Whisker Litter-Robot 4 Review: An Excellent Robotic Litter Box (Once Your Cats Adjust to It)

7.9/ 10
SCORE

Whisker Litter-Robot 4

$699 at Whisker

Pros

• Easy setup out of the box
• Helpful app with additional features for tracking your pets
• Whisper-quiet design
• Automatic sifting and cat sensing were flawless

Cons

• Expensive, even for a robotic litter box
• Somewhat bulky design
• Can't detect cats less than 3 pounds

From vacuums and mops to lawn mowers and security drones, robots are continuing to seek a place in our homes, where they can automate away the chores we'd rather not do ourselves. That includes scooping out litter boxes, with a number of robotic options up for sale that promise to pick up after your cats on your behalf. 

Among them is the $699 Litter-Robot 4 from Whisker, a pet tech brand based in Wisconsin. It's the company's newest robotic litter box, and a follow-up to the well-reviewed Litter-Robot 3, which we first spotted when it was named as the best robotic litter box upgrade pick of 2023 at CNET's sister site ZDNet. The new, fourth-gen model features a quieter design, a larger opening for your pet to hop in and out of, and a larger waste drawer that can go for up to a week per cat without being emptied.

Now, I'm not a cat owner myself, but I've spent time living with and caring for the critters before -- and, as it just so happens, we've got a houseguest staying with us this month with two cats of her own. Their names are Cheese and Chad, and their owner graciously agreed to let me deputize them as CNET Test Cats™ for a few weeks so we could put the Litter-Robot 4 to the test. 

Admittedly, the results were mixed -- turns out cat number one loves the thing and cat number two decidedly does not -- but I've still come away impressed with the device's design and features. Here are all of the details, and everything you should know before bringing one home to your furry friend.

Some furry first impressions

The Litter-Robot 4 arrived at my doorstep in a large box that looked as if it could've housed a dishwasher, a mini-fridge or some other midsize appliance. Whisker claims that the thing doesn't require any more space on your floor than the average litter box -- that's technically true, but make no mistake, this will be a pretty bulky addition to your home, wherever you end up putting it.

Your best bet, of course, is to put it in the same place as your old litter box, to help your cat adjust to the new digs. Some cats will take to the Litter-Robot right away, while others will need as long as a week or two to make the transition. In some cases -- 4% of cats, Whisker says -- your pet might reject the robotic litter box outright. Whisker offers customers a 90-day return policy on the Litter-Robot 4 (along with a one-year warranty), so you can clean it and send it back for a refund if it isn't a good fit for your cat. That's a nice, necessary bit of reassurance, but you'll need to cover the return shipping costs, which won't be cheap for a sizable, 24-pound contraption.

The big, strange box in the living room immediately drew Cheese's and Chad's attention, and as soon as the Litter-Robot was unboxed, Cheese hopped in and started sniffing around. The interior is lined with flexible gray rubber, and sports a pretty ingenious design. There's a marked space for litter at the bottom and a sifting grate on the left. After your cat uses the box, the drum slowly rotates counter-clockwise, letting all the clean litter fall through the grate and leaving just the clumps behind. Then, it spins back in the other direction, revealing a hole in the drum. Once that hole makes it to the bottom, the clumps fall through into the waste drawer below. Finally, the drum turns counter-clockwise again to pour the clean litter perfectly back into place. And don't worry -- if your cat gets curious about all that rotating and sifting and sticks its head in to take a peek, the Litter-Robot will sense its presence and pause the cycle until kitty has moved on.

As for the controls on the machine itself, you'll find a set of buttons on the top of the Litter-Robot for turning it on and off, manually starting a cleaning cycle, and other basic functions, along with a set of color-changing indicator lights. Blue lights mean the machine is ready to go, red lights mean a cat is detected and all motion is paused, and animated yellow lights shine whenever the drum is rotating. One caveat here: The Litter-Robot 4's sensors can't detect cats that weigh less than 3 pounds. Kittens of that size can still use the thing, but you'll need to turn off automatic mode and instead trigger cleaning cycles yourself -- otherwise, you'll risk the thing rotating while your pet's inside.

Still, everything works as advertised right out of the box, which is great, but you'll find additional features and controls by downloading Whisker's app to your Android or iOS device. It's an intuitive, nice-looking app that keeps things pretty simple, with useful information about your cat's litter box habits available at a glance.

The app starts by providing a rundown of recent activity in the box. If you have multiple cats, the app won't be able to tell which one is which (though this feature seems to be in the works), but it will provide weight readings whenever one of them steps inside. These readings were pretty much in line with Cheese's and Chad's latest weigh-in at the vet, but you can expect to see lots of lesser readings if your cat has a habit of leaning in partway for a look.

The app also lets you tweak its features, including how long you want it to wait to run a cleaning cycle after your cat has left, or whether you want the automatic interior night-light to come on when it's dark out. You can also view the average number of cycles per day, along with a graphical view of your cat's usage patterns, which could be helpful information for your vet if your cat is ever sick.

Still, in practice, you probably won't need to use the app much at all once setup is complete. All you'll need to do is top off the litter every now and then and empty the waste drawer once every week or so. In my experience, I was particularly impressed with how quiet the drum was during rotation, and how neatly it sifted the clean litter back into place after each cleaning cycle. The sifting method also seems a bit more efficient than scooping, so you might find that you aren't going through litter quite as quickly. And, speaking of litter, the slightly angled entrance of the Litter-Robot 4 meant that the cats weren't able to kick quite as much of it out onto the litter mat.

I also found that relegating the cat waste to a drawer beneath the machine helped reduce the general odor in the litter box area, though only just slightly. If I wanted to do more on that front, Whisker offers special filters for the side of the drawer that can help mask that tell-tale unpleasant scent, though they last only two weeks each and are pricier than I'd like, at $15 each.

A tail of two kitties

With two cats under my roof, I was curious to see how the adjustment to a robotic litter box would go. Sure enough, Cheese and Chad provided two completely different reactions to the thing.

Cheese is still a young cat, in his precocious teenage years, and he was gung ho from the get-go, immediately taking to the Litter-Robot and making normal use of it on day one. Chad, however, is a more middle-aged, set-in-his-ways kind of cat -- he was initially curious about the Litter-Robot, but as soon as he saw the thing rotate, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

Whisker anticipates challenges like Chad, and the company has plenty of pointers to help your cat acclimate. Though you should never try to force your cat inside, Whisker recommends coaxing kitty into the vicinity with some treats, then offering comfort and reassurance while demonstrating a manual cleaning cycle. Chad didn't have much choice but to go along with it, but it wasn't enough -- he was still frightened by the rotating Litter-Robot and unwilling to peek inside, let alone crawl in and do his business. Whisker also recommends scooping some litter from the old box into the new one to help lure your cat in with the scent, but that didn't do the trick, either. After two days, Chad had yet to venture inside.

Things went from bad to worse. On day three, Chad was avoiding the entire area around the new litter box, and that meant he was reluctant to use the old one sitting right next to it. When we weren't around to coax him into using his old box, he'd find somewhere else to go. At one point, he peed in a pair of my shoes; later, we woke up to find that he had pooped on our coffee table. As a guy who really hates scooping out litter boxes, let me tell you, cleaning cat feces off of living room furniture is worse.

I like Chad (and ruined shoes aside, I like to think he likes me, too), and I was feeling pretty guilty at this point for disrupting his routine so severely. In fact, I was on the cusp of canceling the whole trial run and taking the Litter-Robot away -- but then, early one morning, I got an alert from Whisker on my phone telling me that a cleaning cycle had been completed. I opened the app, and the weight of the cat in question was a few pounds more than Cheese's. I popped my head out into the hallway, and sure enough, there was Chad, proudly marching back into the living room as the Litter-Robot prepared to rotate behind him. After almost six days, Chad had finally taken the robotic litter box for a test run.

Robotic litter box alternatives

Whisker is far from the only name in robotic litter boxes, so it's worth shopping around and considering the alternatives before making a purchase. Admittedly, CNET hasn't tested very many of them to date, but there are still some obvious differences to be aware of.

First, it's worth noting that different robotic litter boxes will use different methods to clean up after your pet. Some will run an automated rake through the litter to scoop everything up and into a bin, and models like those will typically be a bit smaller and less expensive than the Litter-Robot 4 and its large, rotating globe. One model, the CatGenie AI, goes so far as to connect with your home's plumbing, using a special cleaning solution to liquify your pet's waste and automatically flush it away.

If you like Whisker's sifting approach but don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to automate that process, then it's worth considering a nonrobotic litter box that uses the same method. The Omega Paw Roll N' Clean is one example -- it's basically a standard enclosed litter box with a sifting grate to the side of the litter and a curved, rocking chair-like design underneath. To empty it, you rock it to the side to sift the clumps away from the litter and into a removable drawer. Total cost? Less than $50.

You could also save some money by going with one of Whisker's earlier Litter-Robots. For instance, the previous-gen Litter-Robot 3 Connect is still available from the company's website, for $549. The design is slightly less refined than that of the fourth-gen model, but the core functionality is the same.

The verdict

Different cats will clearly have different reactions to the Whisker Litter-Robot 4, but even if your cat's transition is as turbulent as Chad's was, I think this is still a justifiable upgrade for pet owners. The well-engineered machine's automatic sifting eliminates the need to scoop anything while keeping pet waste out of sight and helping to reduce odors. On top of that, the app's activity history can help you keep tabs on your pet's health.

The Litter-Robot 4 certainly isn't inexpensive at $699, especially given that other robotic litter boxes are available for significantly less. Still, compare its capabilities to a decent robot vacuum, which can easily cost just as much. If I were a cat owner, and I was choosing between automated scooping and automated vacuuming, I'd lean toward the option that meant I had to think about poop a little less. At the end of the day, that's Whisker's promise, and its product delivers -- just prepare to be patient at first if your cat is more of a Chad than a Cheese.