Customer Reviews

SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap - White

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Before buying this item I read through every single review several times, wanting to make sure this product would do exactly what I needed. I missed a very important detail that you should know about before purchasing:

Any cat can go out of this door. You can only choose which cats come into your home.

We have three cats, but only one is allowed outdoors. I mistakenly thought that after programming the one cat's chip into this door, only he would be allowed in and out. Turns out any of our cats can now go out, but only he can come back in. The concept is brilliant, but not what we needed, and I really wish we knew BEFORE we cut a hole in the side of the house.

After spending nearly $200 for the set-up I'm kind of at a loss what to do. My husband says that we can keep it locked during the day (the cat only goes out at night), then when we let him out we set the door to let him back in only (and only once, he wouldn't be able to leave again without getting us up). What a pain! Part of the reason we got the door was so that we didn't have to pay that close of attention to what he was up to. The only other thing I can think of is to pay another $150 for a second door on the other side and hope that it's far enough under the eaves not to get wet in a storm.

This product is really close to being AWESOME!, please fix this small but huge flaw.

love it! easy install and setup. it fit perfectly in the old hole cut for this door PetSafe Cat Flap. the old door worked well but my cats cracked the door almost in half fighting other cats.

this door is much higher quality plastic and should last much longer. the only minor problem we have had with it is one of our cats is a little skiddish and took a couple days and some encouragement to get used to the click noise it makes when it unlocks. but now he is used to it and actually waits for the click before he opens the door.

Also make sure you get the new version (mark 5) with the draft guard. the old version (mark 4) lets in a small draft. I received the mark 4 version and I emailed sureflap and they sent me a upgrade kit free the next day!

Update: Installed the new mark 5 door today. very nice upgrade. the lock is a lot quieter and much softer noise also the door is claw proof and the draft guard is working good. its currently 24 degrees outside and I can only feel a slight draft near the top (my front door is much worse). I am very satisfied customer. Everyone at work is sick of me talking about my awesome new cat door.

We had a neighborhood cat coming in and eating all our cat's food and spraying urine everywhere. I filmed it doing this and tried to scare it away, but it came right back the next night. We were going away on a winter vacation for three weeks and I needed to be able to let our cat in to keep warm and eat, while a neighbor checked the food bowl every few days.

I bought the Sureflap and it worked with our cat's microchip (inserted at the shelter before we got him). We had a huge cat door previously, so the hole in the door was too big for the Sureflap. We got a local carpenter to fit the cat door and cover up the previous hole.

We couldn't use a magnetic or infrared cat flap because we have fences round the property and the cat loses his collar each time he jumps over the fence. We had to be sure he would be able to get in at all times. It is such a relief to know that our cat is the only animal coming into the house when we are out. It is reliable (no problems and we've had it for two months). I am so pleased. It is well worth the money.

I bought this to keep out raccoon. He got past it in seconds. I believe he used claws to reach in and pull the door outward (because the electronic lock does not prevent door from swinging outward). I am now buying a Cat Mate Elite which is guaranteed raccoon proof. Unfortunately the cats will have to wear tags; it doesn't work on microchip. I don't know why these two features can't be combined.

Worked well for 3 months then suddenly stopped functioning.
Changed batteries - Didn't fix problem.
Tried "Factory reset" by holding down button for over 10 seconds but even the reset function wouldn't work.

Manual says there is a "two year guarantee" but there is no contact information in the manual.
I couldn't find a phone number on their website either.
I had to call Amazon to get a phone number.

1. Called SureFlap and couldn't speak to a technical person. I was told they would call back within 24 hours. They never called.
2. Called again and was told they would call back before the end of the day. They never called.
3. Called again and they said that it sounds like the unit will need to be replaced but she has to refer the case to "corporate" in order to do that. Of course they said they would call back and they never did. Why does "corporate" need to get involved in a simple product replacement anyhow?
4. Called again and was told to call a different number for customer service! At that number a recording tells me to leave phone number and I will get a call back. Of course there was no call back.
5. Repeated #4 above.

Finally I called Amazon and explained that I was getting the run-around by SureFlap.
She said (In good American English for a change.) that she can do the exchange for me since it was a product fulfilled by Amazon. The new one works fine and Amazon even provided a shipping label for the defective one. I would never buy another product from SureFlap if it wasn't for Amazon!

Update 06-26-11: The replacement cat flap works very well and I noticed that the sharp clicking sound made when the microchip activates the latch has been made noticeable quieter. The sound tended to make the cats shy away from using the flap.

Update 09-20-11: Just bought and installed a 2nd SureFlap Microchip Cat Flap. Installation in my very old doors is a lot of work but it is working good. I never would have bought another if it were not for Amazon because SureFlap customer service was so bad when the 1st one stopped working. What's wrong with these corporations? Don't they know that good customer service leads to more customers and profit?

Ok the thing works with no issues as far as the reading of the chip is concerned. The chips on my cats are in the shoulder area and it has no problems reading them from a distance as I put their heads in to set the reader memory. The chips were put in about 5 years ago so no issue there either. I made one mistake and had to put each cat through a second time as I erased the memory by mistake holding the button down for more then 10 seconds. Our door is in the cellar and we can't see what is going on so I had to make sure it was working for all 3 cats before I installed it in our wall. As you will see below this set up an issue that is mentioned in the documentation. Don't scare your cat while setting up the reader, I did forcing their heads into the door.

The issue we are having right now is the length of time it has been since getting the door and installing it that we haven't tried to turn it on. The cats were so put off by the scanning procedure, my fault, that none of them would go through the door even with it turned off. It's been 3 weeks now and the last cat has finally started using it as of yesterday. We still haven't turned it on yet and the neighborhood cat that is spraying in our house is still coming in. We live in Maine and we don't dare to turn it on yet as we are afraid that our cats will not use the door to come back in during the night and it gets very cold here (winter time still). Actually we're afraid that they will not use it at all again. Our cats are amazingly stubborn when something puts them off and they would literally stay out all night freezing to death rather then use the door.

The snapping noise that the door makes is loud and the cats would pull their heads out every time it went off while we tried to train them once it got put in the wall. So now we want to wait at least till spring to make sure they have the use of this door firmly ingrained into their little pea brains. The only way we finally got them to use it at all was by forcing them to stay in after trying for a couple of weeks the other way around. One cat did it the next day the next took 2 days and the last one took a week before she would go through it and back. So we have 3 cats with very different personalities and sexes (2 female 1 male) who all said no way when the door was on and took some real effort to get them to use it even when it was off.

I think if we had tried a different method like putting something to block the beam in the door so the reader would go on and just pass the door over them instead of sticking their heads in forcefully they might have started to use it sooner. The sound of the door opening still would have scared them so I also recommend not turning it on at first, also something mentioned in the documentation.

While the above issues sound like it has failed we have yet to really find out. We will see once it is turn on. They have something that works real well and is of heavy construction and should last a long time. As I haven't tried the door locked yet I can't say much about how it will stand up to a cat or any other animal trying to force the door open. We have racoons, skunks and possums also running around who might give the door a nice workout.

Well anyway if I remember after finally getting the door turned back on I hope to come back to give an update on it's usage after the door is locked and using the reader.

I love this SUREFLAP Microchip cat Flap!!! It has made our life with cats a breeze! No More RACOONS! I have a backyard and 2 cats that go in and out at will. Because i despise litter boxes, I trained my kitties to go outside and unlike dogs you never step in or even see their poop. We used to have a cat door with a rubber flap . It had a wood panel that would slide inside it. My cats could not come and go with that so i tended to leave it free all the time. We developed quite a RACOON problem. As soon as it was dark, they would walk in many a night quite brazenly and eat the cat food and make a mess of the water bowl and floor. With SureFlap- we have NEVER had a racoon inside our house again! Problem solved! I considered a pet door with the collars but one of my cats would always work her collar off. Since both my kitties came from the Humane Society, they came with chips in their neck. No other cats can come inside with this door. I put the SureFlap in my wall which required buying the extenders to the tube. I checked out putting it in the slider but that would have required hiring a glaser and seemed more expensive. One persons review here recommends NOT shoving your cats head thru the flap. That's a good point. So I first taped the new pet door open and placed some food on the inside. Eventually coaxing them in and voila , the sureflap learned my kitties chip codes. Then finally they learned to go through it with the flap down. The racoons used to try to come through... i could see their little muddy prints on the outside. I think they finally gave up! ( I have never written a review of anything before but this is a fabulous product).

Update: July 27, 2011:
Operation became intermittent as new NiMh batteries aged. Works fine with alkalines. I've suggested SureFlap simply say it won't work with NiMh, rather than that they are "not recommended". I hope they will redesign the electronics to work with the lower NiMh voltage, which I assume is the problem. Many devices accept both alkaline and NiMh batteries. It's the green thing to do, after all. Maybe I will try the rechargeable alkalines they suggest, in the mean time.//

Original Review:
My four cats, 11, 14, 17, and 19 pounds, respectively, are nearing two months using this cat flap. The five of us could hardly be happier with it! We had a neighborhood tom using our old Johnson Pet Door at will, spraying urine around, eating our cat food, and causing a lot of angst for us all. No more! The tom sits outside, sometimes, but simply can't get in. And, I have every hope that the occasional racoons that used-to trespass are also things of the past.

The door is sturdy and elegantly designed in its simplicity. One button for setup and one LED light mainly to signal when the batteries are low. Yes, batteries to replace, but therefore no other electrical installation needed. The four rechargeable Eneloop AAs I'm using have lasted two months so far. Power consumption is minimized, because the mechanism optically senses a cat entering the tunnel and that triggers the radio exchange. Very cool.

The manual suggests testing if it will work with your cat's chips before you install it. For me, that just meant gently lowering it over each cat's head, in approximately the orientation as when a cat uses it for entry. It learned all four chips without a problem, making it already programmed before installation.

The frame's integral short "tunnel", which is where its radio antenna coil is located, incidentally, slipped snugly inside the wall tunnel I made originally for the Jonson door. The flap and works mechanism ("inside frame") are located inside the house, so you can use any sort of tunnel to the outside. You need not buy the optional spacers SureFlap offers, if you are at all handy. I screwed my inside frame to molding around my tunnel on the inside wall of the house, by drilling-througth the flap's four holes that accept screws from the outside trim frame, which I am not using.

My first reaction to the flap was that it has a much smaller area than the Johnson door the cats were accustomed-to, and that, at-least for the two bigger cats, it might simply be too small for them to fit through. I was quite worried. Happily, though, the seventeen and nineteen pounders have no trouble with the door in either direction.

The frame and flap, though sturdy, are plastic and the clear flap will probably get scratched over time, to the point where it won't be easy for the cats to see who is outside before they exit. And, grit has already gotten-into the otherwise very clever four-way manual twist-lock mechanism. But cleaning that is keeping it operable, and wiping the rest of the frame and flap clean is easy. And the flap is replaceable. Air entry through the thin boarder between the flap and frame is minimal compared to the old bi-directional flip-flop rubber flap that only slowly returned to shape in winter. This flap is rigid, so the air entry gap is a fixed (small) size. Also, I infer that a newer model of SureFlap has some-sort-of weather stripping.

But what peace-of-mind our multi-species household now has! Writing a review like this is an arduous chore, to me, but the ones most other's write are amazingly helpful, so I feel obliged to contribute, now and then, especially when a product deserves kudos as this one does. The SureFlap people have done a fine job developing this product. It is a winner. You almost certainly will be delighted with it.

Fantastic cat door!

This is the be-all and end-all of cat doors. It does exactly what it says it will do, and more. FYI, give your cat the chance to get used to the process because upon its return into the house, it sort of needs to pause and wait for the itty bitty click sound. Not a big deal, my cat has figured it out and been using it for the past week, several times a day. I love this cat door because I do not need to put a heavy magnet on my cat's neck in order for the door to recognize her.

And, I don't know if your cat is as smart as mine, but she figured out how to maneuver the "lock" on the previous cat door - but on this one, she would need opposable thumbs to be able to perform the same feat.

A great purchase!

We wanted to keep one cat out and give another free reign to come and go as she liked. I've looked into other cat door solutions, but was unconvinced they would be effective and reliable.

Using the microchip as a means of electronic identification struck me as ingenious and obvious. I suspect all the vendors will adopt this solution.

So we purchased this unit and micro-chipped one cat and not the other. (The cost of the microchip was about fifty bucks.) The unit "learned" her microchip code readily, once I followed the simple instructions. Worked flawlessly from the beginning, and still does, a month later.

But the opening is rather small for our cat, a Maine Coon. Our previous cat door was larger and the flap was a flexible vinyl. She didn't hesitate to use it. I had to help/force her (kindly) to learn this new, smaller, rigid plastic door, because she wasn't learning on her own. She uses it readily now, but looks clumsy going through it, because the size restricts her free movement somewhat. So keep that in mind when considering this unit.

By the way, if you are replacing an existing cat door and the opening is larger or sized differently than what is required for this unit, thereby leaving an unsightly gap, consider their circular "Cat Flap Mounting Adaptor" as a way to attractively cover up the larger whole. Worked quite well for me.