Does anyone have any experience with self-cleaning cat litter boxes? The ability to connect one to Home Assistant doesn’t really seem useful to me - maybe it would be nice for HA to alert you when the litter box needs to be changed. But I’m really just curious if any particular model of self-cleaning litter box is any good - even by itself, without any “smart” features. We now have 4 cats and it would be nice to not have to clean litter boxes manually 1-2 times every day.
Maybe I’m being the overly marketed to weirdo here, but this is the third post today asking about cat box solutions and the comments on all of them are pushing the Litter Robot 4. The timing is pretty weird… again is it just me?
I think it’s because it’s the only one that comes close to working well
I actually own a LR4 and me and my cat fucking love it. It actually works and is quite reliable. Been using it since May and the only issue I’ve had is sometimes I need to reconnect it to the WiFi so I can get alerts and see status from the mobile app. Doesn’t stop the LR from functioning if it does dc from WiFi
Yes it is just you, it’s not a psy op it’s a good fucking product
Others have already mentioned the litter robot, but one automation you might find handy is having HA trigger a robot vacuum to go vacuum the room where the litter boxes are, after it detects a cat using it. It’d help keep litter off the floor if your cats like kicking it out of the boxes.
Also if you’re having to clean litter boxes multiple times a day, how many do you have? Iirc the general rule is one litter box for each cat plus one extra, so for 4 cats you should ideally have 5 litter boxes.
I and many people I know swear by the litter robot. Off the top of my head I can think of 5 different households in my social circle with 1 or more litter robots.
For 4 cats you might want two litter robots as they tend to fill up quickly with multiple cats. Or set up the litter robot in addition to a traditional litter box so the cats can choose where to poop.
I have a LR3 it is great until it isn’t… Both my cats used it for several months but my oldest cat with joint issues refuses to use anything but an open litter box now (doesn’t like the confined space)… Also possibly fixed in the LR4 the LR3 FULL sensor easily gets false positives due to dust build up from litter and is a PITA to clean.
I have been looking at a lot of reviews for alternatives but all of them eventually seems to have some flaw around reliability.
I’ve been having tons of issues recently with the pinch sensor on my LR3. Basically it’ll stop rotating mid cycle and I have to either take it apart and clean the sensor or sometimes just power cycling works.
If that’s not an issue on the LR4, I’d be tempted to get one eventually
LR4 sensors are easy as hell to clean, no removal necessary just stick a stop into a hole and wipe the sensors
I’ve been using my LR4 since May with no issues in functionality only a few WiFi disconnects
I can’t speak to any of the newer litter robots as I have a LR1 and an LR2. The only issue I had was with the LR1. The hall effect sensor wore out and I was able to replace it with parts from their site.
I wouldn’t look at HA first for this kind of thing. Asking a cat group would be more effective unless you’re looking to add smarts to a dumb litter box.
HA related the Litter Robot does have an integration for the wifi enabled ones and it will report state and error codes.