When my household was just myself and my gray tabby Charlie, a basic water bowl and food bowl was all she (well, me really) needed. But after adopting Katniss, my black and white tuxedo kitty, our daily routines completely changed. I had to worry about Charlie stealing food from her sister, and I had to give her a separate water bowl because she doesn’t like it when Katniss’ hair gets in the water. But they’ve been sharing the Eversweet 3 Smart Pet Drinking Fountain from Petkit for about two months now, even if they don’t use it at the same time. My cats are slowly becoming the most spoiled, high-tech pets in the neighborhood.
I’m sure many pet owners can attest to routinely looking for a better water bowl solution to whatever they currently have. There’s a lot of plastic automatic fountains on the market, but many of them come with problems: They’re too noisy, the black charcoal particles leak into the water, or they’re a pain in the butt to clean. The Eversweet 3 fountain not only solves all of those problems, but its unique design also gets Katniss’ hair out of the water, and I only have to fill it up about once a week.
Instead of a water reservoir that sends water down into a bowl, a tiny motor at the bottom of the Eversweet 3 fountain propels it upward onto a flat dish. It spills over into a metal basin that filters the water back into the reservoir and traps all the cat hair. (Don’t worry, a quick rinse under the tap gets rid of all the hair stuck to the filter.) The fountain has two modes, “regular” and “smart,” the smart mode being the setting that helps get rid of pet hair in the water the best.
The entire reservoir, basin, etc. lifts off a separate plate that powers the motor. You can run the Eversweet 3 on five AAA batteries, which can last anywhere from a week to two weeks. But the fountain is meant to run on power from your outlet if you want to keep the water constantly flowing. (Battery power will only activate the pump for a few seconds every several minutes.) A USB cable is included, but you will need to get USB wall plug.
Did I mention that this thing is dead quiet? You can’t hear the pump at all, only the water sloshing around the disc on top sometimes—although more often than not it’s actually one of my cats drinking from the fountain. You fill it up, plug it in, and that’s it. It just does its thing. (The buzzing you’ll hear in the video below is a combination of my PC and fridge.)
The “smart” part of Petkit’s Eversweet 3 Smart Pet Drinking Fountain, other than the button to switch between the two modes, comes in a few notifications. Several small LEDs on the side of the bottom plate will tell you when the reservoir is empty, when the filter needs to be changed, when the batteries are dead or dying, and when the fountain is running on AC power. It’s a super easy to understand system.
When the reservoir needs to be refilled, you just remove it from the base, lift the basin off, fill, and put everything back together. It’s a much more fluid process than, say, filling a traditional fountain with a pitcher or glass, or making sure the attached power cord doesn’t get in the way when you’re trying to fill the fountain in the kitchen sink. And like I mentioned before, it holds enough water to last a week with two cats using it.
The Eversweet 3 might seem a little on the pricey side ($60 currently on Amazon), but when you compare it to other plastic fountains like the $70 PetSafe Drinkwell or even the $100 Drinkwell 360 Stainless Steel fountain, you’re getting more features and a better design for $30-$40 less. Plus, the Eversweet 3's reservoir is stainless steel, and it keeps your pets’ water nice and cold for days. A replacement 5x filter pack is just $20, and the filter lasts a few months, too. This is one purrrrrrchase I don’t regret making. The pun I might regret, though.