I have a Litter Robot 4 and love the thing. Been running solid for about a year now. It’s certainly not under $500, but has been well worth the money.
Seconding. Reading the other less-effusive comments has been interesting because I feel quite strongly about it. It was I think $600 when we got it and it was so difficult to stomach spending that kind of dough on a fucking litter box but now I’d drop it again in a heartbeat if anything ever happened to this one. That said, I also have three cats and now one of them has hyperthyroidism so we have to dump it every day and a half or so. It’s so often but I cannot imagine doing it with a regular litter box.
No specific recommendations, but be wary of cheaply made products or anything from less reliable sources. Some people's cats have been killed by moving parts with uncalibrated motor strength.
The under $500 is harder.
But check out One Man 5 Cats. He's the GOAT of automated litter box reviews, you'll get honest, critical review of them.
Here's a video from last year: https://youtu.be/fqQQtW1HJQQ
Some automated litter boxes kill cats by way of entrapment or pinch hazards. It's tragic.
Personally, I have a couple little robot threes and a couple little robot fours. I've had the threes for almost 4 years now and they definitely run into problems and have effectively stopped working in an automated fashion by this point.
The fours are going strong.
Of course, these are out of budget for you. Good luck!
We have the LR3, LR4, and FurryTail. The LR3 bonnet sensor used to be funny, so I soldered it, which shouldn’t have happened with such an expensive box. Anyways, the FurryTail is $300 and punches well above it’s weight. It also weighs the cats. I’ve never used the app, but I know there is one. For the price, I’m very happy with it.
I have two of the petkit puramax 2 for 4 cats. I am away from home for up to 4 days during the week for work at times and I never come home to messes, clogs, or errors caused by the devices, just the occasional bad shot from a cat that has been pooping over the front ledge of litterbox entrances since she was first litter trained. the only thing I don't love is that the waste bin stays in place while the bin rotates above it causing the clumps to come to a peak prematurely setting off the full box alert. a quick shake levels things out and allows the bag to be used to capacity. otherwise they have some nice settings in the app such as sloshing around the litter a little before collecting to make sure it has clumped well. they go on sale quite often from what I've seen, I believe I paid around $350 each when they were on sale.
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