In the world of electronic cat doors, there two features that are hard to come by; raccoon proofing and getting rid of the need for collar keys. SureFlap has accomplished both of these goals.

First and foremost, making a raccoon proof cat door is difficult. Most electronic doors only lock in one direction: any animal can go out of the house, but only animals with collars are supposed to come in. The way they accomplish this is by having a pin that pops up inside the flap. If a stray or a wild animal pushes on the flap from the outside, it hits the pin and won't open. This works pretty well, until you run into raccoons. These wily critters can and do figure out that by pulling the flap out, they can defeat the lock and get into a house. The SureFlap door solves this problem by having locking pins on both sides of the flap. This means that the door needs to unlock to move in either direction, defeating the raccoons "pull it open" strategy.

Secondly, cats tend not to like collars, and collars can be dangerous. If your cat likes to climb trees, the possibility of the cat getting hung in a tree by its collar is a real one, which is why almost all cat collars these days are "breakaway" collars that will unlatch if enough pressure is put on them. Breakaway collars are safer for the cats and we appreciate the value in them, but when you have an electronic cat door, this means that any time the collar breaks away the cat can't get back into your house. SureFlap solved this problem by making an electronic door that is sensitive enough to work with the common RFID chips that are implanted by veterinarians for ID purposes.

If there is one shortcoming to the SureFlap pet door, it is that it isn't as weather tight as some of the better non-electronic cat doors.

With both problems solved, high build quality, and good reliability, we really do like the SureFlap electronic cat doors best. As of this time, SureFlap does not manufacture panel pet doors or pet doors for sash windows. There are available products which use the SureFlap door in an extremely weather tight panel with dual pane, low e glass. This is wasted effort, as the pet door itself can't really keep up with the rest of the panel's insulation.

Instead we suggest that you use the SureFlap DualScan cat door in an Ideal Fast Fit panel for a sliding glass door, or an Ideal Fast Sash window cat door. If you start with the Cat Flap size on either Ideal Product, the SureFlap will swap right in. The Fast Fit and Fast Sash are similar in terms of weather proofing, and quite a bit less expensive than the other options on the market. You can save hundreds of dollars putting these two products together yourself, which is as simple as changing out a total of 6 screws to complete the swap.