(playful music)
Having a cat is both a blessing and a curse.
It is a blessing
because you get to have a tiny little predator
in your house, pretty cool,
and you don't need to walk it like a dog.
It's a curse because no matter what you do,
you're not gonna get around the fact that it poops
in a smelly box that you have to scoop out every single day.
It's a mess. It's horrible.
It's a waste of garbage bags.
It just sucks.
So what the Litter-Robot here proposes is that
instead of pooping in a filthy box,
your cat can poop in a pristine space toilet
that costs $500 and cleans itself.
The way this thing works in theory
is that your cat steps in.
He triggers a little weight sensor.
After he's done doing his business in the inner chamber,
it sets off a little timer
and after about 15 minutes or so, the whole orb rotates
and it uses some screens
to scoop the litter box automatically, dump the poop,
and all the clumps into a little garbage bag box
that you can just easily take out.
This is big enough for me to stick my head in.
Well...
And now we wait.
(aggressive heavy metal music)
(sighs off camera)
Day three, still nothin'.
Damn it!
Day four.
We built a little ramp and it has not improved things.
In fact, if anything, it's gotten worse.
Would solve all our problems
if you'd just get in the fucking Litter-Robot.
Day five, still nothing.
So we're going to try the box method
that's recommended by the manufacturer,
which is where you cut a hole
inside of the giant shipping box that it came in.
And in theory,
if you put it on top of the Litter-Robot,
they will explore the box and then maybe find their way
into the actual robot
and realize that they can go to the bathroom there.
So we'll try it.
Seriously, this is supposed to work.
Day seven, someone has finally deigned
to use the Litter-Robot.
It took a week of waiting,
putting a large upside down cardboard box over it,
adding litter attractant,
using catnip and treats,
and putting another little cardboard box
in front of it as ramp,
but finally we have somebody peeing in the box.
So, at the end of the day,
I'm pretty happy with the Litter-Robot.
It does its job pretty well, a lot better than I expected.
It keeps the litter box clean.
It pretty much takes care of itself.
The only thing you need to do on a regular basis
is add more litter and open it
and remove the bin when it gets full.
Beyond that, you occasionally have to wipe it down
and every once in a while you have to clean it.
That's a lot easier than taking care of a normal litter box.
The other automatic litter boxes on the market,
a lot of 'em aren't so good and they have a lot of issues,
such as rakes getting clogged with waste
Some of them require hookups to water lines.
And this thing is pretty simple in operation.
Well, there are a couple of things I don't like
about the Litter-Robot and I'll tell you what those are.
First of all, the price tag.
It's really expensive.
I can't justify shelling out that much money on most things.
And it costs as much as a major appliance.
Another one of the things that I'm not in love with
is that some of the accessories don't just come standard
with this thing.
In particular, there's supposed to be a little litter guard
that fits at the bottom of the door
and I don't see why a piece of plastic
you have to pay for separately.
Would I spend $450, $500 on this thing?
I don't know.
I think that a fair price might be somewhere $400 or under.
But that said, the automatic other litter boxes
on the market, to my understanding, aren't as good.
This one, it has a pretty simple design.
It mostly takes care of itself
and there's not a lot of recurring costs
after you've bought it actually.
One thing that I would consider
is occasionally there are refurbished models for sale
on the Litter-Robot website and those are a lot cheaper.
Those are $350 or so and at that price tag,
I think I might spring for it.
(playful Baroque music)