How are you cleaning Cat's Litter box? I got the new automatic "Litter Robot 4" about 2 weeks ago.
We've got three cats. Manual cleaning a box and keeping the smell down was certainly a chore, and still not very effective. This Litter Robot promises making it automatic and easy, while also reducing odors.
So far in the first 2 weeks, it's been fantastic. I'm really hoping it continues. I have to admit that it seems a little complex to be reliable after time. Other research shows many folks happy long term with the previous model, although there were a few nightmare stories as well.
Two of the cat's, Kramer and George were not impressed. A little miffed at their routine being disrupted, but they started using the new box (circle?) within just a couple hours of setting it up. I started by moving some litter into it, and leaving both boxes in the room for a couple days until we knew all were using the new Litter Robot.
It's more compact than I thought, actually taking up less floor space than the previous box. The way it works, is by detecting when the cats go, waiting a defined number of minutes, then slowly rotating so the unclumped litter granules get filtered through the grate, then the clumped pee/poo gets dropped into a plastic bag lined drawer underneath. This theoretically reduces the odor by quickly removing the dirty litter before it stinks up the whole room.
I must say it has been VERY effective at reducing the odor and keeping it down. With three cats, it lasts about 4-5 days before being full. I did notice the sensor triggers early about the 2nd or 3rd day and I just had to shake the drawer a little bit to level it back out (dropped from 80% full sensor reading to 40% full after shaking). That allowed an additional 2-3 days usage before showing full again.
It's pretty slick to see the reading change, which measures not only the dirty litter level, it also measures the "clean" litter level, and the cat's weight. It actually sends a notification to the app when it has finished a clean cycle, what the cat's weight was, and if the clean cycle was disrupted. We've learned our cat's weigh 14.9 lbs.; 12.3 lbs., and 6.6 lbs.
This is the old box. It too, promised auto-cleaning and reduced odor. While it did reduce some, it required expensive, "special" litter to be used, simply pushed the dirty litter to the end of the box and dropped a cardboard lid over it. This helped a little, moved the poo out of sight and kept the next cat from stepping on the previous cats mess, but was not sealed and didn't really block all the smell. It would also often get "stuck" in the middle of it's cycle, and stay open several hours until we would notice it. We have the litterbox in a seldom used bathroom in the basement, and sometimes the smell when full would stink us out of the whole basement. The "special" litter required has nearly doubled in price, and is now costing $80 U.S for a four box package. With the three cats, the one box would last about 5 days. That's about $100 per month just for the litter! Yikes! Glad to be done with that.
Estimating we'll make back the cost of the Litter Robot unit (expensive) in a few months of savings on being able to use the much cheaper more generic clumping litter we can pickup anywhere. The smell so far is MUCH better in the bathroom now with the new Litter Robot. Now comes the real test of time to see how long it lasts. Fingers crossed!
