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Overall Rating:
Let me just start off by saying that while I love my cats, I hate cleaning the litter box. I’ve also noticed that there are two types of people with litter boxes: there are the people who scoop every day, and then there are the people to scoot/dump every week or so. Unfortunately, I fall into the second half of cat owners. I know, I know. It’s not good for the kitty cats, but this is where having an automated litter box is very beneficial
In addition, I have a breathing condition (interstitial lung disease), so it makes it hard to do any kind of bending over and picking up heavy objects. When you don’t have to dump an entire litter box, it makes things alot easier. So, my husband and I decided to get the Litter Robot 3 to see if could help. And it does! We’ve have a good system: I change the bag, while he takes it to the outside trash can.
It is a dome-shaped, automated cleaning litter box. With configurations pre-set or changed via the Whisker app, when your cat goes into the litter box, the litter box will wait a designated amount of time before “cycling.” During this time, it will sort out the clean litter from the dirty litter, leaving you only a bag of dirty litter to tie up and throw away after a few days.
It will sift the litter, leaving the larger chunks behind. And, yes, by chunks, I mean clumped pee and poop. (This is why it’s important to buy clumping litter.) The clean litter is pushed back by a plastic sifter. The litter box then tilts itself a bit, allowing for the feces and urine to slide down into a hole. That hole is connected to the tray that lives underneath the globe and the stairs of the litter robot. To make clean-up easier, you will already have a bag in that tray to house the dirty litter and excrements.
When the bag is full, the litter robot will let you know via a blue indicator light that will flash. You can also check the fullness status on the app. Please note that the Litter Robot 3 does not actually know how much dirty litter is in the tray. It has a sensor that essentially measures the height of what’s in the tray. This means that if the litter is stacked too high or the bag isn’t smoothed down, the litter robot can falsely say that the tray is full.
I suggest you do because it makes clean-up so simple and does not require you to wash the tray.
That really depends on how many cats are using it. We have three cats, so it’s usually every two days. Sometimes it’s longer and sometimes it’s shorter.
No, you probably don’t, but you do get alot of bags per order, so they last a long time. You’ll just want to make sure that what you do use is long enough to cover the entire length and width of the tray.
YES! There are only a few pieces and there’s a video that shows you exactly how to set up your litter robot 3.
It is big! Make sure you have a place for it. According to the product details, the company states that it is 24lbs and has the following dimensions 27 x 24.5 x 29.5 inches.
You can use any clumping litter. Although some sand litters can clump, I’d be concerned that the sand may be too small. The Litter Robot 3 has a plastic piece that holds the litter back and that plastic piece has holes in it. I think the small litter, especially sand, may fall through those holes. I also do not recommend using the “Lightweight” litter as I found that it did not do a good job of clumping urine, but that’s just my experience.
It has some quirks…
Sometimes it will blink blue, indicating that the tray is full but it isn’t. If that happens, try one of the following:
- Make sure that there’s enough litter in the globe. Once you have added some more, click on reset.
- Take the tray out and shake the clumps down. Hit the reset button and then the cycle button to see if that fixes it.
- If the first two don’t fix it, I have found just kind of shaking the entire litter robot a little will correct the issue. (lol)
- If it still isn’t fixed, just turn it off and back on.
Sometimes it will blink yellow or red or a mix of colors. There’s a long list of possible issues for these weird blinks. The good news is that the company has troubleshooting videos. For my family, there have been three main causes:
- The Litter Robot 3 is too close to the wall or something else and cannot turn properly. Just move it a little and hit “reset” or the power on/off button.
- Your wifi has disconnected from the Litter Robot 3. Reconnect the wifi and then turn the power off and back on.
- The sensor that’s behind the tray or the top section (called the bonnet) is dirty and/or it has litter build up. Once you clean it off and hit reset, it should work again.
If you don’t add more litter or change the bag soon enough, urine may stick to the sides. You may need to get your scoop and scrape this off. Either way, you may want to completely clean the inside of your Litter Robot 3 every so often, maybe every few months.
But is the robot litter box really worth it?
The long and short of it: yes.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s without its faults.
Keep reading to hear my pros and cons for the robot litter box.
Pros
- It is easy to install and set up.
- It comes with an app that tells you how full the litter box is.
- You use so much less litter than with a traditional litter box
- You no longer have to have a litter box for each cat.
- It reduces the typical “litter box smell.”
- All of my cats are able to use it, despite their size.
- A blue light illuminates the inside when it’s dark outside the litter box.
Cons
- It will sometimes stop working randomly, and sometimes mid-cycle.
- If it loses connection, it may not cycle.
- It may show the tray is full when it isn’t.
- It’s pretty pricey.
- Sometimes litter sticks to the inside.
If you have the Litter Robot 3 or one of the newer ones, I’d love for you to share your experience below. Alternatively, if you have kitties but don’t have a Litter Robot 3 (or even if you do), I’d love to hear about all your kitty cats.
