live and you see a moment you want to capture there is a button on the live view screen. Video requires significant bandwidth and image quality will depend on the strength and speed of your Wi-Fi. By example, I have 300/300 Gbps FIOS broadband and a Wi-Fi 6 mesh router. My Bird Buddy is approximately 10 ft from my side door. My iPhone registers Wi-Fi availability here as “good”. Generally, I get smooth, crystal clear live 2K video. But from time to time the Bird Buddy does lose connection. I can’t say definitively this is due to the Bird Buddy having a mediocre Wi-Fi design – it has no external antenna – but my garage door opener which also uses 2.4ghz channel of my router never goes offline. So its important to keep your Internet speed and router capability in mind when placing your Bird Buddy. If 2K is too much for your Wi-Fi system you can switch to 1080p or 720p, which still offer an excellent picture. BOTTOMLINE Bird Buddy Pro is certainly a good smart feeder option. It’s backed by the innovator of the genre and feature rich without subscription. By reputation, it’s AI bird ID is among the best and picture quality is excellent. On the downside the camera has no memory card slot and can’t be used offline. That doesn’t bother me as much as the awkward seed filling process which I’m afraid will become a burden over time. Also, the solar panel, in my experience, does not banish wall charging, it only reduces the need. But the biggest offense the Bird Buddy Pro makes is its stinginess with included accessories. I’m OK with its elevated price but only if all the essentials are included in line with its true competitors. As of this writing that is not the case. This, combined with all my other quibbles, makes me conclude there are smarter smart feeder options.

The Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder is pretty neat. I like being able to see what birds come visit, how often, and when. It gives you a close up look at what seed the birds are preferring out of your feed. The pictures and videos are crisp. The audio is clear but you mostly just hear them cracking seeds. The slow motion is a cool setting. I could not get any cool shots like they advertised of the birds swooping in to eat. I tired to play with settings but every time it triggers after they are already in the feeder eating. I do not like that a chunk of the features are behind a pay wall so I will not be using those. This includes higher quality video, giving birds personal names, and sharing live feeds with family members. However I'm still able to see things on the app and have birds identified. I think their AI needs some work, it gets close to being correct. It correctly identified a pair of house finches but then later called them house sparrows. With little birds you don't get as great of a shot as you'd like. They often get in the seed instead of standing on the edge to eat. This causes a lot of shots of bird rumps. There were some heavy winds that came through and I was very surprised that it didn't fall using the hanging mount. So far the battery and solar panel have worked well but I have the feeder in a sunny area. I wish the app was better. I don't always get notifications and sometimes there's a long delay of the videos and pictures even showing up. It's kind of a clunky interface with a lot of things you don't care about before you get to the shots from your feeder. Hopefully as the app matures they'll do some refurbishing. At this point I would recommend it but I wonder if some of the novelty will wear off the longer I have it and if I only see the same birds all the time.

I’ve only had my Bird Buddy for a couple of weeks, but it’s definitely an enjoyable addition to my feeder array. NOTE: You need a good WiFi signal for this to work well. If your WiFi can't reach your feeder, this isn't going to work. I would like to give a shout out to the packaging engineers. Everything in the box is recyclable. I know not everyone cares about that detail, but it’s important to me. Bravo. I found the setup of the bird buddy to be super simple. Essentially, you take it out of the box, charge the camera, download the app, use the app to pair the camera, attach the camera to the solar roof with the USB cable, select your location, fill it up with feed, and go. I was a little disappointed to realize I had to stop and charge the camera. I was all excited to get going and then had to stop, but it makes sense. I just wasn’t thinking about it ahead of time. I was also slightly confused by the camera charging process. I was looking for the blue light (mentioned in the instructions) telling me it was ready to pair. I never saw it. I’m not sure if it’s just dim or if I did something wrong. Ultimately, I ended up just leaving it on the charger for a couple of hours (as instructed) to make sure it was fully charged. Once charged, I used the app to connect the bird feeder, and it found it right away. Please note that you do not pair the feeder directly to your phone through settings, you do it through the app. Once I got it set up, it was time to wait. I have a decent amount of bird traffic, so I didn’t have to wait long for some action. I like the camera. Most of the pictures seem to be high quality and mostly focused. It does well in bright light and in the evening (within reason of course). You can set the app to show you everything the camera captures, or you can let it curate unique bird species using AI technology. I went with Curate mode, so I don’t get so many post cards. Post cards are the images/videos that it captures and sends to you. It identifies the species of bird and allows us to learn a bit about them. It also allows you to share your postcards with up to 10 family members. I suspect that I will get fewer notifications over time as it works through the most common visitors. You can always manage notification in the app if you don’t like seeing everything. You can view all of your images in the app by name, species, and all saved. The app has a lot of features. There are too many things to talk about here. A few key items. You can choose the camera resolution to save battery and storage space, although the highest quality camera settings are only available if you pay for the premium membership. There is even a slow-motion video option that can lead to some cute videos of your visitors. It is lower resolution, but still fun. You can use the app to watch the live stream from the camera and grab your own photos in real time (with a few seconds delay). You can set it to alert you to other animals like cats. You can also tell it to ignore certain common birds. You can also manage all of the Bird Buddy community setting in the app. I’m a private person, so I’m not sharing my images, but you can share if you’d like and even watch live cams from other feeders. It comes with a feed scoop. I don’t really use it because I have others that I like, but it’s nice to include for people who are just getting started. It has the option to use a hanger wire or a pole type mount depending on how you prefer to set it up. Aesthetically, it’s super cute. I have the blue and red version. So what is not to like? Not much…it’s pretty fun. Time will tell how durable it is and how long the solar charging panel keeps up, but so far so good. I used the wire hanger, but I may end up needing to switch to a pole mount. While it does a pretty good job of focusing on images, sometimes it gets to swinging in the wind or when larger birds an popping on and off and it throws off the image. Squirrels are also a problem, but that’s not bird buddy’s fault. Hopefully they don’t chew through it. The opening to the seed is relatively small, so it takes the squirrels a while to go through the seed. I do wish it had a higher seed capacity, but it’s not the end of the world to have to fill it up every couple of days. The door used to fill the seed isn't the easiest thing to get to, but again, it's manageable, I just end up spilling a little feed from time to time. I’m pretty against the whole subscription to everything trend, and Bird Buddy is on that train. It’s functional without the subscription, but there are some fun features like enhanced AI, being able to name frequent visitors and be notified when “Frank” visits your feeder, being able to share additional information with friends and family, better camera features, and Amazon Alexa integration. I wish they’d just price feature into the product and not nickel and dime customers. Everyone is doing it, but that doesn’t mean I have to support it. I will not be subscribing. Overall, it’s a lot of fun to tinker with. I enjoy the fun pictures and slow-motion videos of my feathered friends. My family members enjoy looking at things on their devices as well. It’s not cheap, but if it holds up, I think it’s worth the price point if you are into the tech side of nature viewing.

I’ve had the Bird Buddy for most of a week now, and, overall, I’m pleased with it, but it isn’t everything. First, set up was OK but not without some ambiguity. The first thing the instructions say is to charge the camera battery for at least two hours using the included cable, which has USB-C ports on each end. But no power brick is included, so it needs to be attached to a computer or perhaps your cell phone charger. I have several, so it was no problem charging it up, expect for one minor annoyance. The instructions give a full list of what the different possible flashing light combinations mean regarding being charged, fully charged, connected or not, doing a firmware update, etc., but I didn’t see any lights at all initially, and I was wondering if it was actually charging. It wasn’t until I had dug a little further into the instructions that I discovered that the camera has to be turned on for the indicator light to function. It would have been nice if this had been noted right at the top of the Quick Start Guide. Once charged, the camera fits easily and snugly in the holder on the feeder, and there is a short USB-C cable coming from the roof of the feeder, on which is mounted on one side a solar panel, that is to be connected to the camera. Presumably the idea here is that the solar panel keeps the battery charged so you don’t have to remove it periodically to recharge it. This is a great feature. But, oddly, the instructions are silent about this. The instructions just talk about periodically removing the battery to recharge it. The instructions do mention the solar panel, but nowhere does it explicitly say that the panel keeps the camera battery charged. Whatever. The kit comes with two mounting plates, one meant for a side-wall mount and the other for use at the top of a one-inch diameter pole. We wanted the feeder well away from the house (but not too far away!), so I bought a separate bird-feeder pole, drove it into the ground perhaps 20 feet off our house, and mounted the feeder. The feeder also comes with a bracket that connects to the top of the feeder with which you can hang it if you want to mount it on a pole that way. The reason you can’t have the feeder too far away is because it has to connect to your home wireless network, and that likely extends only so far from the house. My signal drops off by about one-third at the distance of the feeder, but it works OK overall. Also note that, during the setup process after you download the app, your phone makes a brief Bluetooth connection to the feeder. But during operation, connection is by your home network. Once everything was set up, it all worked quite nicely. The livestream is easy and quick to initiate, and you get a great view of whatever birds are on the perch having something to eat. The clarity of the image is really quite good. It can be quite entertaining. You can snap a photo any time, and any photo you snap is sent to the Bird Buddy site where the bird is identified by an AI feature, and the result returned to you. The camera and app also note any arrivals automatically and notify you of them. One major annoyance is how the feeder is filled with seed. There is a small “door” at the top of the rear of the feeder that pulls down on a hinge, and you’re supposed to pour the feed through that. The feeder comes with a small container with an almost-but-not-quite-good-enough spout with which to pour in the feed. But the spout on the container doesn’t reach far enough, so the feeder has to be tilted forward in order to get the feed in without spilling some on the ground. Either tilt it or, as I do, slide it off the top of the pole, tilt it any way I need to to fill it, and then reinstall on top of the pole. It’s not that big a deal, but a container with a longer spout would have beem nice. Alternatively, one can go to a hardware store or someplace and buy a funnel with an angled spout. I plan to do this. If the feeder is merely hung from a pole, tilting it to add the feed is not an issue. But if the feeder is rigidly mounted and can't be tilted, which is how I have it, the issue of filling it will arise. One other thing that slightly diminishes our enjoyment of the feeder is that the larger birds don’t seem interested in it. We had a larger, conventional feeder in our yard, and we’d get everything. Sparrows, bluejays, cardinals, red-wing blackbirds, and more. The Bird Buddy has a relatively smaller perch, and it only attracts the smaller birds like the sparrows, at least in our experience. After most of a week, we’ve yet to see any of the larger birds there. My wife was unhappy that we’re not providing for those birds anymore, so we put our old feeder back in the yard. Now we have two feeders about 15 feet apart. The larger birds (and smaller ones, too) go to the older one, and the smaller birds have the Bird Buddy to themselves. Overall, the Bird Buddy is cool because of the great, up-close videos and images of the birds it provides, which is basically the whole reason for its existence. Children of most any age will absolutely love this, and adults will, too. Just keep in mind some of the issues and limitations described above.

So this is definitely fancier than your average bird feeder and they are marketing it to one very specific group of people. It's those that really enjoy seeing and sharing bird photos. For everyone else, this will be an over priced purchase that realistically will have a squirrel lounging in it more than birds. For those that this is marketed to, the design is well done on most aspects. There are no metal fasteners holding this together, so that means no rust to deal with. The bird seed holder has convenient drain holes to keep the feed from becoming soggy. The camera does a decent enough job of taking photos and video and the solar panel works well at keeping the battery topped off. However, that's where my praise ends for this. The initial instructions were not great on how to assemble the metal hook to hand the device. It looked like it was supposed to slot in somewhere, but in the end I found through online articles that it just hangs in place on the front notch. The instructions also don't mention that you should be using the back door of the seed container as a chute to get seed in. I was trying for days to tilt the feeder forward and fill the seed. If there had been a sticker or something that said "use me as a chute" that would have made a world of difference. As it stands, it took me forever to figure it out, but once I did, it was much easier to fill. As for the camera itself, I like the image quality, but the radio range is very short. If you plan on putting this out far from your house, you may need a radio repeater somewhere. I also do not like a lot of the terms of service for the app itself. You very much are the product that they are taking your info from and selling to other companies to make money. They also very much want you to share your photos like social media to get other people to pay for viewing privileges. As long as people continue to pay, the device will likely be worth it, but if there servers ever shut down, like so many other smart device ecosystems, then this will turn into expensive landfill material.

So this is a split review.... for the overall experience. I will give the actual bird feeder at 4.75 stars (I only have a very minor issue I will however give the app only a 3, and they both go together... So hence the overall 4 star. First the feeder: Super simple to setup. the camera charges for the first time very quickly on a home charger, and you are ready to go. Snaps right into place, GREAT inclusion of the simple solar panel, and you are ready to go. It comes out of the box with a hanger style mount, or a base mount to a pipe or PVC. I went and purchased (for a small cost), the WALL/POST mount. Super simple to mount, and put on the base and worked best in my yard. Installed in less than 5 minutes. It is great it comes with a nice cup, that you can fill with your bird seed, that fits under the lip, and you can poor right in. My first minor nit pick, is I can eventually see this door breaking, causing some water build up and problems. We will see over time. It is tight, but maybe a bit too tight. Other than that.. the bird feeder looks great, super simple to setup and mount, and it is ready to go. Now the APP. I have 15+ years experience building mobile apps. This app is SOO frustrating to use in many ways. It doesn't crash, it is stable so far. But.. The navigation is a bit abrupt and clunky. Taping the Live or BB-TV buttons, takes you right into a live feed mode, and it takes a while to see what is going on (5-10s). It should in my opinion, show an information screen, tell the user that it is making a connection, and THEN show the feed, once there is a connection. There are some sounds/noises the app makes on almost every press of a button. I have to turn my sound off on the device, as it makes the app very disruptive to use. Even though I have an iPhone 16 Pro (the 2nd largest screen available), the main display still needs you to scroll, just a bit to see the full imagery.. Needs to be tweaked for one of the most common phone sizes. Several of the features I can't even try yet, as in the fist week of usage... no birds have visited yet. It is still cold here in the midwest, so... was hoping for some early friends to visit, but it does say it can take 2-4 weeks before birds find the new source of food and spread the word. This is going to be a fun little addition to our deck, and we are interested to really see what birds visit our area.