The Rise Of Self-Cleaning, Cat-Killing Litter Boxes

September 17, 2024 by Maya Posch 68 Comments

Machines that automate the various tedious tasks that come with being a servant in a cat’s household — like feeding and cleaning Mr. Fluffles’ litter box — are generally a godsend, as they ensure a happy cat and a happy human. That is, unless said litter box-cleaning robot kills said cat. That’s the gruesome topic that [Philip Bloom], also known as the bloke of the One Man Five Cats channel on YouTube, decided to investigate after coming across a report about a certain Amazon-bought unit.

The theory of a self-cleaning litter box: a happy Mr. Fluffles.

Although he was unable to get the (generic & often rebranded) unit off Amazon UK, he did get it via AliExpress for £165 + £80 shipping. Although this version lacks the cute ears of other variants, it’s still effectively the same unit, with the same moving components and mechanism. An initial test with a cat plushie gave the result that can be observed in the above image, where the inner part with the opening will move upwards, regardless of whether a cat is currently poking through said opening. Once the victim is stuck, there is no obvious way to free the trapped critter, which has already led to the death of a number of cats.

The other self-cleaning litter boxes which [Philip] owns have a number of safety features, including a weight sensor, an infrared sensor above the opening to detect nearby critters, a top that will pop off rather than trap a critter, as well as a pinch sensor. During a test with his own hand, [Philip] managed to get injured, and following a banana test, he had a nice banana smoothie.

What takes the cake here is that after [Philip] connected the mobile app for the litter box, he found that there was a firmware update that seems to actually change the machine to use the pinch and infrared sensors that do exist in the litter box, but which clearly were not used properly or at all with the shipped firmware. This means that anyone who buys any of these self-cleaning litter boxes and does not update the firmware runs the significant risk of losing their pet(s) in a gruesome incident. In the video a number of such tragic deaths are covered, which can be rather distressing for any cat lover.

Of note here is that even with the improved firmware, any issue with the sensors will still inevitably lead to the tragic death of Mr. Fluffles. If you do want to obtain a self-cleaning litter box, make sure to for example get one of [Philip]’s recommendations which come with a paw stamp of approval from his own precious fluff balls, rather than a random unit off Amazon or AliExpress.

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Track Your Cat’s Weight Through This Internet-Connected Litter Box

June 3, 2022 by Robin Kearey 26 Comments

With feline obesity on the rise, keeping track of your cat’s weight is an important part of keeping them healthy. However, a weighing session can be anything from a routine job to a painful procedure, depending on your cat’s temperament. [Andy]’s cat Ellie is one of those who dislike being weighed, so in order to track her weight without drama [Andy] got creative and built an internet-connected weighing platform for her litter box.

The platform consists of two pieces of MDF held apart by two load cells, which are hooked up to an ESP8266. The ESP reads out the load cells and reports its findings to the Adafruit IO platform through its WiFi connection, sending updates to [Andy] whenever litter box use has been detected. The cat’s weight can be simply calculated by subtracting the weight of the unused litter box from the weight measured when it’s in use.

Getting reliable readings from the load cells was a bit of a challenge, since the measured weight fluctuated wildly as Ellie moved around the litter box. A combination of waiting for the readings to settle and using timeouts to discard the effect of brief movements resulted in reasonably stable measurements. The resolution was even good enough to measure the difference in litter weight before and after use. We’re not sure what’s the practical value of knowing how much your cat poops each time, but if the data is there you might as well log it.

[Andy] also imagines smart-home features of the IoT litter box: for example, he could run an air purifier or send in the Roomba after heavy usage. This is not even the first internet-connected litter box we’ve featured; we’ve seen one connected to the Thingspeak platform, as well as one that sends poop alerts through Twitter. If you’re not around to clean up the mess, an automatic fume extractor might come in handy.

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