I've always been an animal person more than a people person, and I have a particular fondness for birds. A few years ago, I found an embarrassing childhood diary entry recounting the time I whistled at the birds on the tree outside my bedroom window. They whistled! Back! I felt like Snow White. Now I have my two cats and all the birds who visit my balcony bird feeder every day.
Since WIRED declared Bird Buddy to be one of the Best of CES in 2022, I've thought about little else. While waiting for the feeder to be shipped, I tested another smart feeder, the Netvue Birdfy, which I also loved. While the two are very similar, Bird Buddy has one important feature: It doesn't just tell you what species are visiting, it teaches you about the birds you're spotting.
This cute feeder comes in bright blue or yellow, with a roof covering the trough of food. It looks adorable wherever you place it—and depending on the one you get, you can mount it to the wall or on a pole or hang it from a branch—but its real draw, of course, is that it's equipped with a camera for the perfect view of hungry birbs.
When connected to the app, you'll be notified when new visitors arrive, and you can cycle through photos and videos, saving whatever ones you like best. The output quality is surprisingly good, despite how quickly some of these birds drop in and take off. You can opt to view the live feed whenever the desire hits, but that disables automatic photos and videos. It takes about two minutes for the app to open the live view, which is slightly inconvenient, but at least the Bird Buddy didn't take pictures of me when I went out to refill the seed.