My wife got two cats

Looking for suggestions on an automatic litter box of some type. I would like it to tell me when to change the litter and automatically clean out the cat poop and pee when the cat is done and if possible include some type of odor control.
Your suggestions would be appreciated in this matter I don't mind if it is second hand or used if anybody has one they're willing to donate I would be willing to possibly pay the shipping cost depending on it.

Your cats will thank you by not peeing outside their litter box if you clean it at least once a day.

I’ve used birdseed as litter for 10+ years. I clean the boxes twice a day, and change the litter once every 6-8 months.

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Litter boxes are kind of dependent on your cat personality, and size. Then there are different options for how much you want to hide it as well.

There are a few decent automated litter boxes that may work. Litter robot is one that is highly recommended by allot of people. It rotates and sifts clean litter from dirty litter. The dirty litter is dropped in a bin that has a charcol filter on it to reduce smells.

There is also one that actually washes itself after every use. It has to be connected to a water source though and either a toilet or utility drain of some kind.

There is another that uses crystals to contain the urine and just remove the litter to a bin.

I think litter robot does have an api so it could technically be integrated.

There are also options for furniture that you can put the box into. We did that for a while as well. We used a storage container from walmart as the litter box in the furniture. Ultimately she rejected it though.

We can't use any because our cat is a huge. We had to get the biggest box we could find and clean it daily. You need to know how big your cat is for any choice you make becauseit needs to be able to get in and move around comfortably if the cat is on the larger size i think most solutions really just dont work.

As long as your cats have FIRM stool, litter robot and some others can work well.

If you cats ever have SOFT stool (like mine do semi-regularly) then the automatics litter boxes tend to smear it everywhere/stick to the rakes (depending on type), making for a not very fun wipe down/clean up.

Because of that I gave up on automatic litter boxes and went to having 3 sifting litter boxes that I clean 2x/week. Having 3 let me do it every 3-4 days instead of every day (which does not work with my job's travel schedules).

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Litter Robot. It will change your life. Really.

There are two models, the Litter Robot 3 Connect, and the Litter Robot 4.

The older model (LR 3), which I have, has an integration for Hubitat that was ported from SmartThings by Dominick Meglio, bless his soul. The SmartThings integration was written by Nate Spencer, who moved on to Home Assistant and has rewritten his integration on Home Assistant to support Litter Robot 3 and Litter Robot 4 on the new (different) Whisker API.

I have spoken with the head of software at Whisker, and he has assured me that the old (LR 3 only) API will not disappear.

If Nate Spencer ever stabilizes his HA integration (he has been releasing updates almost every week for a year or so), I may give a try at porting his new HA integration to Hubitat. Until then, you have two choices for integrating Litter Robot to Hubitat:

  1. if you have/get a LR3, use Dominick Meglio’s LR3 integration that’s in HPM - it works fine. I’ve got a set of rules, inspired by Jared Zimmerman, that turn our vanity under counter lights green, yellow, red depending on the litter box level, that flash the lights when the litter box gets full, that flash the lights white when a hardware fault occurs, and that turns the lights purple when the litter drawer is open. If the litter drawer stays open more than 30 seconds (as happens when the litter bag is changed/emptied), it resets the litter box fill gauge to 0.

  2. if you have/get a LR3 or the newer LR4, you can spin up Home Assistant and use HADB (Home Assistant Device Bridge) to bring the LR3 or LR4 over to Hubitat from Home Assistant. It’s quite straightforward.

If you get the LR3, you need the LR3 Connect.

They are pricy - the LR3 Connect is now about $550, the LR4 is about $700. You can also buy them refurbished for less from Whisker, or you might find them used on eBay.

The LR4 has a more sensitive scale, allowing you to graph the weight of each of your cats. That, to me, is an unnecessary $150 bell and whistle. They are well engineered and well built.

That one worked the best for me, by far.

Although it still isn't great if your cats have soft stool (smears all along the inside of the globe, pretty gross). After 1-2 uses after cleaning it my cats wouldn't use it because of the smearing issue.

For previous non-defective cats I've had, it worked really well.

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Something else to consider is the litter will make a big difference. The clay litters are cheap and easy but i suspect there are much better options. You want it to be soft like sand. There are some good litters made with corn husks.

We have one cat. We use Arm and Hammer clumping litter. I clean it out every morning. Well, mostly every morning. I also look around the basement while I'm down there.

I’ve never had a problem with that and my two cats. Perhaps it’s the litter (Dr. Elsey’s Ultra unscented clay clumping litter, low dust, $20 for a 40 lb. bag), perhaps it’s because the cats are on a special diet (Royal Canin GastroIntestinal high fiber, because of food allergies).

I’ve had mine for 2.5 years, have only cleaned it twice. It stays very clean on its own. With our 2 cats, I have to empty the LR3 litter drawer about every 4 days.

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Is there a way to integrate it to hubitat any one of the many options out there?

Not sure what you are asking. I told you above the two ways to integrate Litter Robot devices to Hubitat:

  1. Litter Robot 3 Connect: use Dominick Meglio’s Litter Robot integration for Hubitat, installs easily with Hubitat Package Manager:
  1. Litter Robot 3 Connect or Litter Robot 4: Spin up a Home Assistant instance, install Nate Spencer’s Litter Robot integration on Home Assistant, use HADB to bring the Litter Robot device from Home Assistant to Hubitat.

I highly recommend the litter Robot. We currently have 4 cats (2 seniors, 2 kittens). One word of caution though, make sure you use enough litter! There is a rim around the bottom of the globe, you need to make sure you fill it even with the top of that rim. I was being cheap and using less than that and i was having issues with Huge clumps that wouldn't fall, or if they did, they wouldn't fit through the hole. I have found Dr. Elsy's Ultra litter works best, followed by Arm and hammer hard clumping Ultra (but boxed litters are a bit awkward to get into the globe). Tidy cats doesn't seem to clump very well, and the Dr. Elsy's Clean tracks also doesn't seem to work as well. Tend to just be a huge clump that never drops. the key is to use a specifically hard clumping litter.

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Does anybody know if this can be integrated into hubitat? I just ran across this on Facebook looking at buying it or having my wife buy it. If it can be integrated into hubitat.

I also have their dog theater and was hoping that it could be integrated into hubitat.

We have the litter robot 4 and love it. We also use the Arm & Hammer Clump and Seal litter as we believe it works the best with that particular mechanism. Sets hard and pretty quickly. Honestly, I wish we had two since we have four cats and I'm emptying the box every other day. There's no way that the wife is going to let me buy another thousand dollar cat toilet though.

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I have used a non-WiFi connected version of that box about 15-20 years ago. The urine-absorbing crystals don't last nearly as long as they claim. My cats started peeing outside the box.

How big are the cats?

They're kittens right now I don't know how big they'll get we got them from the local animal shelter. We literally got them yesterday afternoon

Ok. Well personally I would keep things as simple as possible to encourage them to use the litterbox at every turn. I would also suggest getting more then one so there is always one that is easily accessible. Though cats are generally easier to train to do there business where we want them to a kitten is still a kid and possible to have accidents. Multiple small litterboxes will be better to ensure they get it fugured out and know when they need to go.

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Give one to her for her birthday or anniversary present.

I already gave her a vacuum cleaner... I'm not sure I want to experience those six months again...

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