[tedchs]

This is a clever hack. However, if the intent is serious use, I'd be concerned about resiliency. It sounds like the schedule is maintained in Home Assistant, and that it sends a command to the ESP8266 to dispense food. That means a ton of moving parts have to all be working, otherwise the cat doesn't eat: Home Assistant's server and power source, Wi-Fi, and the $1 microcontroller.

If this is intended for serious usage, i.e. the cat won't eat if it fails to dispense, a different design would be more resilient: maybe still define the schedule in Home Assistant or another control plane, but then have it "push" the whole schedule to the device. The device will also need time sync and a realtime clock. Then, the device manages its scheduled dispensation autonomously, even if the network or control plane are unavailable. And, the dispenser should have a little battery so it can run for a couple days with the power out.

[paradox460]

Hi, post author here ESPhome timers are actually local to the ESP device. They just depend on a time signal for timekeeping. For now, the time is sent by HomeAssistant, but I could stick an RTC or GPS timesource on the ESP,and have it run 100% locally.

But since this is mostly supplemental food for dental concerns, and he still gets two bowls of wet every day, its not really an issue