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Jun 04, 2025

The 3 Best Automatic Cat Litter Boxes of 2025 | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Mel Plaut Mel Plaut is a writer covering pets. They have tested hundreds of products for our best animal friends, including dog beds and pet fountains. The Neakasa M1 was recently involved in two

By Mel Plaut

Mel Plaut is a writer covering pets. They have tested hundreds of products for our best animal friends, including dog beds and pet fountains.

The Neakasa M1 was recently involved in two safety incidents. We are evaluating whether we will continue to recommend this model. If you already own it, make sure you install the latest firmware.

When wild cats wandered out of the deserts of the Fertile Crescent and into our homes, I bet no one predicted that roughly 10,000 years later we’d be using robots to scoop their poop. Alas, here we are.

If you’re willing to pay hundreds of dollars, you can outsource the unending task of shoveling clumps of cat pee and poop to an automatic litter box. These machines, also called self-cleaning litter boxes, are designed to sift out and sequester waste shortly after your cat does their business, keeping the litter relatively fresh and unsoiled until their next bathroom foray.

Many models have added features, like weight tracking, usage monitoring, and even cameras that can help you figure out which cat is doing what inside the box.

But for their many benefits, these machines cost a lot and are more difficult to set up, maintain, and deep-clean than a regular old plastic litter tray. And despite taking up a lot of space, most of the models currently on the market have a smaller litter area than what experts typically recommend.

No automatic litter box is perfect, but the Litter-Robot 4 gets a lot right. It’s spacious, reliable, and repairable. And it’s easy to clean and customize for your cat.

This machine’s robust app and built-in camera give you (too much?) information about your cat’s bathroom habits. It’s easy to clean and disassemble, but the litter bed is pretty small, and, considering the price, the warranty is insufficient.

By offering an open top instead of an enclosed globe, this machine has some advantages—cats may be more comfortable, and litter is easier to refill. But the litter bed is fairly small, and, in terms of performance, this box has more flaws than our other picks.

No automatic litter box is perfect, but the Litter-Robot 4 gets a lot right. It’s spacious, reliable, and repairable. And it’s easy to clean and customize for your cat.

Every automatic litter box we recommend costs a lot and has occasional hiccups, but the Litter-Robot 4 comes the closest to meeting expectations for a low-effort, self-cleaning litter box. It stands out for its simple design, comparatively large litter area, deep-cleaning ease, and a wide range of useful aftermarket accessories that let you tailor the machine to your cat’s specific needs. A lot can go wrong with an automatic litter box, but Whisker, the company that makes the Litter-Robot 4, has evolved its own designs over two decades. It’s also known to support DIY repairs for common problems, and it’s the only brand offering an optional extended warranty. In testing, we noticed issues with the accuracy of a weight scale, the safety sensors’ tendency toward false alarms, and some other minor flaws.

This machine’s robust app and built-in camera give you (too much?) information about your cat’s bathroom habits. It’s easy to clean and disassemble, but the litter bed is pretty small, and, considering the price, the warranty is insufficient.

The Petkit Purobot Max Pro works well on self-cleaning, and it has a feature-packed app paired with a built-in camera, so there’s a ton of info on your cat’s toileting routine. We appreciated this box’s relatively sleek, low profile, and its magnetic connections made it easy to disassemble. But the globe interior is smaller than that of our top pick. And, for the price, we’d prefer stronger warranty protection than is offered by Petkit’s standard one-year policy (with no option to extend it).

By offering an open top instead of an enclosed globe, this machine has some advantages—cats may be more comfortable, and litter is easier to refill. But the litter bed is fairly small, and, in terms of performance, this box has more flaws than our other picks.

The Neakasa M1 doesn’t use the globe design of our other picks, so monitoring your cat and adding litter is much easier. It’s also simpler to top up the litter in this model, and it costs less. But some of the functions don’t always work reliably, and the app has a few bugs that still need to be worked out.

As a senior writer covering pets for Wirecutter, I’ve written about manual litter boxes, cat litter, and dozens of other products that are designed to enrich the lives of our animal companions. I’ve also lived with cats for more than two decades and have scooped countless clumps of pee and poop.

In conducting research for this guide:

Like all Wirecutter journalists, we review and test products with complete editorial independence. We’re never made aware of any business implications of our editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

If you hate scooping the litter box every day, or you simply struggle to stay on top of your cats’ output, you can now offload some of that work to an automatic litter box. “The great thing about self-cleaning boxes is they’re always clean,” said Philip Bloom, a filmmaker who runs the One Man Five Cats YouTube channel and has tested nearly two dozen automatic litter boxes since 2020. “It’s not about laziness,” Bloom explained. “It’s about making it easy for you to actually live a life, and work, and still be able to look after your cats exactly how they should be looked after.”

Self-cleaning litter boxes can also be helpful for people with mobility issues or other disabilities that make scooping difficult. If you can’t bend down to reach a box, or if you have trouble holding a scooper, self-cleaning models can really help.

But for all of their convenience, these machines take more work to maintain and deep-clean than regular litter boxes do. “I don’t think you should necessarily consider these if you have mobility issues,” Bloom said. With a regular litter box, “it’s just one thing to clean up. Yes, you have to manually scoop it yourself, but with a self-cleaning box, you need to deep-clean them every few weeks, sometimes more often,” he explained.

There’s also a learning curve involved in setting up and getting used to a self-cleaning box. And they’re generally far smaller than the size experts typically recommend for a litter box: 1.5 times your cat’s length, from the tip of their nose to the base of their tail.

In a previous version of this guide, we essentially dismissed these boxes altogether. The technology has come a long way since then, but some of our concerns remain. “I don’t see these products as a substitute for care,” said Mikel Delgado, a cat behavior consultant. “And so I don’t think people should be, for example, leaving their cat alone for extended periods of time and just thinking that the robot is going to take care of your cat’s needs,” Delgado said.

Julie Liu, a veterinarian and cat behavior consultant, agrees. “It’s not just about food, water, litter box. It’s about, hey, what kind of attention do you normally get, the social bonding and stuff,” she told us.

And while manually scooping pee and poop every day may be unpleasant, it’s all part of having a cat. “I know a lot of people do not like scooping the litter box,” Liu said. “Is it anyone’s favorite thing? Probably not. But it literally takes like five minutes.”

A dirty litter box is one of the biggest factors leading to house-soiling issues and litter box avoidance, according to Delgado. But she said she’s not convinced that automatic litter boxes are the best answer. “I would love to find a magic solution that would make cats and humans happy,” she told us, adding that she doesn’t think the current offerings do that yet.

If you do try one of these automatic litter boxes, keep in mind that they move and make noise, so it may take your cat some time to get used to it (if they ever do). To make the transition easier, follow the manufacturer’s recommendations. It’s wise to keep your old litter box available so your cat has options, at least in the beginning. “We typically recommend that people have at least one litter box per cat in the home plus one, and that these boxes are in different areas,” Delgado said.

But as someone who has seen plenty of automatic litter boxes collecting dust in the corner of a cat’s house, Delgado said she advises caution before investing in one. “I think there’s a fine line between pet tech and pet neglect. So I think we have to be really careful in how we use these tools,” she said.

Aside from the basic function of scooping waste, some of the newer models also come with companion apps that offer additional features, such as:

We looked for models that offered a combination of these extras, but size was another characteristic we paid close attention to. The litter areas inside these devices are far smaller than what is typically recommended for cats. “What most cat people say is one and a half times the length of the cat from the nose to the base of the tail. And so going from there, most commercial litter boxes are way too small,” Julie Liu said.

Mikel Delgado told us that even though these machines take up a lot of space, “the actual footprint for the cat and where they have to go to the bathroom is very small.” We couldn’t find any automatic litter boxes that even remotely met the above size requirement, so we prioritized boxes that either maximized the interior space or had an open design.

We also read through hundreds of reviews and posts to make sure we were testing boxes with a good safety reputation. And we zeroed in on models that either come with a generous return policy or are available at an online retailer with free returns, since some cats might refuse to use their fancy new bathroom.

The best automatic litter boxes are, unfortunately, expensive. We tried to find cheaper models, but most of those either had serious baggage related to safety or too many complaints about breaking after being used for only a short period of time. The true budget pick is a regular, $30 litter box, plus some accessories to enhance the experience (but even with the upgrades, you’re still scooping poop every day). If you really want a good self-cleaning model that’s proven to be safe for your pet and capable of withstanding the strain of its own routine—and that has good customer support if or when it fails—it’s going to cost a lot.

After testing 27 litter boxes, we found five that are durable and easy to clean, with plenty of space inside for a cat to feel comfy as they go about their business.

We considered 15 boxes and tested six over the course of a month, in two phases. First we stress-tested the boxes for a week without cats, to evaluate their basic capabilities and check for any safety issues. We narrowed down the list to four final options, which we then placed in some of Brave Animal Rescue’s foster homes in Lincoln, Nebraska. A total of 12 adult cats—ranging from 6 to 18 pounds—tested the machines for roughly three weeks.

We judged each model based on the following criteria:

Safety: Philip Bloom has documented several horror stories of cats getting pinched, injured, and even killed by certain types of automatic litter boxes. Most of the offending models either lacked safety sensors or featured moving parts that could trap a cat. We studied these reports, and we prioritized machines made by reliable companies with a reputation for safety, as well as machines featuring multiple sensors and few, if any, areas for a cat to get stuck. Bloom recommends avoiding many of the low-cost copycat models because their safety records are unknown (and their reviews might be fake).

Cleaning ability: Over the course of three weeks, while each box was being used and abused by multiple cats in foster homes, we observed how dirty the litter beds and interior walls looked after the cleaning cycles. And we noted whether any of the boxes ever started to stink (none did). We also deep-cleaned each machine and noted how involved that process was. Prior to that, in our initial objective tests, we liberally squirted our own concoctions of fake cat pee and poop inside the machines before running them through several cycles at different settings.

Build and durability: We looked for weak spots in the design of each device. We imitated a cat peeing out the front of the box, sending liquid down the front of each machine to check for areas where urine might leak or do damage. We also evaluated how easy it was for a human to access the waste bins. (Bloom recommends peeking into the bin every day to make sure everything looks healthy.) We used meat-shredding claws to repeatedly scratch at the interior liners, to see how durable they were, and we gauged how hard it was to add fresh litter. We also checked out each machine’s various moving parts, buttons, and functions; measured the noise levels with a decibel meter; and noted how accessible the cat entrance was.

Weight monitoring and usage tracking: If the devices tracked weight and/or toileting habits, we determined how accurate and consistent those were compared with our own observations. We also looked at whether the built-in scales were able to distinguish between different cats, even when they were similar in weight. If there was a built-in camera, we considered the playback quality and how well it captured the action.

App interface and usefulness: We noted how intuitive each app was to navigate. We looked at whether the app allowed you to share control of the box with another member of the household, as well as whether it alerted you to toileting events, cleaning-cycle interruptions, full waste bins, and low litter levels.

Warranty, replacement parts, and customer service: We examined each manufacturer’s warranty and noted whether it offered replacement parts to enable DIY repairs. “Every one of them will go wrong at some point,” Bloom said. “It’s a machine which is mechanical with moving parts and has urine in it, and sand. Litter and sand: two worst possible things you could have inside anything with moving parts,” he said. We also contacted each company’s customer service, using our personal email address, to assess their responsiveness and helpfulness.

No automatic litter box is perfect, but the Litter-Robot 4 gets a lot right. It’s spacious, reliable, and repairable. And it’s easy to clean and customize for your cat.

While no device we tested was perfect, it’s perhaps not surprising that the Litter-Robot 4 performed the best across most categories. It had the largest opening for cats to enter and exit, it reliably cleaned out waste, it was the easiest to clean and maintain, and it stopped cycling every time a cat approached. Litter-Robot’s box is the only one we found that’s made in the US. Its parent company, Whisker, has been making self-cleaning litter boxes since the year 2000, and it’s the only manufacturer to offer an extended warranty and replacement parts for DIY repairs.

It has one of the largest spaces for cats to do their business. Although the interior space is smaller than what’s recommended for a litter box (1.5 times a cat’s length), it was the largest among the boxes we tested, tied only with the FurryTail box’s interior space. Wirecutter’s accessibility editor, Claire Perlman, has been using a Litter-Robot 4 since 2023, and she said it’s large enough for her “big-boned” 13-pound cat, Doobie, to use comfortably. But larger cats may have a harder time, Claire added. The Litter-Robot 4 also has the largest entryway, measuring just under 16 inches in diameter, and the white version we tested looked like a Minion crossed with a Stormtrooper.

It minimizes odors and is the easiest to deep-clean. Our testers set the clean cycle to start running seven minutes after a cat used the box (this timing allows the litter to form decent clumps). They found that this time frame was effective for clearing out the used litter and keeping the interior walls mostly free of crud. “It smelled much better than a normal litter box. I was actually shocked at the no smell,” said Mackenzie Chapek, whose two cats, Squeakers and Nova, put the machine through its paces. And of all the models we tested, this one was the easiest to deep-clean. The instructions are straightforward and simple to follow, and there were no extra pieces that could get lost in the process.

The safety features are reliable. The safety features never failed in pausing the machine when a cat got close to it, thus eliminating the chance of a kitty getting tumbled like a load of laundry. “It stopped every time a cat went past the barrier. Nova would sit outside and watch, and it would still go, but once her head went into the main sensor area or her paws were on the box, it stopped,” Mackenzie said. The machine’s anti-pinch sensors also worked properly: When we stuck various objects—and even a human hand—in between the lip of the globe and the waste chute, the machine stopped moving and reversed direction.

The app is streamlined and uncluttered. The Litter-Robot 4’s app doesn’t have as many features and alerts as the Petkit Purobot Max Pro’s app, but its interface was one of the easiest to navigate. It tells you when a clean cycle has been completed (or interrupted), when the waste bin is full, and when the litter level is low. It also reports on your cat’s weight, but it isn’t great at distinguishing between animals with similar weights. And the scale’s accuracy can depend on the type of flooring the machine sits on.

Optional accessories allow you to tailor the box to your cat. The Litter-Robot 4 comes equipped with a small removable fence, to prevent litter from escaping. But if your cat likes to aim their pee outside the box, or they’re just a big litter-kicker, you could add a more-heavy-duty shield. Whisker also offers a ramp, to help cats enter and exit more easily; a camera-mount kit that attaches to the top of the bonnet (which hides a USB port to power a camera); and the Litter Hopper, which automatically adds fresh litter to the machine when it gets low. Claire, who is a wheelchair user and is currently testing the Litter Hopper, said that it solves one more problem for her, since she used to need someone to help her add litter to the machine.

Whisker is the only company that offers an extended warranty and replacement parts for DIY repair. Like our other picks, the Litter-Robot 4 comes with a one-year warranty. But its manufacturer, Whisker, is the only one that offers the option to extend the warranty to three years (for a fee). There are also parts you can buy separately, in case something breaks and you want to try to fix it yourself, rather than having to ship a massive machine back to the company. For Philip Bloom, an extended warranty is essential. Without it, “after that one year, if it goes wrong, that’s it. It’s junk,” he said. Likewise, Bloom said he appreciates being able to fix the machine himself. “The Litter-Robot 4 is really easy to repair. It may look daunting, but it’s not,” he told us.

The so-called SmartScale isn’t always so smart. It takes the Litter-Robot 4’s “SmartScale” about a week to get to know your cat. But in order for it to be relatively accurate, the machine needs to sit on a hard surface; this limits where you can put the box (or you could buy Whisker’s Carpet Tray accessory). Wirecutter testing logistics manager Mariana J. Guterman has used two Litter-Robot 4 boxes for over a year, and she reported that they don’t accurately measure her cats’ weights. She suspects the problem might be due to the thin jute rug that’s under the machines. For Squeakers and Nova, whose test model sat on a hardwood floor, Mackenzie said that “it took about seven to 10 days to get their weights correct, but it did.”

The sensors can be oversensitive. One of the most common complaints we heard about the Litter-Robot 4 was that its sensors were finicky and overactive. After Claire and Mariana had owned their machines for a while, both said they started to get frequent notifications that the sensors were dirty. “Recently that has meant that it pauses a lot because it thinks there’s a cat in there, and there’s no cat there,” Claire said. The problem is likely caused by dusty cat litter. “Just like any sensor anywhere, the more dust you’re exposing it to, the more that it’s going to essentially get dirty,” said Jacob Zuppke, CEO and president of Whisker. Zuppke said the company is starting to learn which litter brands are dustier and therefore more likely to cause sensor issues. But in the meantime, “I would rather annoy you for safety reasons than not annoy you and take any chances,” he said.

The brand-name accessories, waste-bin bags, and filters are expensive. Whisker’s accessories page gives the impression that the company thought of everything (or is trying to), but these aftermarket add-ons aren’t cheap. There are plenty of off-brand and 3D-printed alternatives out there, though these add-ons might invalidate your warranty, so be careful. You can also find cheaper generic versions of the consumables, like waste-bin bags and filters, online.

Like most tech-enabled products, this machine has a variety of issues. During testing, we encountered a few other glitches, including a flashing pink-and-blue light on the physical control panel. I couldn’t find any explanation for it in Whisker’s support literature, but a Reddit thread helped me resolve it. On the subreddit devoted to the Litter-Robot, users complain liberally about a myriad of issues, but they also rave about these devices. Whisker’s customer-support reps are active in the community, and if you have a problem, chances are good that someone there (or the company’s actual customer-support chat) will have an answer for you.

This machine’s robust app and built-in camera give you (too much?) information about your cat’s bathroom habits. It’s easy to clean and disassemble, but the litter bed is pretty small, and, considering the price, the warranty is insufficient.

The Petkit Purobot Max Pro provides a massive amount of data about your cat’s toilet usage, and the built-in camera is especially helpful in multi-cat homes. It allows you to see what each cat is doing inside the box—and it shows you what they left behind before it gets scooped away (even if that’s TMI). The camera can also help you determine whether a cat is acting oddly inside the box. But the globe interior is smaller than the interior space of our top pick.

The app offers detailed insights into your cat’s habits. The Purobot Max Pro’s app is more complicated than the apps of other boxes we tested, but it also offers more data. It tells you which cat visited, how much they weighed, what time they entered, and how long they spent inside. It will also alert you if your cat hasn’t used the box for some time, which can be a sign of a potential health issue. “The app will let me know if a pet hasn’t visited in a day or two,” said Hannah Manley, whose three cat testers used the Petkit box. (This may not be a big deal if you have other litter boxes in the house, as Hannah does.)

The camera lets you see exactly what’s going on. Cowboy and Poe, two of the Purobot Max Pro’s cat testers, are both black, and they weigh roughly 12 and 11.5 pounds, respectively, so the app’s built-in scale sometimes mixed them up. The camera footage helped Hannah figure out exactly who was doing what in there. Margaery, the third tester, weighs a few pounds less than her two roommates, so her visits were always recorded accurately. These mixups might be corrected by the camera’s AI-powered facial-recognition function, but this feature is still in the beta phase, so we didn’t test it. The camera, which switches to infrared vision at night, also records a clip of your cat’s waste before the cleaning cycle disappears it. So you can check on their output, if they haven’t already buried it.

It keeps things clean and stink-free. The Purobot Max Pro did a good job of sifting out the dirty litter after a seven-minute delay, and it didn’t get stinky. But there was one instance when that wasn’t enough time, and a clump stuck to the ceiling. Hannah, who also owns a Litter-Robot 3 (the predecessor to our top pick), said the Purobot Max Pro’s waste bin (which sits along the side of the device) was very easy to remove and clean—especially compared with the waste bin on her Litter-Robot 3. “I like that it was vertical (as opposed to below the litter box) and that the bag doesn’t budge,” she said. In our testing, removing the machine’s waste bin was simple, and it was just as easy as removing the Litter-Robot 4’s bin (we didn’t test the older model).

It’s a cinch to take apart and put back together. Many of the Purobot Max Pro’s pieces click into place with magnets. “I really liked the magnetic features—way less concern a piece is going to bend and snap when you’re trying to put everything together,” Hannah said. The machine comes with two different sifters, so you can use a clay litter or some larger litters, such as tofu.

It has a low-profile silhouette. Hannah also liked the “sleek appearance” of the Purobot Max Pro. “It’s not super invasive like it’s a huge appliance that needs its own corner of the house,” she said. But she also wished it had more internal space for cats to use. The box has a smaller opening than the Litter-Robot 4, but the entrance is lower down and requires less of a big step up. Still, a stool might be helpful for some cats. Cowboy, who is blind, tested it with a stool and had no trouble getting in and out.

The Petkit Purobot Max Pro’s interior is quite small. None of the self-cleaning boxes we tested were as big as we’d like, but the Purobot Max Pro’s interior was one of the smallest among the boxes we tested. There’s “not a lot of room inside,” Hannah said. “Because of the camera, I was able to see that they sometimes had to step out of the box a bit to give themselves extra space when covering their pee/poop,” she explained. Petkit is going to be adding more space in a future version. “We’re planning to introduce a larger globe design early next year,” said J.C. Zhang, chief product designer at Petkit.

It takes more work to deep-clean than our other picks. In order to dump out the litter from the globe, you need to put an included plastic cover over the sifter. But even with that, a small pile of litter was usually left behind, and we had to clear it out manually. You also have to remove the sifter and the inner mat, which is extra work compared with deep-cleaning our other picks. However, this is better than letting filth and moisture build up under there, which can happen with the FurryTail. Inside the globe, there were still some hard-to-reach areas that made deep-cleaning this box a longer, more painful ordeal than deep-cleaning the Litter-Robot 4 and the Neakasa M1. And while the interior camera itself is waterproof, if a cat pees on it, the urine can leak out around it and get on the outside of the globe.

For all of its abilities, the app makes a lot of mistakes. As mentioned above, if you have multiple cats who are similar in weight, the app might have a hard time telling them apart. The app’s interface also isn’t as streamlined as that of the Litter-Robot 4. The free version of Petkit’s app lets you watch 30 seconds of video per event and stores footage for 24 hours. When we tested it, however, it gave us a free minute per event. The various paid subscriptions offer access to longer videos and up to a month of cloud storage. This can cost between $4 to $12 a month, which we think is a lot to ask of customers who’ve already spent roughly $700 on the machine. But we also think being able to look back at your cat’s toilet usage is genuinely valuable.

For the price, the warranty isn’t enough. The Purobot Max Pro costs as much as the Litter-Robot 4, but it comes with only a one-year warranty and no option to extend it. This machine also comes with two different refillable scent dispensers. We disliked them and removed them after a few days because they filled the room with an overpowering, perfumey smell. And while anything with an internet-connected camera comes with inherent privacy and security risks, the company “does not have access to user videos under any circumstances,” said Summer Shen, strategic planning manager at Petkit. In any case, you “should be cognizant of what is visible in frame, and adjust the camera’s position or disconnect it as necessary,” said senior staff writer Max Eddy, Wirecutter’s security and privacy expert.

By offering an open top instead of an enclosed globe, this machine has some advantages—cats may be more comfortable, and litter is easier to refill. But the litter bed is fairly small, and, in terms of performance, this box has more flaws than our other picks.

If your cat prefers to pee and poop in an uncovered space, the Neakasa M1 is one of the few self-cleaning options that aren’t enclosed. This open-topped model is easy to deep-clean and less expensive than most of our other picks, but it’s still smaller than recommended, and it operates inconsistently.

An option for cats who prefer an open-air litter box. The Neakasa is one of the few uncovered boxes that we’ve found in this category, though other models are starting to come on the market (and some look eerily similar to the Neakasa). The Neakasa M1 scooped out waste efficiently, and the box was rarely smelly. But Julie York, who tested it with three cats in her home, reported that dirty litter sometimes stuck to the inner walls.

It was the easiest box to add litter to. Since this box is totally open, you just pour litter in like you would with an analog uncovered litter box. The waste bin, which sits underneath the box, was also easy to access and check on regularly.

It’s simple to disassemble for deep-cleaning. Of the models we tested, the Neakasa M1 was one of the easiest to take apart, second only to the Litter-Robot 4. To disassemble the Neakasa M1, you squeeze the handles on the sides, turn the large discs (which look like Princess Leia buns), and then lift off the tray, end of story. There are no hidden parts, and hosing or wiping down the litter tray was straightforward, but moving the chamber around is still unwieldy. We also had to pay extra attention to the waste-chute doors under the drum, where litter and liquid had accumulated, but this was easy enough to clean with a vacuum and paper towels.

We are investigating a potential safety issue. In April and May 2025, two cats were injured (one fatally) when the Neakasa M1’s drum over-rotated and trapped the animals. In a Facebook post, the company said that the issue was caused by a “displacement or detachment of internal magnets.” The company swiftly updated its firmware to help address the issue. The new firmware should apply automatically, but if it doesn’t, the company has provided these instructions for users to manually prompt the update. The company is also making a 3D-print file available that customers can use to physically ensure that the problem doesn’t happen on their devices. (Several M1 owners in the Neakasa M1 Facebook group are also offering their own DIY solutions.) In its post, the company said that it would be sending out all future litter boxes with an updated gear mechanism starting in June or July, and that it is offering existing owners a gear replacement “upon request.” We’re keeping a close eye on this situation and considering whether we’ll continue to recommend this model. In the meantime, if you own the M1, make sure that it’s using the newest firmware.

The Neakasa M1’s auto-empty function didn’t always work. When Julie was testing this machine, she found that it didn’t dump out the litter to prepare it for a deep-clean. “I had to manually clean it. It was very awkward to empty into a trash bag by myself,” she said. In our earlier testing, this function worked just fine, so it seems it’s inconsistent at best. Like the Petkit box, the Neakasa M1 also comes with only a one-year warranty and no option to extend it. So if it breaks down after a year, you’re out of luck.

Even though this box is open, it doesn’t offer cats a lot of space. Like those of our other picks, the Neakasa M1’s litter bed is smaller than what experts recommend. Also, cats have to take a big step up to get in this machine, so you may need to use a stool. And when weight is put on the half-globe, it wobbles a bit, which might discourage some risk-averse cats, though it didn’t seem to bother Shade, Shadow, or an as-yet-unnamed foster cat.

The sensors aren’t as responsive as we’d like. The Neakasa M1 rarely stopped when a cat approached the box, according to Julie. While this is concerning, we found little on this device that could potentially hurt or pinch a cat. The open design “gives cats much more safety when using this machine. Cats can jump out anytime in the rotation process,” said He Chuchu, partner and product manager at GenHigh Tech, which manufactures the Neakasa box. During our testing, the machine never rotated when a cat was inside it. But if it did, we think some cats might get spooked.

The app could be better. This box’s app was often wrong when it reported how full or empty the waste bin was. We also found it impossible to share the app with another person, though Chuchu said they’re working on a fix for this. And the app didn’t always distinguish between cats properly, according to Julie. “Sometimes our users will find our scale not so accurate, when they’ve dragged the machine or it is not so leveled,” Chuchu said. “We have been researching this issue for more than a year and we will improve this scale system in a few months,” Chuchu added.

We plan to test another, less expensive open-topped model, the PetPivot Autoscooper 11, which looks like a pared-down version of the Neakasa M1. And we’re doing some long-term testing on the Litter Hopper for the Litter-Robot 4, as well as on the Carpet Tray accessory.

We’ll also be keeping track of improvements and firmware updates to our current picks as we continue to test them over the long term.

The FurryTail Automatic Litter Box Pro costs several hundred dollars less than the Litter-Robot 4, and it has about as much space inside. And in our testing, it did a good job of cleaning up pee and poop. But during deep-cleaning, it trapped water under the litter bed, so this model took much longer to dry than our picks. There’s a high ratio of complaints from users about the machine breaking after a few months. We found the parent company difficult to trace, so it’s hard to know who is ultimately responsible for repairs, replacements, and other issues. We also have some concerns about its privacy policies.

Petkit’s Purobot Ultra is the most expensive machine we tested, costing roughly $1,000 at the time of this writing. It sports an AI-powered camera that swivels 180 degrees, so you can spy on your cat both in and out of the box. Despite having the largest footprint of the models we tested, it had the smallest interior for cats to use. The back of the device, which looks like a toilet-bowl tank, contains a unique mechanism that seals up the waste bags when they’re full. But we found that this function wasn’t worth the space it took up. Plus, you’re stuck buying its specialized Bag Refill Rings, which add an extra cost to an already-pricey item.

If you want the self-cleaning technology but don’t need the visuals, the Petkit PuraMax 2 is very similar in build to the Petkit Purobot Pro Max, minus the built-in camera. Its interior is just as small as the Purobot Pro Max version’s, but it’s about a hundred dollars cheaper.

This article was edited by Harry Sawyers.

He Chuchu, partner and product manager, GenHigh Tech (Neakasa), email interview, February 20, 2025

J.C. Zhang, co-founder and chief product designer, Petkit, video interview with a translator, February 18, 2025

Jacob Zuppke, president and CEO, Whisker (Litter-Robot), video interview, February 12, 2025

Summer Shen, strategic planning manager, Petkit, email interview, January 17, 2025

Philip Bloom, filmmaker, part-time YouTuber, One Man Five Cats, video interview, January 10, 2025

Mikel Delgado, PhD, certified applied animal behaviorist and certified cat behavior consultant, phone interview, January 9, 2025

Julie Liu, DVM, veterinarian and cat behavior consultant, owner, My Family Cat, phone interview, January 9, 2025

Carlo Siracusa, DVM, veterinary behavior specialist, associate professor of clinical animal behavior and welfare, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, phone interview, January 9, 2025

Ryan Anderson, category manager, waste management, PetSafe, email interview, October 11, 2017

Dr. Ann Hohenhaus, staff doctor, Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, phone interview, October 12, 2017

Mary Molloy, dog trainer (CPDT-KA) at Nirvana Tails and animal behavior counselor for the ASPCA, phone interview, November 6, 2017

Staff (and cats), Meow Parlour cat café, in-person interviews, October 20, 2017

Joshua Warchol, CatGenie owner, Twitter direct message interview, October 25, 2017

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