I Bought a Litter-Robot 4

I Bought a Litter-Robot 4

Confession: I have been struggling with keeping up with my cats’ litter box needs. I do not clean it as often as I should, and they would be in much worse shape if not for the generosity of my parents, my house cleaner, and my friend who checks in on them when I am out of town. However, at the end of the day, they are my cats and it is my responsibility to care for them. While I am thankful for the help of others, I cannot rely solely on that help. Therefore, I splurged purchased a Litter-Robot 4.

Just my boys getting in some quality CatTV time.

It took my order five business days to ship and then an additional three days to arrive. It was shipped via FedEx and was delivered to my front door in a very robust box.

It’s a box!

The Unboxing of a Litter-Robot 4

I always appreciate it when companies pay attention to the unboxing experience, and this shipment did not disappoint. Upon opening of the box, I was promised that this would be the Best. Day. Ever.

It was definitely a good day for me. The cats were still undecided.

The excitement of my purchase continued to grow as I continued to open the box. I mean, they promised this to be my best day ever! And the claim that my days of scooping litter are over is quite appealing.

Having a cat really does make everything a little more magical.

The actual litter-robot came fully assembled in a single piece wrapped in a fabric bag.

The Glitch: “What is this thing?”

The Set-Up

As recommended, I downloaded the Whisker app for my Google Pixel phone. It was indeed a quick and easy set-up that was highly intuitive. Upon power-up, the Litter-Robot 4 will immediately go into a cleaning cycle. The Olive Thief did not appreciate that, and he deemed this new robot his enemy as he fled the laundry room.

Now I will state that I initially overfilled the litter box. It takes much less litter than I expected. When it is overfilled, the excess litter will merely be collected in the waste drawer. After three cleaning cycles, I had the proper amount of litter in the robot.

Do you see that line on the bottom half of the sphere inside the robot? That’s the max fill line for the litter.

The app will tell you to scan the QR code that is located on the back of the Litter-Robot (… too difficult to reach once the robot was placed in a corner…) or on the top of the box that it shipped in (… which was downstairs…) or on the bottom of the waste drawer (THAT I can do easily!). It guides you through connecting the Litter-Robot 4 to your home WiFi network.

I never thought I would have a WiFi enabled cat poop box, and yet here I am.

It gives you the opportunity to name your litter box. Because I am a grown adult, I decided to name mine exactly what it is – the Magical Poop Box.

The Cats React

Both cats showed curiosity around the Magical Poop Box. However, the Olive Thief did get spooked badly upon that initial cleaning cycle. Whisker recommends leaving the Litter-Robot powered off for the initial 24 hours to help the cats get acclimated to it. In reality, I only left it off for about two hours. Now I did sit with the Olive Thief for a while, holding him close to the Magical Poop Box. Once he realized that it was filled with litter, he instantly climbed inside and peed. Glitch initially would get much closer to the Magical Poop Box, but he was still unsure.

The Glitch: “No seriously… What is this thing?”

I picked Glitch up and placed him inside the Magical Poop Box. He instantly fled the scene, but the app alerted me that he went back and explored it by himself 30 minutes later. By the end of the first night, both cats had used the Magical Poop Box. They seem to have adjusted quite quickly.

Concluding Thoughts

I have always been highly skeptical of self-cleaning litter boxes. My parents had one of the first generations of a “self-cleaning” litter box close to twenty years ago and it did not work well. The comb would get stuck, the clumps would fall apart, and the waste container was incredibly difficult to empty. We ended up throwing it away.

Buddy and Missy briefly had something similar to this.

I was initially skeptical of another automatic litter box, but that skepticism died down when I saw that previous generation, the Litter-Robot 3, in action. My friends’ had survived three cats for close to five years. That gave me confidence in my purchase of the newest generation. Below are just a few improvements between the third generation Liter-Robot and the fourth generation Litter-Robot.

  • The opening is wider.
  • The buttons are located on the top rather than the bottom, making them easier to reach.
  • The point of entry for the cats is much lower.
  • It is much quieter during the cleaning cycle.

I am very excited about my purchase of the latest generation of Litter-Robot. Between my health adventures and the fact that the Olive Thief continues to age (he turns TWELVE this month!), I needed a way to more closely monitor and care for my cats. May the Magical Poop Box continue to perform so that I can keep my kitties happy and healthy.

I will continue to giggle over the name.

If y’all would like $50 off of your first purchase from Whisker, please use my referral link.

Amber Nicole is Clearly Alive