Customer Ratings & Reviews

Great for whole family to enjoy nature up close! Excellent picture quality!

I bought this for my dad and he loves it! Took great pics!!

My mother loves watching birds in the backyard. Bought as a gift for her as her vision is going. This will help her see the birds up close. She will be able to recognize and learn more about these beautiful birds with the app.

Happy with the feeder but the birds haven"t found it yet. Was a little frustrated that there is a subscriptin fee to really take advantage of AI features and an additional fee to share with the family.

A great camera bird feeder. While many of the identification's are wrong. The pictures are great quality and it's nice to review at the end of each day.

This was the best gift for my wife. Truly amazing, she loves it and we have the coolest birds coming by. Blue Jays, Cardinals and more! Highly recommend

Easy to setup… A.I. option is a wonderful way to find out more on each bird. Would recommend

Got for a gift for my mom and she loves it!!! absolutely recommend.

Smart bird house is great for seeing wild life if you have a vacation home. My mother loved it.

Bird Buddy lets you see who is eating. We get both birds and squirrels.

Great product! Bought it as a gift and she loves it

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.

Awesome bird feeder and camera for price. Very pleased with this purchase.

Was a gift for my father in law. He absolutely loves it very easy to use

I’ve had my eye on these smart bird feeders for awhile. I think they’re a super cool concept for birdwatching. So I was excited to try the BirdBuddy Smart Bird Feeder Pro with Solar Roof. In the box you’ll find the feeder, camera, usb c charging cable, the solar roof, hanger, a pole mount with hardware, instructions, and a scoop for birdseed. You’ll need the BirdBuddy app to setup the camera. Just create an account and follow the step by step instructions in the app. You need to attach the solar roof. The solar panel can be oriented to either side so it’s facing the sun depending on where you intend to mount the feeder. Setup was simple. Including the assembly steps I’d say I was up and running in 20 minutes. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the quality of the feeder. It’s plastic construction doesn’t seem particularly heavy duty. I hope it wears well. The solar roof attaches with plastic clips which seemed somewhat fragile. Once attached you need to snake the power cable down through a hole to plug into the camera. I found this design a bit awkward, particularly so when you need to disconnect and reconnect in order to charge with an adapter if solar charging is insufficient. The feeder comes with a pole mount or a hanger so you have 2 mounting options. I opted for the pole mount which attaches easily with the included screws to the bottom of the feeder. I ordered a 79 inch tall pole with a 1 inch diameter to mount the BirdBuddy on. Prior to mounting I filled it with seed using the included scoop. There a small door on the rear of the feeder. This is small and plastic. I’m concerned about how well it will hold up. Filling the seed compartment though this door while mounted is awkward. I found it easier to remove the feeder from the mount to refill. For positioning BirdBuddy suggests placement within 50 feet of your wifi router and preferably oriented so the solar panel gets maximum sunlight exposure. For privacy, you should also avoid the camera facing your home or the homes of your neighbors. I selected a spot in my yard about 40 feet from my router. It became quickly apparent that the 50 foot recommendation from BirdBuddy was optimistic since I had substantial connectivity issues at 40 feet. The camera operates on the 2.4ghz band so I would suggest creating a a guest 2.4ghz network to connect the BirdBuddy to. Mine was the only device on this network. To improve the connection, I also added a wifi extender to the exterior of my home. It was then only after moving the BirdBuddy within 20 feet of this extender did it improve my connection issues. However, I still find the live view somewhat hit or miss in terms of how long it takes to stream. One moment it streams quickly then 20 minutes later it can take forever to load. I frankly don’t think the wifi in the BirdBuddy camera is particularly strong. I have 2k WiFi security cams at a much greater distance than the BirdBuddy that stream flawlessly. I like the solar charging capabilities of the BirdBuddy which should reduce having to charge it using a power adapter. The cam has a 3800 mAh rechargeable lithium-ion battery and they claim it should last 30 days on a full charge. Even with solar charging I found this estimate very optimistic. I was at 100% on a sunny day and within 7 days I was at 18%. Disappointing. But let’s get to the birdwatching. Gone is the need for binoculars for birdwatching or the need to identify a bird species. The BirdBuddy smart feeder uses AI to automatically identify over 1,000 species. You get visitor notifications of bird and unexpected guests. The captured videos are great quality at 2k and still images are 5 megapixel. It’s fascinating watching various species of birds feeding up close and personal. So cool! I particularly love the ability to share these videos with friends and families. My brother already wants one. Also very cool is that within the app you can check out other BirdBuddy streams from around the world. The app is very nice and is a full featured software experience. This leads me to the unfortunate observation that the BirdBuddy software is far superior to the BirdBuddy hardware.

I bought this for my husband for Christmas. He can’t get his phone to connect. Think twice about it. Lot of money to spend on something you can’t use.

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.

Feeder repeatedly disconnected from iPad. Disappointing Christmas gift!

In getting the Bird Buddy, I remember seeing it offerred on crowd funding site years ago. I thought it was a cool idea but I vowed myself not to buy tech products via crowd funding and I am glad I waited! From the first iteration of the product, the Bird Buddy should be a sure fire hit. However, a lot of people really panned it due to the software. However, I see that as a promising future. Software can be improved. The hardware, if the physical parts fail, then it's a matter of time where everytihng implodes, in my opinion. Now that these are now offered in retail stores, it was finally time to see if this bird buddy is worth it. I have the solar roof that only comes with a hanger. The pole mount adapter is included so you can put it on a standard 1 inch bird feeder pole. The unboxing was good and straight forward. However, the quick start instructions tell you to charge up your camera with the included USB C cable for at least 2 hours before putting everything together and to start using it. That is not an issue. But when plugging the camera in, the documentation says there is supposed to be a blinking led. I did not see one. To me there was no indicator that the camera was charging at all. I was working on my car, so it was a good 2 and a half hours that went by when I finished and moved to put the Bird Buddy all together. There are optional accessories you can add to it. From the wall mount to a perch extender. There's even a water bottle you can add to this thing. It's pretty cute set up and the color is very pleasant to look at. Even though it kind of reminds me of a doorbell camera. All of the parts of the Bird Buddy is very well thought out. Even to the door on the back. Where if you tilt or lift the back door a bit, you can use that to safely pour in your birdseed pretty confidently without spillage, or major spilling. In plugging in the solar power panel roof to the camera, you have to pop out the plug to fee the wire through from the roof to the front part where the camera mounts with a magnet. I mounted my Bird Buddy on a pole and added a baffler to keep the squirrels away. So far so good on that front. And it has held up in hard Texas rain and wind. We had a Red Flag week here recently and that was around 20-40 mph winds and the Bird Buddy held it's ground nicely. Where this shines is the pictures and videos it can produce. In it's early days, the software was laggy and buggy. In recent days, the software can still be a bit stalled at times at the live feed, but otherwise it's great. Do you need a subcription? It's not required, but there are cool features that includes AI features. Theres a few different plans ranging from annually to monthly. But you don't actually need a subcription of any kind to enjoy it. You do get a few days of the premium subcription to wet your palet, but you can decide if you want or need the other teirs. The bluetooth connection to the camera is not entirely smooth, but you may have different experiences. I am using the Android 16 Beta 3.1. The 2k video is new for this model and in the higher subscriptions, there is a 2k Ultra, which i do not know what it means, but it's not really needed. The video this can produce is good enough. If you get great light, you will get great images. In the app, you can share the same account with up to I think 10 different people, however, the live feed option is available for the main account creator. Going live feed too much does reduce the battery, so that makes sense here. The solar roof has done it's job. Where during the cloudy days prior to some hard rain, the battery gone down to around 80%. With a sunny day, the roof can easily charge up in no time. Oh and I have a mesh system for internet so it covers more than enough of my property to easily connect. Keep that in mind when you decide where you want to hang or mount your Bird Buddy. Within a day, we started getting birds. We have seen a few Cardinals in passing so we know they are in our trees, but with the Bird Buddy, we see them up close and every day now. With teh Bird Buddy, you can name them if you want and this is like my smart door bell camera where it can remember people's faces when they are within range of the doorbell. That makes it personal to you and your family. This Bird Buddy set up has made our family avid bird watchers and our cats love it because it is attracting more birds as the days progress in the front and back ouf our house. Is that a good thing? I believe so. It makes the neighborhood a bit more livelier in my opinion. At the end of each day, the Bird Buddy goes into sleep mode automatically to save it's battery, which is a cool thing. And after the Bird Buddy has called it quits for the day, the app recaps the visits and types of birds it captures. The quick AI can help ID the birds, but you can ask the AI to re-assess the bird if you want. Otherwise, I am happy on how the app works on my Android phones. Would I recommend it? It is a resounding yes. The app is now a bit more polished. Where there are still hiccups in the live feed. Overall is fund to use.

Bird Buddy - Smart Bird Feeder Pro with Solar Roof Good friends of mine in Florida recently sent me photos of birds eating at their bird house feeder/camera system. A few weeks later, I happened on the Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder Pro (with Solar Roof) and decided to grab one up. I’ve had the feeder in place for about a week now, which isn’t long, and I’m still waiting on some birds to find it. I’m sure it’ll take time for the birds in my area to learn its location, so I’m being patient. And instructions included with the feeder clearly note that it might take time for the birds in my area to figure out it’s hanging in my back yard. I don’t have any pictures as of yet, but I can certainly talk about the bird feeder/camera system. Firstly, I didn’t expect bird seeds to be included with the unit – which ended up being correct. So, upon receipt of the feeder, my first act was to buy some seeds. The Bird Feeder Pro comes with almost everything you might need. For example, it comes with a hanger to loosely hang the feeder under a tree limb. I say “Loosely” because the feeder easily swings around whenever a moderate to strong wind passes it by. I expect the same to happen when birds land on it. This feeder does not come with a bird feeder pole, which is essentially a pole that you securely bolt the feeder on top of and plant the bottom end of the pole in the ground. I anticipate going the pole route because the feeder will experience much less movement than it is right now. Upon receipt of this system, I recommend first read ingthe instructions. It recommends giving the camera an initial 2-to-3-hour charge using the included USB type-C cord. While the camera was charging, I installed the Bird Buddy app on my Galaxy phone and created an account for myself. Once created, I went through the app’s setup process to pair the feeder’s camera via Bluetooth, then paired the feeder to my home’s Wi-Fi. These two steps only took a couple of minutes to complete. Once these steps were completed, I added bird seeds to the feeder and hung it on a tree limb in my back yard. Honestly, it was very easy to set up. Once everything was in place, I started tweaking the app. The app lets you choose the Meida Quality (resolution) you’d like to record at. Selections include 720p, 1080p, 2K, 2K Ultra (premium), and Slow Motion. For kicks, I initially set it up for slow motion. It currently is set for 1080p. It also has a Power Saver Mode, a Standard Mode, and a Frenzy Mode, the last of which has the highest battery usage. I might note that it’s past 3pm our time (Phoenix), and the battery is reporting a battery level of 88% – essentially meaning that the solar panels are doing their job. The app does have online instructions on taking the feeder apart to clean it. The app also has an Invite feature that lets you invite people to watch your videos from remote locations. The app also lets you exclude unwelcome species from recording, like pesky squirrels. There is a premium mode you can subscribe to. It offers the following: • Insights into birds • Giving bird visitors names • Special Family Interaction features • 2k Ultra HD Video • All your guests get Premium Membership • Share Livestream with guests • Secure your bird footage with unlimited cloud storage • Save 20% on Bird Buddy products and add-ons • Get real-time alerts on sick or injured birds • Try out new features with exclusive Beta Labs access • Discover unique bird species from around the world I think the whole concept of seeing nature up close and personal is very cool. If I don’t see bird activity soon, I’ll likely purchase a different kind of bird seed to see if it is more attractive to the birds. I’m giving this Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder Pro a 5-star review for its ease of setup and camera quality.