Self Cleaning Cat Litter Box, Automatic Cat Litter Box with APP Control Odor Removal Safety Protection for Multiple Cats

UPDATE: As of the time that I wrote the previous review, the litter box has stopped working and there’s no customer support or troubleshooting and they also refused to send a replacement. I received a refund, but i don’t want a refund for this - I want a working machine! I should’ve just continued using a regular stainless steel pan and scooped the litter myself… now I have a big useless litter box that I have to manually scoop. For an item that is a major expense, there should be technical support offered. 0/10 - WOULD NOT recommend.ORIGINAL REVIEWI received it pretty quickly after ordering. Setup was simple and the seller was great for sending 4 replacement sensor feet when I was missing 2 of them and the other 2 were worn.The actual automatic litter functions well enough. The app is very simple (maybe too much so), and i feel it’s not connected well the to machine. It’s constantly notifying of a lack of litter no matter how much litter is in there. The plastic flap that guides waste to the bin has holes that are too large so sometimes fecal waste gets caught. My cat had no problem using it, but I noticed he was constantly sniffing around the bottom of it and walking away, losing interest. i realized that he’s smelling what’s in the waste bin, so I checked and the waste bin doesn’t close flush. There’s a gap that allows the odor to escape and that puts him off, so it’s more difficult to get him interested in it, which could mean this was a waste of money for me :( if he doesn’t come around to it. I can even smell it when I get close to the bin. I personally think the construction isn’t great. Entrance is small, inside is just spacious enough I think (my cat is an average size 1yr old male), and there is no obvious step stool for easy entrance. To open the top and fill with litter, you need to press into the sides and that’s difficult enough that I have injured myself twice. I wouldn’t say this item is user friendly and it’s somewhat cat friendly. I use world’s best multicat litter and sustainably yours multi cat litter for this - I feel they both work fine, although sustainably yours sticks a bit compared to world’s best. Overall, I feel that for my first automatic cat litter box, it’s okay, but I will invest in a higher quality one in the future.

Have had other similar boxes to this in the past and they were much more expensive (not that $500 is to be sniffed at). I use the PrettyLitter litter, which is obviously part of the equation with smell control etc.First things first, I'm impressed with the quiet operation of the device. I keep it in the room next to my bedroom, and my prior version I had to keep on a timed switch so that it didn't activate at night as I'm a light sleeper. This one might run once or a hundred times a night. I don't notice it.I have a sphinx cat, which are generally known to not have the least smelly bathroom trips of all cats. As I say, I use pretty litter, which does a good job in the box, and for the most part works well with the unit. The mesh on the box is a little wide, such that some "smaller particles" get returned to the waste, so that after 2-3 weeks, I need to switch out the remainder of the litter, but this is much in line with the recommendations of prettylitter, and to be honest, I usually let it go four weeks and I have no problems.The box has some interesting features like ionic deodorization I couldn't say if it actually helps, but certainly if I run the deodorizer cycle it smells "ionic" (i.e. a bit electric, which is better than my kittens smells). The unit connects to SmartLife and it works great from there in terms of configuration and so on. I also have it linked in through my home assistant system, so if I really need to, I can tell it to run a cycle, though as it runs after a few minutes of the cat leaving, I have never had to use this feature much. Once it's set up it pretty much runs on its own.As there is only one button on the machine, that can be a bit confusing (hold for three seconds to do this, 10 seconds to do that...) and I didn't find the language in the SmartLife app particularly intuitive ("CLEARANCE vs. CLEAN") - I know what it means now but i learned by pressing the button and then saying lots of rude words while the box emptied all the litter into the trash when I just wanted it to scoop.The monitors in the app (and therefore home assistant) seem pretty good (if it says full, empty it...!) I haven't thought of any fun things to do with my home assistant integration (maybe one minute after the cat has left, fire up a shot of febreze and run the roomba?) but I'm sure I will find some way to geek out over it.On the downside, I do find that the robot body is a little smaller than other units I have used, which occasionally means my little fella goes in to do his business and treads through his waste before he backs out and then treads it around a bit. There is also no good protection against litter being kicked up out of the unit, meaning that I do spend a lot of time vacuuming, sweeping and running a roomba if there are no "paw prints" on the ground) to keep things clean. Also, my little guy is a kitten and at first struggled to get into the bulb - Your cat has to be able to make the jump into the unit, there are no stairs.In terms of reducing litter "pollution" I have had to work with a few different mat types to find something that works outside of the litter. The curved front coupled with extremely sensitive feet (which I believe are used to detect the cat in the unit) means that a traditional litter rug has to be gone at with an X-acto knife in order to make all the pieces and my feet happy. Still haven't found a good solution to this yet, would probably be a good add on for the company to just sell me something that works! :)Overall very pleased. Manages the poop and the pee for several weeks at a time. It can be a little hard to clean when the little guy has more loose stools (thanks Spinx breed and kittens) but I wouldn't swap it out for the world (unless someone wants to offer me a different free one to try). Would recommend. Nothing is going to get cat poop perfect, and this does more than enough to make me happy.