The short answer: a smart pet device is two products, and the second one is an app with its own expiry rules. In Apple’s catalogue on October 20, 2026, the nine apps behind the biggest pet brands list minimum iOS versions from 11.0 to 18.0. PETLIBRO LITE sits at 11.0 and has not been updated since July 2023, Petlibro and Whisker ask for 15.6, My PetSafe for 16.4, and Furbo for 18.0. Apple’s compatibility lists put the iPhone 8 and iPhone X on iOS 16 and leave them off iOS 18, so the current Furbo app cannot be installed on either. The squeeze runs both ways, with Petcube owners on iOS 27 reporting crashes at launch and Whisker owners told that older circuit boards “don’t function correctly with the app.”

I opened the Furbo listing looking for the camera’s price and stopped at the line under Compatibility, which said iOS 18.0 or later. An hour later I had nine pet apps open in nine tabs, a spreadsheet of version numbers and dates, and a question I had never asked about any of the devices this site covers. Not whether the app is good. Whether the phone in your hand is still allowed to install it.

petiqlab earns a commission from the Amazon links on this page. Everything below comes from Apple’s public app catalogue and its device compatibility pages, from Google Play and Whisker’s own support site, and from dated App Store reviews and Trustpilot profiles, all read on October 20, 2026. Prices are list prices as of that date, and version numbers are what the listings print. petiqlab has not installed every one of these apps on an old phone, so where this article describes a failure it quotes the owner who hit it.

What does Apple’s catalogue print under each of the nine apps?

The short answer: Apple publishes the same fields the App Store page shows, and they can be read directly. Here is what nine listings returned today.

App	Brand	Minimum iOS	Version read	Last update	Ratings	Install size
PETLIBRO LITE	PETLIBRO	11.0	1.0.6	2023-07-14	2.78 (356)	173 MB
TP-Link Tapo	TP-Link	14.0	3.22.102	2026-10-11	4.82 (21,150)	861 MB
PETKIT	PETKIT	14.0	13.10.1	2026-09-08	4.59 (20,793)	721 MB
Sure Petcare	Sure Petcare	15.1	4.4.0	2026-10-05	4.39 (446)	57 MB
Petlibro	PETLIBRO	15.6	1.9.50	2026-10-19	4.46 (7,428)	250 MB
Whisker	Whisker	15.6	1.42.0	2026-09-29	4.83 (148,675)	183 MB
Petcube	Petcube	16.0	8.7.0	2026-10-01	3.66 (1,037)	411 MB
My PetSafe	PetSafe	16.4	1.56.0	2026-10-15	3.72 (781)	261 MB
Furbo	Furbo	18.0	7.85.0	2026-10-19	4.79 (5,571)	481 MB

Every row comes from the app’s own listing, including Petlibro, Furbo, Whisker and My PetSafe, read through Apple’s public catalogue in one sitting. Two things jump out of it. The first is the spread. Seven major iOS releases separate the lowest floor from the highest, and the app with the highest floor belongs to a camera that costs less than the litter box next to it in most shopping carts. The second is the update rhythm. Eight of the nine apps were rebuilt since September, PETLIBRO LITE was last touched three years ago, and the two apps that shipped most recently, Petlibro and Furbo, both landed on October 19.

Apple’s catalogue on October 20, 2026 lists nine pet apps with minimum iOS versions from 11.0 to 18.0. PETLIBRO LITE sits at 11.0, version 1.0.6, last updated July 14, 2023, with 2.78 stars across 356 ratings and a 173 MB install. TP-Link Tapo and PETKIT both ask for 14.0, at versions 3.22.102 and 13.10.1, with 4.82 stars across 21,150 ratings and 4.59 across 20,793. Sure Petcare asks for 15.1, Petlibro and Whisker 15.6, Petcube 16.0, My PetSafe 16.4 and Furbo 18.0 at version 7.85.0. Eight of the nine apps shipped a build since September 2026, and the two most recent, Petlibro and Furbo, both landed on October 19. Furbo’s app weighs 481 MB at 4.79 stars across 5,571 ratings, My PetSafe holds 3.72 across 781 ratings and a 261 MB install, and Tapo carries 861 MB with 4.82 stars across 21,150 ratings. The iOS 18 compatibility list names the iPhone XS, XS Max, XR and SE second generation as oldest members, and the iOS 16 list still names the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X.

A minimum version is not a compatibility note buried in a support article. It is the gate the store uses when you tap Get.

Why does the iPhone 8 ceiling matter more than the Furbo app’s iOS 18 floor?

Apple publishes which iPhones each release supports, and the two lists that matter here are short.

The iOS 18 compatibility list names the iPhone XS, XS Max, XR and SE (2nd generation) as its oldest members. The iOS 16 list still names the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X. Read them side by side and the arithmetic falls out. A phone that never receives iOS 18 cannot satisfy an app that asks for 18.0, and the Furbo app asks for exactly that.

So the current Furbo app leaves out every iPhone that stops at iOS 16 or earlier. That group runs from the iPhone 8 and iPhone X down to the iPhone 7 and the first-generation SE. Those are 2016 to 2017 phones, which is not ancient for a camera that sits on a shelf for five years. My PetSafe at 16.4 draws a different line. Any phone that cannot reach iOS 16 at all is outside it, including the iPhone 7 and anything older. Whisker and Petlibro at 15.6 are the most forgiving of the mainstream apps in this table, and even they exclude an iPhone 6, whose last release was iOS 12.

Apple states the rule plainly on the same page: “You’ll only see updates that are compatible with your current software version.” The app store applies a comparable filter to installs. A copy already on the phone tends to keep running, right up until a restore, a replacement handset or a family member inheriting the device forces a fresh install, and then the gate closes.

None of this appears on a product page. A feeder listing will tell you the hopper holds 24 cups and the kibble limit is 12 mm. It will not tell you which phones the app runs on, because the app is not part of the product as far as the product page is concerned.

Why is PETLIBRO still listing an app last updated in July 2023?

PETLIBRO ships two apps, and the listing says so in capital letters: “Petlibro and PETLIBRO Lite are two different apps. Make sure you download the correct one for your device.” The same Play listing adds a note aimed at anyone with a Granary feeder, telling them to scan the QR code on the product or the manual to work out which app they need.

The LITE app carries a minimum of iOS 11.0, which looks like generous support until you read the date beside it. Version 1.0.6 shipped on July 14, 2023. Its release note reads “1. Update app logo. 2. Fix some bugs.” It holds 2.78 stars across 356 ratings and weighs 173 MB. That combination, an old floor and a frozen build, describes an app that was left where it was rather than one that was kept alive for older hardware.

The main app is the opposite: 1.9.50, released October 19, 250 MB, 4.46 stars across 7,428 ratings. Its Play listing names the devices it serves, from the PLAF103 Granary through the PLAF109 Polar to the PLAF301 One RFID feeder, and closes the list with “And more…”

Two apps, one brand, two different support stories. The one that runs on the widest range of phones is the one nobody has touched in three years, and the brand’s own instructions are to scan a code to find out which one your feeder wants.

What happens when an app update arrives whether or not you asked?

The reviews say the same thing from six brands, in six accents, and they say it about updates rather than hardware.

A PetSafe owner in August 2026 wrote: “Probably shouldn’t need to update when I need to turn the feeder on while I am 300 miles away from the pets.” He added an update the same day, after the app began demanding an email address on the server, and ended with a plan: “I will buy a feeder that doesn’t use an app.”

A PETKIT owner in September 2026 described the same wall from the other side. “The old app version would not let me access my device even after manually re-adding it. Now the new version says ‘Network Error’ repeatedly even though I am on working wifi. I have no way to access the product I paid for.” His closing line is the sentence this article exists to explain: “It’s deeply disappointing when companies stop supporting older devices.”

A Petlibro owner in September 2026, on version 1.9.40: “Ever since this update came out my smart cat will no longer connect to Wi-Fi router or hotspot. Requesting immediate switch back to previous app version. No home and cats are not getting their meals.” Another, in October, on a firmware push: “After I did the firmware update it won’t connect to the internet no matter what I try.”

Whisker’s version of the story involves a part. A five-star reviewer wrote in August 2026: “Had to purchase a new circuit board, as apparently the older circuit boards don’t function correctly with the app.” Five stars, for a repair the app made necessary. A Litter-Robot 3 owner in June was less forgiving after a week of reinstall attempts: “There should be no reason this thing isn’t working. Unless the updates are pushing out the LR3 gen to force them to upgrade.”

Sure Petcare got there earlier. In May 2025 a reviewer wrote that a firmware update on the hub “completely ‘bricked’ it. Now dead, totally useless.” These are not six separate incidents so much as one pattern with six company names attached. This site has covered the machinery of it before, in firmware updates that broke four devices in a month.

Can a new iPhone on iOS 27 break an old Petcube app?

The floor excludes old phones. The roof has a matching problem, which is an app that stops working on a new one.

Petcube’s own listing carries a minimum of iOS 16.0 and was updated on October 1, 2026. Two reviews that arrived before and after that date describe the same failure. On September 19: “After getting a new phone with iOS 27, the application crashes on launch. The developer doesn’t seem to offer a support email, so I’m resorting to this to get their attention.” On October 2, shorter: “The app needs updating for the new iOS 27. Can’t open it.” A third review on October 11, rated four stars out of five, adds that the app has been crashing “ever since I’ve gotten the newest iPhone and update.”

Furbo’s reviews read like a maintenance diary rather than a compatibility file. One from July 2026: “App constantly loses its connection or freezes. It’s been getting worse over the past year and is just unusable now.” One from October 2026: “Camera itself is great. App has gone downhill since they added a huge AI chatbot on the homepage and let it write reports and notifications that don’t make any sense.”

The phone and the app are updated by different companies on different schedules, and the device sits between them. When the two drift apart, the hardware has no other way to accept instructions, which is the subject of this site’s earlier work on devices that only work through the cloud.

Why does Whisker ask you to download the app before anything else?

Whisker’s Litter-Robot 4 getting started page is arranged so the app comes before the machine. The instruction reads: “Download the Whisker app and follow the onboarding instructions.” The next lines hand over the App Store and Google Play badges. The rest of the page treats the control panel as a status display and a fallback: “Empty the waste drawer when indicated by the app or the flashing blue light on the control panel,” and “Press and release the Connect button to turn the WiFi ON or OFF.”

That is a working design. It is also a design in which the first ten minutes of ownership exist only inside an app, and in which an iPhone that cannot install that app is not a partial experience but a blocked one. Whisker’s app floor of 15.6 is friendlier than Furbo’s 18.0, and it still excludes anything that never received iOS 15.6.

The panel is thinner than it looks. For an earlier piece on device clocks and daylight saving this site read Whisker’s Feeder-Robot manual, which gives the panel four cups a day and the app eight, and notes that the 24-hour feeding period begins when the first meal is dispensed. The buttons are real. They are also a reduced version of the same machine.

Why does one product carry two rating pools, 4.83 and 3.3?

Reading the app rating next to the brand’s review profile produces one of the widest gaps on this site.

Brand	App Store rating (ratings)	Trustpilot rating (reviews)	Reply badge
Whisker	4.83 (148,675)	3.3 (614)	96% of negative reviews, within 1 week
Petlibro	4.46 (7,428)	3.3 (1,060)	74%, within 2 weeks
PETKIT	4.59 (20,793)	3.7 (345)	84%, within 1 week
PetSafe	3.72 (781)	2.1 (233)	none, unclaimed profile
Furbo	4.79 (5,571)	n/a (142)	has not replied to negative reviews
Petcube	3.66 (1,037)	3.2 (764)	has not replied to negative reviews
Sure Petcare	4.39 (446)	4.5 (3,970)	77%, within 48 hours

Whisker’s app has 148,675 ratings against 614 Trustpilot reviews, roughly 242 times the sample. Petlibro’s 1,060 Trustpilot reviews sit against 7,428 app ratings. Neither number lies. The app store prompt appears while someone is using the feature they like, and Trustpilot is where a person goes when a return has stalled. Sure Petcare is the one brand here where the Trustpilot score is higher than the app score, which is worth remembering before treating either figure as the verdict.

Whisker’s app holds 148,675 App Store ratings at 4.83 against 614 Trustpilot reviews at 3.3, roughly 242 times the sample. Petlibro holds 7,428 app ratings at 4.46 against 1,060 Trustpilot reviews at 3.3, and PETKIT holds 20,793 at 4.59 against 345 at 3.7 with 84% of negative reviews answered within a week. Sure Petcare is the one brand where Trustpilot scores higher: 4.5 across 3,970 reviews against 4.39 across 446 app ratings. Install size runs from 57 MB for Sure Petcare to 861 MB for Tapo, with Furbo at 481 MB and Petcube at 411 MB. The Tapo app alone takes about 5% of a 16 GB phone, which is the difference between installing and not on a hand-me-down handset. Sure Petcare weighs 57 MB, an app for a door, a feeder and a hub. PetSafe scores 2.1 across 233 reviews on an unclaimed profile with no reply badge, and Furbo carries 142 Trustpilot reviews with no replies to negative reviews.

This site has argued elsewhere that the star rating is the least informative field on a review page. The same applies to app ratings, with one addition. An app rating also hides the phone. Nobody writes “this works on my iPhone 12 but not on my father’s iPhone 8.”

How much of a 16 GB phone does the 861 MB Tapo app take?

Install size gets no attention at all, and it is the part of the app you cannot work around.

The Tapo app weighs 861 MB. PETKIT’s is 721 MB, Furbo’s 481 MB, Petcube’s 411 MB. At the small end sits Sure Petcare at 57 MB, an app for a door, a feeder and a hub. By this site’s arithmetic, the Tapo app alone takes about 5% of a 16 GB phone and about 1.3% of a 64 GB one, before the camera’s footage and the phone’s own photos are counted. On a hand-me-down phone with a full camera roll, that is the difference between installing and not.

Tablets are the other half of this. A PetSafe reviewer wrote in March 2026: “I wish I could put this on my iPad, but it’s not formatted it.” Another, in September: “We’ve been wrestling with this app for hours between my iPhone and my fiancé’s Samsung.” An app that is awkward across two phones in one household is a household problem, not a review-score problem.

Which six checks should you run before you pay?

The device spec sheet will not answer any of these. The app listing will.

1. Open the app’s store page and read the compatibility line, not the product page. Furbo says iOS 18.0. My PetSafe says 16.4. Those two numbers rule out phones from five and nine years ago respectively.
2. Find your phone’s own ceiling in Settings, under General and About. If the number there is lower than the app’s minimum, the device is not for that phone.
3. Look at the last update date. Eight of the nine apps here shipped a build since September 2026. PETLIBRO LITE has not shipped one since July 2023, and it is still listed.
4. Check whether the brand sells two apps for the same product line, and follow its own instruction about which one your model needs. Petlibro prints that warning in capitals.
5. Ask what the buttons on the device do without the phone. Whisker’s panel cycles the globe, toggles WiFi and shows fault lights. A feeder panel with no display holds nothing but a manual feed button.
6. Weigh the app against the phone’s free storage, especially on a tablet or a second-hand handset.

Add one more, outside the six. Buy from somewhere with a return window you can use. PetSafe lists 45 days on the Smart Feed, Whisker lists a 90-day in-home trial, and a device you cannot set up is a device you want to send back inside that window rather than argue about afterwards.

What if the app is the part you would rather not own?

There are two honest routes here, and this site sells one of them.

The first is a device with no app at all. Sure Petcare’s offline microchip feeder reads a cat’s chip, opens for that cat and stores 32 identities in its own memory with no account and no cloud. Its iOS app exists for the connected version, and one reviewer of that app reached the same conclusion this page is heading toward: “I recommend the non-smart version of the feeder because the app and the hub are the worst products I’ve ever dealt with.” That is a customer of the brand arguing for the version with no app in it. The feeder is ASIN B00O0UIPTY.

The second is an app with the lowest floor in this table and a job that does not depend on it. The TP-Link Tapo app asks for iOS 14.0, the joint-lowest of the maintained apps here, and the C210 camera records to a microSD card inside the camera rather than to a subscription. Its 861 MB is the heaviest install on the list, which is the trade. A big app in a general-purpose ecosystem, with local recording as the fallback. The camera is ASIN B095CLQ1PT, and this site’s full review of it covers the subscription question.

The third option is the one most readers will take, and it needs to be stated with its own numbers. The PetSafe Smart Feed at $134.99 is a good feeder with a 45-day return, and its app requires iOS 16.4, the second strictest floor in this table. Its brand profile on Trustpilot is 2.1 across 233 reviews on an unclaimed page with no reply badge. Buy it for the feeder and the return window, not for the software. The feeder is ASIN B07NR47N2Q.

PETLIBRO and Furbo devices are quoted in this article as evidence, and neither carries a link. This site rates the Furbo camera poorly on subscription grounds, and the PETLIBRO feeder line poorly on reliability, so recommending a phone to run their apps would be the wrong conclusion to draw from a page about app floors.

FAQ

Which pet app supports the oldest iPhones? PETLIBRO LITE at iOS 11.0 technically, followed by PETKIT and Tapo at 14.0, Sure Petcare at 15.1 and Petlibro and Whisker at 15.6. The 11.0 figure belongs to an app last updated in July 2023 with 2.78 stars across 356 ratings, so it is a low floor over a closed door rather than a promise of support.

Can a firmware update lock out a device I already own? Owners report exactly that. A PETKIT user in September 2026 could not reach his feeder through either the old or the new app build, and a Sure Petcare user in May 2025 said a hub firmware update left the device “dead, totally useless.” The app and the firmware are separate update tracks, and either one can move without the other.

Does a higher minimum iOS version mean a better app? No. Furbo’s 18.0 sits beside a 4.79 rating across 5,571 ratings, and Sure Petcare’s 15.1 sits beside a 4.39 across 446, while both sets of reviews include connection complaints. The floor describes when the app was rebuilt, not how well it runs.

Will my old phone keep working with an app it already has? Usually, until the copy has to be reinstalled. Restores, new handsets and hand-me-downs all end that. Whisker’s Litter-Robot 3 owners describe an app that stopped talking to the machine entirely, and one of them paid for a new circuit board to get the connection back.

What about the Android app? Google’s listing shows Petlibro updated on October 15, 2026, four days behind the iOS build, and prints the minimum Android version in the About this app panel rather than the page text. Check it on the phone you will actually use, and note the warning on the same listing that Petlibro and PETLIBRO Lite are two different apps.

Is there a pet device that needs no phone at all? Yes, and they are the ones this site tends to recommend when the app is the worry. The offline SureFeed microchip feeder stores 32 chip identities in its own memory, runs on four C cells for about six months and has no account layer. A guide to microchip feeders covers the trade-offs of giving up the app.