Feedback

[tannerln7]

Feedback

Have you set up—or attempted to set up—Petlibro Local with your PLAF203? Please share your experience here, including successful installations.

Let us know:

• What worked well
• What failed or was confusing
• Where you stopped if you did not finish
• What would make installation or everyday use easier
• Any features or documentation improvements you would like to see

Even brief feedback helps make the project safer and easier for future users.

[angrycatmeowmeow]

PLAF203 on 3.1.48, HA 2026.9.4, mosquitto addon, Ubuntu 24.04 laptop.

Claude walked me through the install, although I probably could've got it done without that. The language in the guide is pretty techincal and over my head, but as long as you follow the instructions you'll be ok. Couple errors in the logs but everything is working. I can view the camera stream in HA via go2rtc and it's piped into Frigate as well. Now that Frigate can handle the video I will turn off all the record to SD options as it's redundant for a cat feeder. Edit: actually got some issues with frigate #1 (comment)

I think the most confusing part for me was the wait while you input the credentials into the addon and start it. Didn't realize I was supposed to press enter in the terminal to let it know it was ready. I was also uncertain which MQTT credentials went where, but using the MQTT username/pw I created (not the one the installer creates) in the addon config worked. The feeder needed to be rebooted to be fully functional.

I haven't tested much aside from the camera and a manual feed so far, but everything looks to be good. This is an awesome project, thank you. I happended to stumble upon it while researching ESP32 projects for my Petkit Fresh Element Infinity and this PLAF203. Unfortunately neither of them seem readily adaptable to ESPHome.

2026-09-30 15:13:51.258163 INFO plaf203_redacted: [INFO] [petlibro.camera]: camera runtime status is not available; publishing offline
2026-09-30 15:25:17.266218 WARNING plaf203_redacted: [WARNING] [petlibro.mqtt]: unknown or unhandled MQTT command channel=event command=ERROR_EVENT
2026-09-30 15:25:17.274841 WARNING plaf203_redacted: [WARNING] [petlibro.mqtt]: unknown or unhandled MQTT command channel=event command=DETECTION_EVENT
2026-09-30 15:25:17.470888 WARNING plaf203_redacted: [WARNING] [petlibro.mqtt]: unknown or unhandled MQTT command channel=event command=DETECTION_EVENT
2026-09-30 15:37:01.605839 WARNING plaf203_redacted: [WARNING] [petlibro.mqtt]: unknown or unhandled MQTT command channel=event command=ERROR_EVENT
11:39:22.029 WRN petlibro: startup attempt 1 failed: petlibro: probe timeout

Things I don't understand or I failed to see in the docs:

• Maybe a silly question, but I assume the device can be blocked from internet now as it's completely cut off from Petlibro?
• Do the feeding schedules already set persist after the modified firmware is flashed? I assume the recommended method after installing this is to create your own feeding schedule via HA automations?