My wife finally broke down and bought a litter robot. I will have to go on the hunt for ideas, I recall seeing at least one project to automate notification by colored light when it was full (but hey if anyone has any other ideas send them my way).
**EDIT ** is @dman2306 's integration still available / working since he left the platform?
My not so automation related question for those that have these, how hard was it to get your cats to switch from the regular litter box to one of these? We have to senior cats and kitten
FAF (Feline Acceptance Factor) is high for the litter robot.
Yes the integration is still available and it works fine, though occasionally I find I have to re-enter my credentials. I have a couple of automations set up - when it's full or when it stops cycling for 24 hours I have Alexa let me know it needs attention. There's no easy way to automatically reset that check after the problem has been addressed so I use a virtual switch and just toggle it with Alexa.
Both of our current cats started out in regular litter boxes before we got them but as soon as they got settled in the house we moved them over to the litter robot. All we really did was place their existing litter box in the same room as the litter robot and give them a couple days, then we took away their old box. They figured it out really quickly, but then again they are gifted. As I recall there is a recommended minimum weight so the kitty triggers the sensors both for safety and so it cycles when needed. We resolved that issue during their younger months by disabling auto-cycle and just doing it manually from time to time.
The kitten was 4 pounds last time we checked him. He is a porker, so I'm sure he's more than that now (though he does still fit in my lunch bag for work). He's also the driver behind this. he's particularly snobbish about the cleanliness of the box, he would prefer we scoop while he's using it!
I haven't reinstated Alexa quite yet. we had a few rough nights because of "hunches" and I lost a lot of WAF points because of it. I just wanted to get a few other switches installed before setting it back up again.
I haven't got around to doing much with automating my litter-robot yet, but from what I can see after integrating it into node-red there is quite a bit of information that could be used for automation.
In all seriousness, I bet @brad5 would have some pretty good input on this topic.
As for the robot/cat interface, my cat has used one for years and I will never go back to a regular litter box if I can avoid it. Generally I don't notice much odor because I keep it in the garage. The cat has become quite lazy and doesn't even bother to bury his stuff anymore. So, once in a while he'll leave a big ol' fresh Stanley Steamer in there and I realize how glad I am that I put in a cat door to the garage.
Finally took the plunge and bought one of these (right after we adopted two kittens in addition to our two senior cats. Holy crap, why didn't I do this sooner?? This think really is a game changer! Still have a few things I'm trying to figure out (timer setting, sleep mode (somehow that got turned on), stuff like that. I don't really have any lights to use right now, but I'm putting an idea together.
I was really concerned how our older cats would adjust. One took to it pretty quick, but the other wasn't so sure. eventually we just took the old litter box away and he figured it out pretty quick. I had a spare blink I put up se we could keep track of who was using it, one of the old cats always looks around it when he goes in like he is afraid it might try to eat him!! The kittens love to just sit there and watch it cycle. weirdos. At its price point I'm not sure I would recommend it for someone with one or two cats, but if you have more than two, it's a great investment.
I was curious how it would do with the smell, that is what amazing me the most. there is NO smell (unless there is a present that hasn't been dumped yet. or you happen to be near it when it's cycling and the dump hole is open (or you are changing the bag), there is NO noticeable odor that I can tell. Right now, we have it in a seldom used bathroom. Soon we may be moving it into either a bedroom to be converted to an office, or I'm going to get one of those cat doors that read microchips and put one out to the garage and move it out there. Either way this goes i see 2 or three projects coming out of this.
