PetSafe Electronic SmartDoor - Automatic Pet Door for Dogs & Cats, Collar Activated - Fits Small to Large Pets - Perfect for Indoor/Outdoor Access & Home Security

This is gonna be a long read. So grab a frosty beverage and some popcorn and hold on tight. Or scroll past because this won't be particularly witty but it'll at least be informative. I'll try to throw some levity in for good measure, though.So, I really wanted to like this. No, I wanted to LOVE this. It's basically the only "security"-minded dog door on the market that's easy to install and readily available. So, I'll lead with the good stuff: the Pros.Pros:- It technically works. Well, it *technically* works TOO well, in fact. More on that later.- It was fairly easy to install.- It looks about as good as you can expect a giant, beige, plastic dog door to look. But it won't win any style points and you won't see it at the Consumer Electronics Show or Paris Fashion Week.And now is where I get in the real meat-'n'-potatoes: the Cons. I'll break them down into subcategories for ya so you can more easily digest the dumpster fire I'm about to throw your way.Cons, Part 1: Superficial Things That Make Me Look Like a Primadonna1. The SmartKey tag for your dog's collar is enormous for what it is and does. It's meant to hold a battery akin to watch battery and contain the RF transmitter, but the thing is way too big. It looks like a plug for a large ice chest. It's klunky, looks stupid on my dogs collar, makes lots of noise despite my best efforts to silence it with velcro instead of a typical metal ring. Overall, it's like the design of this piece of the kit was a complete afterthought. Billy in "Design" was like, "Oh, shoot, guys! We completely forgot how the dogs are supposed to open this thing! What should we do?" And his boss was like, "Who cares? It's just a dog." Send 'em back to the drawing board because it just sucks.2. It's loud. When it "unlocks" it makes a fairly loud "Pop!" Like, we can hear it from literally every room in our 1300 sqf home covering two floors. It even wakes us up in the middle of the night. (More on this later, too.) This is good and bad, sorta - but really, it's all bad because the door just doesn't work as intended.3. It comes in two sizes: Teacup Chihuahua and Pygmy Horse / Great Dane. Yes, small and large. That's it. There is no medium size for those of us with medium-sized dogs. You know, like the VAST majority of dog owners. The small is so tiny don't even think about anything bigger than a small Jack Russel getting through. So we had to go with the large for our 44-pound dog that's only about 18" high at his shoulder. But that's not all! Because this door is just so suitable for larger quadrupeds, medium-build adult males can also fit through the dog door with no problem. That couldn't possibly be a security risk. No way! But huzzah! What an unexpected treat to allow most of the adult male population access to our home! Also, more on this later.Cons, Part 2: Radio Frequencies and the Physics-Defying Dog Door.1. The door doesn't work as advertised. At all. So here's the deal. The door is supposed to have variable sensitivity. Not sensitive at all means the dog is, in theory, directly in front of the door before it pops open. Medium sensitivity means he/she is like, oh, some arbitrary distance the manufacturer states. For fun, let's say it's 5 feet away. Then at high sensitivity, the dog can be up to 15 feet away or something. Again, the number seems arbitrary and makes no sense. It's like that show "Whose Line Is It Anyway" hosted by Drew Carrey were "the rules are made up and the points don't matter."So when you initially set it up, the instructions make you go through this sorta ridiculous process of putting your dog's collar on your leg then pushing a couple of buttons on the door then adjusting this silly little sensitivity dial then walking by the door to make sure the door unlocks. Honestly, you'll look like a total fool when you're doing this. Just make sure nobody's around. At any rate, I do all this. Follow the directions to the "T". All seems great. I put the collar on my dog with the supposedly perfect sensitivity level and the thing doesn't work. I had it set so it would Pop! and unlock with doggo about 5 feet away. Now, on Trial #1, he's standing right in front of the door and pushing his head against it and nothing. Finally after 4 seconds the door decides to cooperate.I go through the process again. This time I figure it needs to be more sensitive to get past that weird little schism we just had. I'm giving this piece of junk the benefit of the doubt. This time it unlocks about the same place as last time. Success!? Hahahaha. No. Silly me. A broken clock is correct twice a day, right? Next time doggo tries to go out, it doesn't unlock at all. At all. Makes no sense.So I conduct an experiment to find out how screwed up this thing is. I go through the initial setup process again to set the sensitivity. I do it for three settings: lowest, medium, and most sensitive based on the silly little sensitivity dial. To keep things as scientific as possible, I hold doggo in "the staging area" at the base of the stair and call him to the dog door via the same route the the kitchen each time. I do this ten times for each sensitivity level and mark/measure where he is when the dog door Pops! So 30 times (I'm not joking - I really AM this determined) I did this. At the end of the 30th run on the highest sensitivity level where, presumably, the door should Pop! from as far away as possible, I noticed three things:a. No two successive tries at any sensitivity level yielded the same results. The first run it'd Pop! at 4 feet away. The next run it'd Pop! at 10 feet. The third time it'd Pop! only after doggo was sitting in front of the door for 2-4 seconds.b. There was not even a grouping for each sensitivity level that would indicate a rough distance that would correlate to the specific sensitivity level. All three sensitivity levels were seemingly random for when the dog door would decide to Pop!c. The distances and associated graphs for all three sensitivity levels could be interchangeable. All three were so randomized for the data showing when the door decided to Pop! that clearly the sensitivity dial is merely for show. The dial is a lie!2. Because the dog door clearly does what it wants, it's a good thing (I guess) that it's quite loud. It alerts my dog that he's free to pass through the flap during the many, MANY instances where he's standing in front of it and the door doesn't work. It's like some twisted Pavlovian trick that I'm putting my doggo through every time he has to pee or poop. Seems almost cruel...I can only imagine doggo thinking, "Will the door open? Will I be able to go outside to pee? Will I have to pee right here? I don't know!!" Keep in mind, this has happened since Day 1, so this isn't a battery issue. It's a cruddy product issue.3.Also because it's so loud, we can hear it when it opens on its own in the middle of the night. Yes. In the middle of the night. The same door that won't open when doggo is right in front of it somehow thinks it's appropriate to Pop! at 2 AM, then again at 5:30 AM. During these times, doggo is of course in bed. His bed is at a vectored distance of about 40 feet from the door. Vectored because his bed is upstairs in the northwest corner of the house whilst the door is downstairs in the southeast corner of the house. Also keep in mind that there's multiple plaster walls (I know...plaster is the WORST!) and a plaster ceiling and hardwood floors. I literally have a hard time getting WiFi signal to where his bed is when the wireless router is even closer than the dog door. That's not how physics and radio frequency propagation works. There's no way on this planet that his collar is activating it. And no, it's not their neighbors dog because they don't have dogs. This also happens during the day, again, when he's nowhere near the door. Over a 7-day period I counted the times the door spontaneously opened. It averaged 5 times per day. That's assuming we heard all of them. Which we probably have because it's so loud.This is problematic for three reasons:a. The whole point of this stupid door is to keep unwanted critters out and let out/in only those magical beasts with the Collar of Dreams. We have lots of nocturnal animals (raccoons and the link) in our neighborhood as well as a particularly amorous feral tomcat that has shown a Pepe Lepew-like affection for our female (inside only) cat. A door that pops open on its own is not a good thing to have in this scenario. Also, raccoons are creepy because they have human hands. And they're jerks because they go through our trash.b. It wakes us up in the middle of the night!c. Remember how medium-framed adult human males can fit through this thing because the manufacturer apparently decided we were too dumb to want options? Well, what a great way to break and enter! Well, really, it wouldn't be breaking and entering because the terrible dog door would just welcome them on in! Like I said earlier, not a security risk at all! /sSo I've done a lot of complaining here. And I think it's all pretty warranted. These guys have a corner on the market with this thing so it feels like they just kinda punted it and figured consumers have no other options, so they can totally turn out a garbage product. Does it work? Yeah, I guess so. Sorta. Which is why I gave it two stars in stead of one. But I would provide this feedback to anyone who was considering buying one. It's expensive and it won't work as advertised. Caveat emptor.If you've read this far, thanks! You're a trooper. Think twice about this purchase. Maybe just resign yourself to the fact that you'll have to take little Winston or Pepper or Spot out twice a day instead of cutting a giant hole in your back door for a dog door of marginal quality.There are pretty mixed reviews about this product so I'm going to try to clarify a few things. As other people have indicated, there are a couple different versions. The original version has a clear door with an extruded "range" knob whereas the newer version has a frosted door with a flush "sensitivity" knob. Some have complained about the older version. I received the newer version so can't comment with that respect. There are actually 3 different versions, though. Lowe's sells a version of this door which is "iris" compatible. This is a replica of the newer version of the door but can be distinguished by one additional "4th" blue LED as the leftmost indicator marked "link". I lucked out and got the "Lowe's" version of the door. As such, here is my review accordingly:This door is excellent. Some complain about range, intermittent ID recognition failure, magnet strength, binding, installation, etc., none of which I have noticed. If there is a range or recognition failure, it is probably caused by RF interference in the area. Mine works great and has not "forgotten" any of the 3 keys. After experimenting with a number of different pet doors, this is by far the best weatherized model I have had. It stops heavy winds and has no problems with binding or jamming. The rigid door makes a huge difference over the rubberized flaps. I ensured that the hole was square when I installed it, which is probably an issue for some. Correct installation is obviously a necessity. If the door is un-level or not squared appropriately, I can see a problem with binding. Mine is installed in an insulated steel door. Framing and mounting this through a wall would not be difficult, even without the tunneling kit sold separately. The doors frame is plastic so when the installation screws are installed, the door could easily skew if the hole, level, or square are incorrect. This would absolutely cause binding or jamming, as the door actually slides down into a channel to fully "lock" or secure. The door is pretty quiet, except for a rather loud "pop" when it lifts from the channel to unsecure. It scared the crap out of my Dingo for a few days but he got used to it quick. Now the two dogs and cat have learned that the "pop" means it's time to push. Yeah...if you didn't catch that...my 4lb. cat can easily open the large version of this door, but the wind does not stop it's reset. Now that the functionality is explained, I'll go into the Iris part.Just for entertainment, I got the matching "Iris" hub from Lowe's which is a Zigbee and Z-Wave radio home automation controller. Not only does this allow you to switch from "Automatic" "Locked" and "Unlocked" modes from a smartphone or PC (locally or remotely), it monitors which animal (based on the collar transmitter) exits or enters. You can look at the "activity log" in the Iris app or website and see which animal went "in through the door" or "out through the door" and when. This is a pretty cool feature which has a ton of practical application, even if you don't realize it at first. (ie. it's now pretty simple to see if the kids actually let the dogs out). I should note that, although it is annotated nowhere in the documentation, I have determined that the internal radio for this door is Zigbee, not Z-Wave. If you purchase it with the intent of using it with a Z-Wave controller, it will NOT work. Lowe's convolutes these systems with "Iris" by selling both Z-Wave and Zigbee devices and not bothering to tell you what product is which.There is a lot of room on the inside of the device also. I wanted to add an alarm sensor into the door and it was exceptionally easy to add a wireless reed switch based sensor inside the frame, using one of the built-in magnets as it's motivator. They should build this ability into the door, but it would require too many different versions for compatibility, as there isn't a single protocol for wireless alarm inter-compatibility. It was remarkably simple to add a Honeywell/Ademco 5800micra sensor.The door has now been running on a cheap set of 4 "D" batteries for 2-3 months and hasn't dropped a bar on the "Iris" battery monitor. I would speculate that the version without the Iris transceiver has even longer battery life.I have a 50lb Dingo, 75lb Siberian Husky, and 4lb Siamese cat. None have a problem operating this door. It is solidly constructed, albeit all plastic, and reliable. If you get the correct version, install it correctly, and aren't a complete and utter moron, I am confident (after my personal experiences) that you will be more than happy with the door. This door is well worth the $75, $100, or $229.00 (version dependent) that is spent on it. It looks clean and works great.The doors do work decent but they don't seem to last more than about 2 years. This is replacement door number 4 for me. It does make a "pop" noise when it unlocks but thats never bothered any of my dogs. As others have said, a good hard kick is all it would take to break in through it but if you kick in a dog door, expect to meet the dog. As with anything else, it has pros and cons.Pros...-Price... It's definitely inexpensive as far as electronic pet doors are concerned-customer service is good-it lets the dog in or out just fine without letting other animals in or outCons...-lasts about 2 years-lets in massive amounts of cold air in the winter (I live in Pennsylvania).-only set up for use with 4 "D" batteriesThings you might find helpful...-You CAN get creative with duct tape or other flexible tape and seal the drafts around the hinge. It's a bit of a pain to get right but it can be done.-You CAN buy a 6V power supply and either use alligator clips or solder and put power directly to the battery terminals on this thing so you don't have to change batteries every month or 2.The dog door is great. It keeps the cats in, roommates dogs out and my dogs are able to come and go as they please.It can take a second for it to unlock but my dogs just paw at it again and go through. They’re learning the “click” of it unlocking means they can go now. My dogs are 80 lbs and growing (Bernese/st Bernard and Bernese X Pyrenees) and fit through the smaller bottom part no problem. This door will easily fit them when they’re fully grown.The batteries in the dog tags are the downfall. They fall out very easily. The solution is simply putting some electrical tape around the tag to hold it on.In theory this should be a great product but in reality it isn't. It works great, until the batteries die, which is frequently. The proprietary batteries on the RFD the cat wears on it's collar are expensive compared to regular button batteries. That you have to put four D 1.5 volt cells in the door itself is also expensive. I was told that the batteries died because I had an active cat which used the door a lot. My cat is 14 and sleeps for about 23 hours day. It did the job of keeping raccoons out of my porch but also kept the cat inside a few times too when she needed a toilet break. There are simpler, less expensive products on the market which will do the job better. I'm sure this will work great for some people but do your research first to make sure it's right for you.We installed this in our back door. It was a bit of job but that’s to be expected. It worked great once installed. But. It’s a bit loud which didn’t appeal to my dogs at all. But the biggest issue was once winter set in. Our temps get cold and the frost and ice build up on the door was massive. Our dining room was freezing. We ultimately replaced the back door. In the past I’ve had dog doors in extreme climates and they came with covers that helped in winter. This is a sturdy product and will work great for some people but it’s not good for cold places.I've used this exact model for years. when it no longer worked I searched and found it again which was perfect so it only needed to be swapped out. great door. And it is cheaper than my original purchase price which was an added bonusNOTE: if your pet has high anxiety, timid, or is easily scared by loud noises then this may not be the door for your pet as it does snap fairly loud when it unlocks as it recognizes the collar chipmuy mala opción para un gato, tiene unos imanes que hacen que este demasiado fuerte para abrir, por otro lado ya en una ocasión se quedo atrapado el gato de su pata, de verdad no la recomiendo, lamentablemente tardamos en instalarla asi que se nos paso la fecha para regresarlo