If you’ve ever sat in your garden trying to identify the birds landing in your trees, we have just the bird feeder for that. The Birdfy Smart Bird Feeder is designed with a chew-proof and weather-resistant metal body to withstand all the elements and those garden pests (yes, we’re looking at you squirrels).
More importantly, it has an integrated camera (with night vision!) that links to an app on your phone, so you can keep watch on your feathered friends – it will also send you real-time alerts when you get a new visitor. Even better, the app has integrated AI that can recognise over 6,000 bird species so you’ll never be left Googling your latest arrival again.
Casual bird watching just got a lot more fun. But how easy is this to set up, does it actually recognise the local wildlife and is it just a gimmick. We asked GH Kitchen Manager and garden owner, Linzi Pucino, to hook it up and tell us what she thought (spoiler: she won’t stop sending us video clips of robins on the Teams chat). Read on for her review and everything you need to know about this very wholesome gadget.
The Birdfy Smart Bird Feeder: What you need to know
The Birdfy Smart Bird Feeder is made of metal so it's chew- and weather-proof, and it has a built-in sensor that detects motion and triggers the camera to start recording footage of your winged visitors (or that savvy squirrel).
The camera connects to an app on your phone via wifi to send you alerts so you can either watch live or stream the video clips. And, on top of all that, AI integration means you can learn exactly what type of bird is eating your nuts (it recognises over 6,000 birds). Oh and there's even a night vision setting so you won't miss a thing.
However, if you do find you can't stop watching the live stream of blue tits stopping by for a midday snack, you can set how often you get the alerts on your phone.
There are a couple of drawbacks. First, you do need good wifi coverage in your garden (while Linzi didn't have any issues connecting, another member of the team couldn't get it to work properly, so if you have patchy service, it may not be for you).
Secondly, if you buy the £159.99 version (currently reduced to £135.99), you only have limited access to the AI features. You get live streaming, instant push notifications, 30-day rolling cloud storage (5GB permanent storage), motion detection, and a limited 10 daily AI recognitions with 20-second max videos. If you want AI Lifetime Free, then you need to buy the £179.99 version,
Our review of the Birdfy Smart Bird Feeder
By Linzi Pucino
‘As you age, it’s funny how bird-watching creeps up on you. And at the ripe old age of 36, I can confirm that it has well and truly got me. Gazing out of the window at our robins, blue tits, parakeets and even – on occasion – a wood pecker has become a favourite past-time of the Pucino gang (my five-year-old twins included)!
And the Birdfy smart feeder has changed the game for us; we’ve said bye-bye to wire feeders that the squirrels happily gnaw through and hello to this smart AI-driven tech that is teaching us about the local birdlife. After I volunteered to test it for our homes team, I couldn’t wait to get it set up – the instructions were really easy to follow and the wifi connected seamlessly (something that doesn’t happen often enough nowadays).
Within just 10mins or so, we were hooked up and admiring the clear picture streaming through to my phone. It comes with handy hooks so you can fix it to fences or trees (it also comes with screws, but DIY isn’t our strong point) and the app is really user-friendly - I was even able to set my husband up with an account so we can both see when Mr Robin visits!
We filled the feeder up with bird seeds (again, made easy with a slide and glide roof that allows you to pour the feed in) and tweaked the notification settings; I didn’t want an alert every time a spider crawled up the fencepost, but I absolutely wanted to know when a ‘Eurasion Great Tit’ or ‘European Robin’ came to say hello.
Alas, the squirrel figured it out within a couple of days, but we’ve since managed to distract him with some nuts on the other side of the garden. We’re not getting bored of it anytime soon and I’ve been happily sharing footage – both stills AND video – with the GH team (perhaps they’re getting bored of my bird talk...).
It’s also the first thing the kids ask about when they come home from school. Don’t worry, we’re still big fans of standing at the back door and watching the birds happily peck away, but we love learning about all the species that visit our garden and it’s always handy to know if that pesky squirrel has been nicking the birds' food again!’
Shop the Birdfy Smart Bird Feeder at Amazon
Alison is head of content for the Good Housekeeping Institute, responsible for product reviews across homes, beauty, wellness, family and food & drink. She lives by the William Morris quote that you should “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Alison has over 15 years' experience as a lifestyle editor and has written features on everything from misophonia to how to dress like Claudia on The Traitors. She has also interviewed everyone from Dame Joanna Lumley to the Kardashians.
In her spare time, you'll find her hanging out with Monty the cocker spaniel and refreshing the Sezane website every five seconds.
Linzi joins the Good Housekeeping team as Kitchen Manager, looking after the brand-new, state-of-the art test and demo kitchens based in the heart of Leicester Square. With over a decade of experience producing food content for leading brands, she’s won awards for her recipes, battled Christmas dinners in July, and spent a lot of time pondering the next big food trend (no more pistachio, please!) Originally from the North East of Scotland, she lives in West London with her Italian husband and twin daughters, feeding them a variety of haggis and ragu - depending on the mood!
