Automatic feeders

Jeff and I have thought about buying an automatic cat feeder for Milo for a while now. At first we wanted to buy one because he loves to wake us up around 4-5:30am to ask for his breakfast. We thought it might save us some sleep and many of the reviews say that it will. Recently, I have wanted to buy one because we will need to go out of town for a weekend and I'm sure there will be many more weekends like that in the future. I want to make sure he is fed and taken care of and it's not always easy to find someone who can come over and watch him for a while. So I thought this would be a good solution.

The problem is picking one out of the many cat feeders out there. There are many different kinds. There are the kinds that look like this that look like normal free falling bowls, but also include a timer. The other kind of automatic feeders out there are the ones that look like this which are basically just circles with divided compartments for meals with a rotating top that exposes one meal at a time. I have decided that I do not want to get one of the circle variety because I have read many reviews about cats being able to get underneath the top and get the food out of it.

I have narrowed it down between two cat feeders, both of the free falling variety. My two choices are this one or this one. The only main differences are the price, you can detach the bowl for cleaning on the more expensive one, and I believe the programming function is a little better on the more expensive one. However, in both feeders smart cats can stick their paws up into it some how and dislodge a few pieces of food. I'm not too worried though. In many reviews they mention that although they may be able to get a little more food, it's not much.