Our Pets Smart Scoop Intelligent Bluetooth Litter Box Self Cleaning Health Monitoring System

This hands down the BEST kitty litter box on the market. Unlike other brands it doesn't require any special litter, refill cartridges, or disposal containers, saving you a ton of money on supplies costs vs the other brands. It uses ordinary plastic shopping bags for disposal, the same sort of bags any store cashier puts your items in so you probably already have tons of them. It also uses any brand of clumping litter--although I recommend Arm & Hammer Clump & Seal with its 7-day odor-free guarantee as that stuff actually lives up to its claims.  Arm & Hammer Clump & Seal Platinum Lightweight Litter, Multi-Cat, 11 Lbs Both the OurPets Smart Scoop and the Pet Zone Smart Scoop are identical liter box designs made by the same company, but when you buy it under their OurPets brand it adds bluetooth notifications via a phone app, a feature which the Pet Zone brand doesn't offer. I know the idea of a bluetooth enabled litter box sounds completely ridiculous, but trust me--once you start getting notification alerts on your phone to inform you that the litter box needs attention, needs its bag changed, etc, you'll quickly learn how awesome of a feature that actually is.We used to have the LitterMaid brand of automated litter box. It had all sorts of problems with the belt drive mechanism getting stuck or slipping. One day we ran out of litter & in a pinch had to buy whatever they had at the convenience store down the block. Big mistake. The LitterMaid got all gummed up in a terrible mess due to the wrong brand of litter. Nobody wanted to take that nasty thing apart to put the belt back on track, so we decided to replace it. I researched all the brands of automated litter boxes on the market and read all the reviews. Let me just say, none of them are perfect--they all have pros and cons, and that includes the Smart Scoop. But, after extensively researching this I had to conclude the Smart Scoop is the best engineered design out there. The disposal box and motor unit are together, and it is clamped directly to a gear track right on the side of the pan so there's no belts to slip or jam. The Smart Scoop is a far better design than the LitterMaid.The Smart Scoop's biggest draw back is that it's particularly fussy about the amount of litter you put in the box. There are minimum and maximum fill lines which are too close together for my liking, although I do understand the reason it being designed that way. They are totally serious about these limits! If you put too much litter in and your cat coincidentally produces an unusually large clump, the rake will push that clump through the pile of litter like a plow and try to plow the rest of the litter out of the way. When it gets to the curve at the end of the pan while its too full it may sense this as an obstruction. This is a safety feature--in the off chance your cat were to jump back in it while the mechanism is in motion we wouldn't want it to be able to exert so much force that it could potentially hurt your pet, so instead if it senses any obstruction it'll press lightly against it for two attempts and then give up, return to the starting point and deactivate until you remove the obstruction and reset it--something you definitely do not want to have happen while you're out of town. My cat will not use a litter box which hasn't been cleaned, so if the device deactivates & there are several clumps in the box I'll probably return to find he left a surprise for me to clean up on the floor in front of the box too.This problem can also happen if you don't have enough litter. If the litter isn't deep enough urine will saturate all the way through to the bottom of the pan & form a clump that sticks to the plastic creating an obstruction for the rake to get stuck on & deactivate. You lose a little bit of litter with each clump, so always fill it to the maximum fill line and add a small scoop every few days depending on how much your cats use it to keep it full. I also recommend buying the  Pet Zone No Stick Litter Box Spray 4 ounce  Lubricant which Amazon sells. When you clean the litter box and change the litter, spray the pan down with this stuff first, wait 15 minutes, and then pour in your fresh litter. This will prevent clumps from sticking to the side of the plastic and helps ensure the automated mechanism rakes successfully without hitting obstructions. The bottle will probably last you all year, so it's well worth it.Fortunately if it does encounter an obstruction and deactivates, the OurPets version of the Smart Scoop will send a bluetooth notification to its phone app. (Something the Pet Zone version doesn't offer.) Of course bluetooth only has a limited range so you won't get these alert notifications until you arrive back home--although you'd have to be home to tend to the problem anyway so that shouldn't matter much. They do sell a wifi bridge accessory that makes the phone app notifications work remotely, but its kind of expensive and really only useful if you have a neighbor or someone you can call to have them go fix the problem while you're out of town.  OurPets 4400013224 Smart Link Gateway Wi-Fi Pet Care Connector  The wifi bridge accessory might be more worthwhile if are using all the various other devices in the OurPets intelligent series and want to monitor them all remotely. They make a food bowl with a lid that closes when your dog approaches so the dog can't steal the cat food.  OurPets WonderBowl Selective Pet Feeder  OR  OurPets Smart Link Intelligent Pet Care Selective Feeder Automatic Pet Bowl  I think that's kind of a cool idea, but it requires all of your pets to wear these special Smart ID tags on their collar.  OurPets 4400013289 Smart Link Pet Tag  I wish they made a pet door that only unlocks when certain pets approach--once they come out with something like that I might invest in the smart tags for them to wear. I don't want to end up with them having to wear two different brands of ID tags though, so I'm going to wait and see if OurPets comes out with a Smart Pet Door before buying the other accessories.If you have more than one cat and do buy the smart ID tags for them to wear, this litter box will sense which cat is using it at any given time and your phone app will generate reports detailing which cat used the litter box at what times which you can give to your veterinarian. It also alerts you if there's an unusual change in their usage habits. I think all of that is overkill and am happy that it just notifies me when the bag is getting full or the mechanism gets stuck. If you only have one cat, you do not need any of the smart ID tags for the full reporting capability.Also, one other issue I've noted. If there is a power outage, when the power comes back on you have to remember to go push the power button on the side of the litter box to turn it back on again. If the power goes out while you're away, and nobody pushes this power button when it comes back on, it won't rake the litter anymore until someone pushes this dumb button. I wish it would power up automatically as soon as its plugged in. My work around to this was to run an extension cord and plug it into my computer's Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) battery backup.

I have only had the product for five days. It hasn’t made one “run” yet. I have two cats. One very finicky about its litter box. I had been using a doggy door but we have moved, the yard is smaller and she won’t go in the same yard as the dogs, so I was excited to get automated again. I have owned and tried just about every box there is but the Robot. I have used the crystal Smart litterbox before. My last box was the one that washes the litter. My cat would not get used to it. The Mega box was too hard to clean. I thought this would be the answer. All the reviews about not going to the end of the box, or deep enough in the box are true. So far this box has not worked once. I took the rake off, and let it make a run to see if it is the motor, but no it finally made a complete pass back and forward so it has to be the rake. I have probably reset this thing with different levels of litter - always mindful of the two lines - minimum and maximum that leaves little deviation of just what will work. It has not even attempted to lift any clumps. The bag is as clean as it was when I installed it days ago. This box is either going back or I get some answers and help from the manufacturer. It goes toward the front, opens the lid - no waste - and then stops before it completes the pass from some unknown obstruction that did not obstruct it from going forward. Right now I am using it like another reviewer, as a very expensive manual litter box.

This is my second one of these. Much better than not having an automatic litter box, but with this design change since the earlier model, I now have to scoop manually each time I empty the bin to get what the automatic rake misses. I had the motor replaced under warranty already, and the new motor occasionally stops with a red light suggesting it may fail too. I'm disappointed with the design changes.

After my Nature's Miracle litter box stopped working well (the arm just constantly gets stuck because my cat buries her litter higher than it likes and I think it eventually wore the motor out) I thought maybe this would be a good replacement. At first it did seem to be working well. It didn't take too long for me to notice the problems though.First thing - the waste receptacle is garbage. It doesn't lie flesh with the edge so litter and poop often sneak through the cracks it doesn't cover. I thought the fact that it doesn't use custom bins might save me some money (since you can use grocery bags, etc) but it just causes more hassle as half the waste tends to fall out back into the box while I'm trying to take the bag out anyways, meaning I'm re-scooping most of what it already collected which is kind of the opposite thing you want from an automatic litter box...As others have said, the rake also doesn't reach the bottom. Again, more scooping for me to get this clean and meanwhile her litter gets dirtier because it's not getting properly cleaned until I intervene.The biggest problem I'm currently dealing with though is the error light. This thing is constantly blinking red ("box malfuntioning" the manual says) for no reason that I can tell which means the arm won't actually go on its own. If I turn the box off and back on, it will go once through, then go back to blinking red. I don't get it. Maybe there's litter stuck somewhere it doesn't like? *shrug* But once again, it's turned the whole thing into a manual process for me.Other than that, the whole "smart scoop" thing is kind of pointless. I downloaded the app and it doesn't really tell me anything except what time she uses the litter box (well, it did anyways, when it wasn't constantly in error mode...) There are graphs for food consumption and other health stats but I've never seen these actually filled in once. I thought at first maybe I just had to use it for awhile but nope, still completely empty. I can only assume that stuff doesn't actually work (maybe it's meant for a different product of theirs since the app seems to be universal).

I've used various incarnations of this product. It seems with each one it gets gets slightly less useful that the previous model.Luckily the parts from the older devices can be slotted into the newer ones to resolve most of the issues.I bought the 'smart' version as it was slightly cheaper than the dumb one.Being a bit of an IT geek, I've played with the so called smart feature. The mobile app is terrible and the information is not accurate.One bit of good news, they seem to have reverted back to metal components in the motor, which is an improvement on the plastic cogs, my last one had.It's remains very difficult to fully clean.Despite its faults, it's still the most appropriate automatic cat box for my requirements, I just wish they'd spend sometime working out the kinks that have been in this product for years.

Changed the kitty litter and sand. Next thing I know the moving part jammed itself at the other end with the gate up. We tried, but it couldn’t be disassembled. A lot of money spent on something we can no longer use

I have been using the product for about twoWeeks now and it is wonderful. Now just to remember to check it daily to dump the scoop! Lol

I purchased the older model a few years back at Canadian Tire it was amazing! I loved it. Then purchased this and it’s not good at all. It doesn’t scoop everything because the rake is too short. Also, It arrived with a faulty motor and was replaced with another faulty motor. Don’t waste your money.

It’s not bad but still makes too much noise that it scares my cats and one of them refuses to use the litter for anything but a number one. Also, it leaves a fair amount of waste behind.