My $500 Litter Box 9 Months Later: An Update on Life with the Litter-Robot 3 Connect!

Welcome to my 9 month update review for the Litter-Robot 3 Connect! (See below to save $25 on your Litter-Robot purchase...)
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Litter-Robot 3 Connect:
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Litter-Robot 3:
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So, a quick recap for those of you who didn’t watch my first video: the Litter-Robot 3 Connect is an automated litter box which cleans itself after each use, providing a more hygienic litter box experience for your cat, a fresher, cleaner feel for your house, and a more pleasant and more convenient lifestyle for you, because you no longer have to scoop the litter box. That’s right—it is scoop free. It’s also really expensive, at around $500, so that is a significant drawback, but if you can afford it, it is definitely a must have product for the cat owning household because it makes life so much nicer.

Is the Connect version worth it?

The Litter-Robot 3 Connect is a slightly higher tech version of their regular Litter-Robot 3 which allows you to monitor the status of the unit using a phone app. It costs $50 more than the regular Litter-Robot 3, and at least for me, its sole use is in notifying you if there is a problem. It can also be helpful in monitoring the litter box usage of cats with medical problems (although if you have more than one cat, it can’t tell you which cat uses it when). If you travel, it can be very helpful to have the Connect version because it helps you make sure your cats are doing OK while you are away.

How often do you need to change the waste bag?

This is going to depend on the number of cats you have, and your tolerance for odor. Litter-Robot says on their website that for a single cat, once a week should be sufficient, and twice a week for two cats. I don’t know about one cat, because I’ve never used it with just one, but for two cats, I find 2-3 days to be a good amount of time, so a bit more than twice a week. The waste collection drawer will certainly fit considerably more used litter, but the longer you leave it, the more odor you are going to have.

Smell

I am currently living in a small apartment, and the only possible place for the Litter-Robot is in the corner of the kitchen. Under these less than optimal circumstances, I was concerned about odor but as long as I change out the litter waste bag every few days, there is really no issue. If one of the cats has just paid a visit to the Litter-Robot and it has not yet cycled, there will be some odor if you are standing right next to it, but other than that, it is really a non issue.

Cat Size

Will the Litter-Robot 3 Connect work with large cats? Well, first off, my two cats are on the smaller side of medium, at about 10 pounds each. They definitely have plenty of space in the Litter-Robot 3. But according to the folks at Litter-Robot, and a multitude of customer comments I had read, the Litter-Robot 3 works fine for large cats as well. My mother has a ‘cat of size’ which is around 18-20 pounds and he fits just fine in the smaller, previous generation Litter-Robot 2. So I think that people with larger cats should be OK with the Litter-Robot 3.

Deep Cleaning

How often do you need to ‘deep clean’ the Litter-Robot 3?

Litter-Robot mentions on their website that you might want to do a deep cleaning of the Litter-Robot every 1 to 3 months depending on personal preference, involving a complete change of all the litter inside and a cleaning of the interior of the globe. I guess this is going to depend greatly on the number of cats you have, whether they have medical issues, what they eat, etc, but in my experience, such frequent deep cleaning is unnecessary. I haven’t cleaned the globe of my current Litter-Robot 3 Connect since I got it, and I have no plans to clean it anytime soon. I think it is easy to go a year or two without cleaning the globe as long as you use sufficient good quality litter in the unit.

However, I do clean the outside of the globe every month or so--nothing very in depth or time consuming--but necessary for the proper operation of the machine. Litter can build up in the area where the globe sits on the base and after a while, it can potentially get in the way of sensors, or cause the globe to not rotate as smoothly. So just vacuuming up extra litter from that area is important. Also, after the unit has been used for awhile it can be helpful to put some Pledge furniture polish along the track that the globe goes along—this helps in smoother rotation. But these are some pretty small and easy cleaning chores and much less in depth than doing a cleaning of globe interior itself.

This product is available directly from the US manufacturer at Litter-Robot.com. The Litter-Robot 3 is $449 and the Litter-Robot 3 Connect is $499, but you can save $25 on your purchase if you use the links above. Many thanks to the kind folks at Litter-Robot for sending me out this sample to review.

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