And around then, I noticed something strange: I couldn't smell any poop or pee! Sure, the Whisker app told me the waste bin was full, but you wouldn't know that while standing right in front of it. ![]() Within a week, all of my cats were onboard. After several hops in and out, he deemed it safe and left his first offering, which was promptly cycled into the waste bin. At that point, it was just a $699 monument to pet excess.Ī few days later, the bravest of the bunch - my 18-pound tuxedo cat named "Jiji" - finally jumped into the Litter Robot to explore. Upon seeing this new litter box move and make sounds (it's surprisingly quiet!), my three cats wouldn't go near it. Once the app was set, the Robot ran through a cleaning cycle and evenly sifted the remaining litter. Without that initial connectivity, it was no better than the $20 litter tray my cats use upstairs. But it definitely felt silly (and a bit enraging) to be manually cleaning this $699 litter box. So it goes with smart devices, you might say. A few hours of frustration later, I learned that Whisker was having a system-wide issue and I had to wait a few days for the company to deliver a fix. Without being paired to the app, the Robot wouldn't self-clean at all. The inner portion where the litter sits is covered in a rubber-like material, which should make it fairly durable and easier to clean than hard plastic.Īfter plugging in and turning on the Litter Robot, though, I was faced with my worst fear with any new smart gadget: Pairing issues. The device itself is made entirely out of plastic, making it fairly light and easier to maneuver. You just have to yank the 24-pound egg-like bot out of its box, dump some clumping litter into the main compartment, and throw an included bag in the waste bin. Setting up the Litter Robot 4 was fairly easy – until I ran into some software issues. In theory, that should let you know if one of your cats is using the litter box too often, or not enough. Thanks to new weight sensors, you can track how often your cats are using the Robot, and the company is also planning to launch more individualized tracking later this year. It's also Wi-Fi connected, which makes it easy for you to check on litter and waste levels with Whisker's app. The Litter Robot 4 improves on its predecessor with a sleeker design (it's a bit less wide, so it should fit better in small rooms), as well as a larger opening for big cats. I know several people who loved the Litter Robot 3, and it was generally well-reviewed, despite being simultaneously bulky on the outside and a bit too small for cats on the inside. (One of those kittens also grew into an enormous 18-pound beast – you can imagine what his litter box looks like.) But now that my household has grown, thanks to that aforementioned poopy infant and a pair of adopted kittens, I was eager for some relief. And even though the Litter Robot has been around for a while, I've always considered it too expensive to be practical. ![]() But almost every option seemed like a headache back then: Some required specialized litter, others were prone to jamming and failure. I'll chalk that up as a win.Īs a cat owner since 2009, I've always eyed self-cleaning litter boxes with envy. ![]() Thanks to the Litter Robot 4, I had to deal with animal poop just a bit less every day. Despite all of that, though, it still made my life easier. After a few months of testing, I've encountered many quirks – sometimes it didn't sift properly, occasionally its cat detecting sensors went haywire, and it didn't really prevent litter from reaching my floors. And like practically every "smart" device, I ran into issues while setting up the Litter Robot 4. For one, it's an eye-watering $699, putting it out of reach for most cat owners. Instead of scooping a box daily (or several times a day for multi-cat households), you only need to yank out the Litter Robot's bin bag and replace it with a new liner once a week. It's a small, spaceship-looking device that automatically rotates after your cat does its business, separating waste into a storage bin and leaving the remaining clean litter behind. Enter the Litter Robot 4, the latest iteration of Whisker's automated litter box (a product we initially covered in 2005!). Now that I'm dealing with three cats, an 11-month old's diapers and potty time with my four-year old, I just needed some relief from mountains of excrement.
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