Catit Smartsift Automatic Sifting Litter Box

Po pierwsze produkt przyszedł w opłakanym stanie, podrapane plastikowe elementy, urwane drzwiczki. Nie był to efekt transportu, chociaż pudło też było poniszczone. No ale kuweta piękna być nie musi – bez drzwiczek też może być. Zaczęliśmy ją używać. Te torebki są trudno dostępne i mają dwa rozmiary. Te na dół łatwo kupić, a te na górę, to niestety nawet jak były opisane, że są na czysty żwirek, to przyszły za małe. Bez nich wszystko się mocno przykleja. Z normalnym workiem na śmieci to się nie sprawdza. Mało wchodzi do niej żwirku. Jest niewygodna do czyszczenia. Niby kuweta ma wajchę, która pozwala łatwo przesiać żwirek, ale ostatecznie nie do końca to działa. Słaby produkt. Jedną ma zaletę, jest wysoka więc mało się dookoła niej rozsypuje.

I have 8 cats and had been using the Omega Paw Self-Cleaning Litter Box, Pewter for about 4 years prior to using the SmartSift so most of this review will be a comparison between the two products. The Omega Paw functions similarly to the SmartSift, in that you roll the litter your cat uses to sift it through a grate. The clean litter goes into a holding area and the dirty clumps drop into a drawer to be emptied. I’ve found the Omega Paw to be better than a regular litter box but the SmartSift is superior to even the Omega Paw in several ways.

Size: For the Omega Paw, you have to roll the entire litter box completely upside-down to sift the litter while the SmartSift is actually one box (the litter pan) that rotates inside another box (the outer shell) so it can be rolled without rotating the entire box. What this means is that even though the SmartSift requires a little more space than the Omega Paw while “at rest”, it can ultimately can be located in tighter spaces than the Omega Paw since it never moves. It’s also a lot less labor intensive on me, which is a plus. Both boxes do require more space than a regular litter box though.

Litter: For both boxes, you have to be sure not to put more litter into the litter pan than can be accommodated in the clean litter holding area when you roll it. If you overfill the holding area, you’ll be wasting clean litter that drops into the dirty litter drawer. Though I’ve experienced this issue several times with the Omega Paw, I’ve never had a problem with it for the SmartSift even though I don’t use the guide line provided inside litter pan to measure. Since the litter limit goes by the capacity of the clean litter holding area, I just roll the SmartSift litter pan to get rid of the dirty clumps, then pour the fresh clean litter directly into the holding area as I’m rotating it back to the regular position. I know as long as I don’t overflow the clean litter holding area, I’m within the limit.

Grate: I’ve also found that with the Omega Paw, after about 6 months of usage, you begin to lose a lot of clean litter when you roll even if you don’t overfill it. The reason is that the grate for the Omega Paw originally comes as a straight piece of plastic (half grated and half solid plastic) that you fold into an L-shape to make a shelf for the dirty litter drawer as well as the grated clean litter holding area. The seam where it’s folded tends to crack after a few months which allows clean litter to spill out when you roll it. The SmartSift, on the other hand, has the grate and surrounding frame of the litter pan as one solid piece of plastic. Though I’ve only been using the SmartSift for a few weeks, I can’t see how that problem could be replicated given the difference in design. That’s a big plus in the SmartSift’s column as I’ve had to replace all my Omega Paws at least once and was due to replace them again for exactly that issue. Even though the SmartSift is about double the price of the Omega Paw, not having to replace all the litter boxes every couple of years will more than make up the difference.

Clumps: The SmartSift comes with liners for the litter pan but I don’t use them since 1) I don’t want to spend extra money on it and 2) my cats claw them up anyway. Since I don’t use the SmartSift liners and the Omega Paw doesn’t come with liners, with both boxes I sometimes get clumps of urine-saturated litter sticking to the bottom of the pan and to the sifting grate. You can use a litter scooper to dislodge clumps from both but those honestly gross me out so I was happy to find that with the SmartSift I could just grab a paper towel and, with the litter pan in the rolled upside-down position, knock the clumps into the dirty litter drawer. Then I drop the paper towel into the drawer too and don’t have to worry about storing a dirty scooper in my house!

Drawer: The dirty litter drawer of the SmartSift also has a liner which I do use. However, instead of buying Catit’s replacement liners, I just use 13 gal trash bags. They just manage to fit around the rim of drawer and I assume that varies by brand so if you go that route, you may want to try multiple brands if the first one doesn’t fit. No matter what brand of trash bag you use, it’ll likely be a lot cheaper than the liners designed specifically for the litter box. The Omega Paw does not come with liners for their drawer and the design would make it difficult to use a regular bag so that’s another big plus for the SmartSift.

So far I’ve bought 4 SmartSifts for my 8 cats and I’ve gotten pretty good at assembling them. It’s not too difficult after the first one and I haven’t encountered any problems that would be caused by improper assembly. I don’t use the doors provided so that may eliminate some of the problems people have talked about in reviews. And I either must not have a cat that urinates high on the walls or just haven’t run across problems caused by that so I can’t speak to that issue either.

I’ll continue to monitor the cats usage of the SmartSift to see if we run into any new problems but so far it’s been a great product.

This seemed like a great idea. I wanted to be able to quickly handle the litterbox and minimize my actual touching of used litter (because, be honest, that’s gross). Unfortunately, this litterbox was problematic from the start. First, is the size. I mean, it’s huge. Huge. I don’t know where a cat owner is expected to keep such a monstrosity but it won’t fit under the bathroom sink, or most anywhere else for that matter. Ok, so I have to have it in a closet that I now have to leave open all the time. If that was the only problem, I could have lived with it; but it wasn’t. I’m so sick of these products that you buy and then in order to keep using you have to buy more products (I’m talking about the liners). On top of that, these liners are crap. The litter gets caught in the folds when you rotate to sift, so how the hell is that supposed to work?? I had to be reaching in and shaking lose the litter; remember how I said I wanted to minimize my actual touching of the litter? Yeah, didn’t happen; instead I am touching it more directly than just with a scooper. So, I thought that maybe the think could work without the liner for the actual litterbox part. And it does; partially. The litter will be sifted and the poop will fall into the bottom. But the urine sticks to the litterbox, so you have to scoop it loose to get it to fall in the bottom. What’s the point of a litter sifting cat pan that still needs scooped? Again, possibly something I could work around, but now I’m getting frustrated. This is three strikes, but I’m gonna try anyway because the d*mn thing cost a good bit. So what was the last straw? When my cat, in distress, had to pee on the floor because the handle-hook that’s supposed to keep the litterbox locked in place had gotten loose during use so the litterbox swing up a bit during the last cat use, blocking the door, preventing the kitty from being able to get inside.
Oh, and icing on the cake, the thing does nothing for odors. Nothing. Not a thing. There’s so much space between the sides of the clear flap and the wall that plenty of odor can get out. And if you’re thinking ‘I can sift the used litter into the bottom drawer and only change it every other day’ or anything along those lines; you’ll need a ton of febreeze or scented candles because that drawer has absolutely no odor stopping power at all.

So I’ve detailed my experience. I have two kitties and they’re really great about switching to new types of litter boxes, never having mistakes on the floor. So when my kitty had to pee on the floor (happened while I was witness) and was in such distress about doing it, I was done with this thing when I realized it was because the litterbox essentially locked them out.