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I have a litter robot, it's brilliant. You can use any clumping litter, there's a guide to get your cats used to it, no smell at all, no cleaning, and the bags in the base can be anything. I use a cheap clumping litter, the cheapest clay based one seems to work best for me but you can use any clumping that has small grains.
What happens is that I get a message to my phone about once a week telling me to take the old bag out and put the new bag in. I couldn't live without it now.
Why yes! So I found myself in a similar position a few months back, I have 2 big boys (18 and 20 pounds) and while I had three boxes, they would only use one and pee on each other's spot so it would always be wet and you know that goes. Anyway, I mulled it over for a long time because they are pricey, they have generally mixed reviews and my cats are large and in charge. Well, I was wine shopping and Costco had a really good price on the litter bot brand, it had a whole set and extras and I was like imma treat myself. The litterbox was always my chore and if I didn't clean it out twice a day the house would absolutely stink, I tried all kinds of powders, air fresheners and it would just not help. Okay the litter bot has been an absolute game changer. Mine doesn't separate poop/pee it just all clumps and dumps into a bottom tray. I have been using less litter (now I use a fancy clumping grass based litter because my boys are spoiled and mustn't have clay) and as long as I keep the bottom tray under control, I don't even think about it. I didn't realize how much of a mental load the littlebox was until it wasn't. It did take my younger cat a little while to adjust but now he uses it just fine. My partner read that if you stop cleaning the backup box they will eventually get grossed out into using the scary robot one, and it worked lol. They have a lot of budget ones too, and if you have 4 cats you'll probably want at least 2, but I can't sing enough praises about it. It's definitely a splurchase I'm glad I indulged in. Hope that helps! ๐คโจ๐ป๐ป
Really not worth it in my opinion. I'm hoping some day it will be, kind of like how robot vacuums used to ha e a lot more problems and be a lot more expensive.
We couldn't afford any of the robot litter boxes for starters, even if we could manage the huge upfront cost (compared to the cost of even a high quality regular litter box), they all have some type of additional ongoing cost. Bags, or filters, or replacement parts, or more expensive litter.
Second, every one I looked at had reviews about cleanliness not being completely covered by the machine, so you sometimes have to clean a lot more parts than just quickly rinsing a typical litter box. Some people's cats also get dirtier, or struggle to aim in some robot ones.
Third, I find the smell worse with any that you don't dump or replace the tray every day. Using a diaper Genie honestly works much better for that for us. And I would rather know that I only need to take the 30 seconds to scoop every day as opposed to suddenly waking up to a broken litter box or having to spend an hour plus cleaning every part of it.
Lots of different opinions on here which is great, this is just my take!
I have 1 cat and one of those crappy petsafe ones. But it actually works for me. On my 2nd unit in 10 years. I change out the litter refills every time the counter hits 20, a little more than a week. I buy the refills from Vietnam for half the price. With multiple cats I don't know, gets expensive
This is the one I'm looking at currently, but I'm having a hard time with the price... https://www.amazon.com/ELS-PET-Cleaning-Automatic-Protection/dp/B0C2BVTFDP I would love to see what others are using and what they like and don't like about it.
We had the litter maid. It was good. You can put a grocery bag (or similar) into the litter scoop tray and reuse it for a while, but if it gets too gross, you'll have to buy the trays and the potpourri packets...
I have a couple scoopfree boxes. It's just a classic litter box shape with a rake that auto- scoops for you. Doesn't do anything for pee. It works well for me/my cat. I bought the reusable tray, the disposable ones became really expensive over covid and they don't handle heavy pee-loads well (plus wasteful). I buy the cheap crystal litter from Walmart, it works as well as their more expensive refills.
The scoopfree is open by default but you can buy a lid for it. My cats really disliked it when the litter box was enclosed so the lid is in my basement now. Does mean I have to vacuum around it occasionally. Smell isn't bad unless urine builds up in the crystals because the poop is covered (but not "sealed").
The poop capacity is finite and if you have cats that pee a lot you might have to change the litter more often. I have 2 boxes as I had two cats originally. I had to change it out between once a week and every other week. With 4 cats you'd ideally have more boxes and given cats will often just use the same one anyways, you might need to pull the tray out, dump and wipe it, then refill it up to twice a week.
There's a configurable delay before the rake activates so it doesn't scare the cat. There's also a safety sensor so it doesn't operate with a passenger.