Pros & Cons
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- Records 1080p video and 2MP stills
- Portrait lens captures close-up pictures
- App includes virtual bird book to save favorite clips
- Includes 30 days rolling and 5GB permanent cloud storage
- Mostly accurate species identification
- Available with solar power and lifetime subscription
- Multiple editions available to fit various budgets
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- Picture quality falls shy of best in class
- Doesn't come with proper pole mount
The Birdfy Feeder 2 Pro ($299.99 with lifetime subscription) is a formal sequel to the Netvue Birdfy AI, one of the first smart bird feeders in a growing product category. The Feeder 2 Pro comes with a freshly designed app that makes it easy to sort through videos and pictures of birds and critters that stop in for a snack, improved video and picture quality from a fun dual-lens camera, and an all-new feeder design with smarter aesthetics. If you want a backyard bird feeder that captures each and every visitor, it is the best we’ve tried—but it’s not quite compelling enough to knock the Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro ($279) off its Editors’ Choice perch. The Bird Buddy retains our recommendation thanks to its smarter app, which filters out so-so pictures, its better camera, and its solar roof accessory.
Concept: Bird Feeder With Camera to Catch Every Visit
The Birdfy Feeder 2 Pro features an all-new camera and physical design compared with its predecessor, but conceptually follows suit. The Feeder 2 Pro's camera works like a security camera. It records a short video clip when it detects motion, pulls out a few still frames from the footage so it gets a picture too, and sends the video to its smartphone app. Birdfy’s approach is to catch every visit and use server-side AI to pick out photos and tag birds by species.
Philosophically, this approach to virtual bird watching catches every visitor, putting the onus on you to filter through clips and save your favorites in the companion app’s virtual bird book. It contrasts with Birdfy’s major competitor, Bird Buddy. The Bird Buddy camera system uses stricter server-side filtering, so it saves fewer visits, but consequently, there’s also far less chaff through which to sift. I think it’s a personal matter as to what you prefer; I see good arguments for both approaches. Some will prefer fewer notifications, while others will want to get an eyeball on each and every bird that stops by in the hope of finding a rare bird that’s strayed outside of its normal range.
Birdfy’s ecosystem is a bit more robust than Bird Buddy’s, though. A representative from Netvue, the company behind the Birdfy imprint, tells me that Netvue has shifted its focus from security cameras and baby monitors to go all-in on bird tech. Birdfy doesn’t just make seed feeders either; it also has a line of camera-equipped nesting boxes, hummingbird feeders, and a bird bath. All of its devices run through the same app, so if you want to spy on your backyard critters from one spot, Birdfy is the first brand to consider.
A full line of products makes Birdfy a more appealing option than generic, no-name feeders that are seemingly abundant on Amazon. Birdfy also has a more diverse product line than Bird Buddy, which only has a seed and hummingbird nectar feeder in its catalog. A Petal & Wonder Blocks macro camera setup for insects and butterflies is forthcoming.
Design: Easy to Fill and Clean
The Birdfy 2 Pro is an entirely different device from the first Birdfy Smart Feeder. It moves away from a blue-and-white enclosure in favor of a tasteful shade of green, not that far off in hue from what John Deere uses for its lawnmowers and tractors. Its 42-ounce (1.25L) seed hopper is transparent, so you can figure out when it’s time to refill with a quick glance.
The feeder itself measures 12.2 by 12.2 by 10.5 inches (HWD) and weighs about 2.2 pounds empty. It ships mostly assembled, but you’ll need to install the camera using the included thumb screw and figure out where and how to mount the feeder.
Birdfy includes a mounting bracket with the feeder, plus screws and anchors to secure it into wood or concrete, hose clamps to secure it to a pole, and a strap with hook-and-loop fasteners that you can wrap around a tree. Curiously, there is no way to mount the feeder directly on top of a standard bird feeder pole, a design decision that feels like an oversight to me.
I ended up using the strap to attach the feeder directly to a smaller dogwood tree in my yard with some cover to hide it from predators. It wasn’t quite my first choice; I first attempted to secure it to a larger magnolia tree, but the trunk proved to be too wide to accommodate the strap. Conversely, the included clamps were a little too big to fit securely on the feeder pole that I’ve used for some reviews. Both the Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro and FeatherSnap Scout include hardware to mount directly on top of the pole.
In addition to setting up the mounting hardware and bracket, you’ll need to attach the camera, which is basically a one-minute job. Thankfully, you can remove some of the plastic parts for easier cleaning. The seed tray cover and an internal piece that helps to keep debris out of the seed bin both pop off. Apart from the camera, the feeder is all plastic with no electronics, so it’s safe to wash out debris and old seeds in your kitchen sink. It’s good practice to bring your feeder in and clean it thoroughly with soap and water a couple of times a month.
Filling the feeder is also a simple matter. The lid opens up so you can pour seed directly into the feeder from the top. I typically grab a two-quart pitcher and just pour the food into the top. The strap mount makes my feeder hang forward at a downward angle, so I grab the feeder by the perch to tilt it back as I pour in the seed. Any way you look at it, the Birdfy 2 is far easier to fill than the Bird Buddy, which has a small triangular door low on its rear side that’s simply hard to access.
Configurations and Plans: Standard, Pro, or Duo
I'm focusing this review on the Pro configuration, but there are three versions of the feeder: Standard, Pro, and Duo. The Standard version costs $239.99 and includes a Birdfy 2 camera with a single lens. The Standard edition does not include a lifetime subscription for the AI bird recognition feature, so budget for one separately.
A Lifetime subscription costs $69.99 separately, or you can opt for a $4.99 monthly option. The latter is enough money that it makes more sense to buy the Pro to start with if you care about the species identification feature. The feeder works without a subscription, but it won't tell you what species of bird is visiting.
The Birdfy 2 Pro includes the Pro camera instead of the Standard camera, ships with a solar panel, and is available without a lifetime subscription for $279.99 or with one for $299.99. The Pro camera has the same main lens as the regular edition, but also comes with a second short telephoto lens to catch a close-up look of birds. The second lens pans left and right to cover the entire perch. I think that the second lens, included subscription, and bundled solar panel make the Pro worth its extra cost over the basic configuration.
Finally, there’s the Duo. The Duo includes both a Pro and a Standard camera, the idea being that you put the Pro camera in the center, and mount the Standard off to one side to catch birds from a profile angle. You get a separate set of notifications for these visits in the app, which can be overwhelming, but gives you some freedom in where you place the second camera. The side view can be fun, but you may prefer to use it to monitor a favored perch, for instance. I set up my extra Birdfy cam near a groundhog den and got some fun footage of juveniles as they popped their heads out of the hole to explore the world. Both the Standard and Pro cameras have a standard 1/4-inch-20 tripod thread, so they are easy to mount. The Duo ships with one solar panel and a lifetime subscription to the app for $429.99.
Each version of the feeder includes 30 days of rolling cloud storage for footage, plus 5GB of storage for saved clips and photos that never expires. If you want more space for your virtual bird book, you can either upgrade to the Basic Plan ($1.99/month, $19.90/year, 20GB), Plus Plan ($3.99/month, $39.90/year, 80GB), or Pro Plan ($5.99/month, $59.90/year, 200GB). Of course, you can always save videos and images locally; the app lets you add clips to your phone's camera roll.
Take all of the suggested retail prices with a grain of salt, however, as smart feeders go on sale regularly. At press time, the Duo is marked down to $329.99, and the standard and Pro are also marked down.
Both versions of the Birdfy camera are fully weather-sealed to IP66 standards and suitable for outdoor use in all kinds of weather. I tested the feeder for about two months during late spring, and the cameras are still chugging along, even after extended periods of rainy weather and a few intense thunderstorms.
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Birdfy bundles an external solar panel with a permanently affixed USB-C cord to keep the camera running continuously. I got weeks of power out of the camera with the panel attached, and expect that figure could extend to months as even after a week of rainy, overcast weather my camera had more than 80% battery life, and it stayed over 90% during stretches of sunny weather, even with frequent bird activity.
That said, I know from experience that the affixed USB-C cable is a weak point. I’ve lost a couple of these panels to chewed or frayed cords, so you should definitely expect to replace them at some point down the line. Small solar panels aren’t that expensive; expect to spend $20 to $30 to replace one. The Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro goes a different route and builds its solar panel into an accessory roof with a cable that is far less exposed to the elements.
Even without the panel attached, the battery life is fantastic. I tested the Duo version of the feeder with the Pro camera powered by solar and its Standard camera running just off battery, and got about three weeks of use out of the standard before I had to bring it in to charge. This is one area where the Birdfy 2 trounces the Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro. I usually have to charge the Bird Buddy every ten days or so, even with its solar roof installed.
The Birdfy App: One App for All Your Feeders
To set up the Birdfy camera, you’ll need to grab the Birdfy app (available for Android and iOS). To get started, download the app, create an account, and follow the on-screen instructions to connect your camera. The app first prompts you to look for and scan a QR code printed on the back of the camera, and then to use the Birdfy camera itself to take a picture of a QR code displayed on your phone’s screen.
The Birdfy cam has a built-in speaker that lets you know how it’s doing. It’ll say things like "connecting to network" and "obtaining IP address" out loud to let you know it's working. The camera also updates its firmware to the newest version during setup. Both cameras are restricted to the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi spectrum, so make sure to connect them to the right part of your Wi-Fi network if you run different SSIDs for 2.4GHz and 5GHz channels.
When things work, the setup is a breeze. I had the Birdfy 2 Pro camera up and running in minutes. However, my first standard Birdfy 2 cam encountered a hiccup during its firmware update, and I couldn't get it to work no matter what. Birdfy sent a replacement camera for review, and I set it up without a problem. Both cameras stayed connected to my network without noticeable dropouts during two months of testing. I did have one instance where I had to manually reset both following a short internet service outage, but that was the only dropout of note during testing.
Once you've set up your feeder, you can explore the Birdfy app. The app has five main pages: Home, My Birds, Community, Discover, and Store. It also has a hamburger menu showing all of your connected feeders (My Devices). You can set it to send push notifications to your phone's screen when a bird visits.
I left notifications on during testing and was typically flooded with them, so you may want to turn them off. On the other hand, the feeder also notifies you when a squirrel stops by, and prompts you to sound its built-in siren and flash light to scare the cute little rodents away from their potentially stolen meal. My backyard squirrels are only occasionally annoyed by the siren, and don't seem to be bothered at all by the cayenne pepper I add to my seed mix, so I've just decided to feed them too.
Home shows all of your connected feeder cameras in one place. Click into any of them to either see a live view from the camera (with recording controls) or a calendar view of daily visit reports. Buttons at the top show recorded species, so it's easy to find your favorite birds or to find new ones to add to the My Birds page, which serves as a virtual bird book, sorted by species. My Birds saves pictures forever, not just for thirty days like the rolling calendar view.
Community lets you peek in on clips that other Birdfy owners have opted to share. Whenever you save a visit to your My Birds page, the app asks you if you'd like to share the video with the community, so it's entirely opt-in. If you'd like to learn more about birds, tap over to the Discover page, which includes educational articles on birds mixed in with news about new Birdfy releases and events. Finally, the Store page is just what you'd expect—it takes you to Birdfy's online storefront.
Species identification is something you have to pay for, either as part of your purchase or later as an add-on, so you're probably wondering just how accurate it is. During my two months of testing, the Birdfy correctly tagged all kinds of birds, including blue jays, chipping sparrows, house sparrows, northern cardinals, red-bellied woodpeckers, gray catbirds, downy woodpeckers, common starlings, brown headed cowbirds, and other suburban species. If you opt to take the camera off the feeder and try for other critters, you may have to give it some help; it wasn't able to identify juvenile groundhogs on its own, for instance, and typically guessed they were squirrels. I won't fault Birdfy on this, after all, it isn't a Marmotfy camera, and young groundhogs look different than adults.
The Birdfy usually gets them right, with an emphasis on usually. When it misses, it's typically because it caught a bird in a poor pose, only partially in frame, or with some motion blur from a slower shutter speed if the light is dim. These are the same problems I saw with Bird Buddy's species recognition; both brands get it right more than wrong.
Understand that the Birdfy platform is completely cloud-based, and local storage is not an option with the Birdfy 2 or Birdfy 2 Pro camera. Because of this, you'll want to make sure you have a healthy home internet plan, plus a Wi-Fi system that covers enough of the exterior of your home for the feeder to get a good signal. I use an Eero 6+ mesh system for my feeders, and I get good connectivity at around 100 feet from my house. On a typical day, the Birdfy 2 Pro camera uses about 2GB of upstream bandwidth and only a few hundred megabytes downstream.
Picture Quality: Upgraded, But Shy of Best in Class
The Birdfy 2 and 2 Pro cameras record 1080p video at around 20fps with a bit rate that varies; most of my saved clips came in at 2 to 4Mbps with the primary lens. Video pros will turn their noses at these specs, but they're decent enough to watch on your smartphone screen or share on social media. The angle of view is wide enough to see the entire perch and tall enough to catch a good view of larger birds like blue jays and mourning doves.
I put my feeder in a shady spot to give birds some cover from predators. But on sunny days, the shaded location makes for video with excellent color, but some smudginess and compression artifacts. On gray days, the colors are duller, and the video shows some grainy noise, but you'll still get a good view of birds. The camera has a night vision mode that kicks in after dark, though I didn't catch any nocturnal visitors feeding during my evaluation.
The Pro camera adds a Portrait lens to the mix. It has a tight angle of view to better show off detail in smaller birds, with video quality that's on par with the primary lens. It only catches a little bit of the perch at a time, but the lens pans left and right to scan for birds, and centers itself on a bird when it finds one. The Portrait lens is the Birdfy 2 Pro's neatest trick, and makes the Pro worth its extra cost versus the Standard version.
All and all, the Birdfy 2's camera system does a good job considering what it's meant to do. You won't see its videos in 4K on Planet Earth, but it's more than good enough to impress other members of your local birding club. I like the Pro camera's Portrait feature quite a bit, even though it can be hit or miss getting good poses. When it hits, the results are fantastic. Still, there's no question that the Nature Cam Pro that drives the Bird Buddy Smart Feeder Pro is a superior camera. The Bird Buddy cam catches clearer details, smoother motion, and uses a social media-friendly portrait orientation and a wide-angle lens to catch clear views of feeding birds.
The basic Birdfy 2 camera is an upgrade versus the original Netvue Birdfy, however. The first-generation feeder records footage at the same 1080p resolution, but with a choppier 15fps frame rate and lower encoding rate.
Final Thoughts
Birdfy Feeder 2 Pro
The Birdfy 2 Pro puts a cloud-connected camera into a backyard bird feeder, identifies visiting birds by species, and sends the pictures and videos to your phone. We especially like the Pro camera's Portrait lens, which captures birds with a closer view than other smart feeders.