My Impressions After 11 Days with LR4: Absolutely Appalled
(TLDR I wanted it to hold shit, not be shit. But, alas.)
I'm writing this mostly just to share my experiences with Whisker and anyone else who might be on the fence about LR, I'm not expecting that anyone here will be able to fix things, as I do believe it's just a fundamentally flawed product at this point.
I have two cats who love to poop, and I finally bit the bullet on a LR4, ordering a 4 and hopper bundle on April 23.
Ordering/Shipping
When the LR shipped it was split into three shipments, which would arrive on separate days. Not a problem; I kept an eye out for the one with the actual robot since I didn't want to leave a noticeable and expensive package on my porch any longer than absolutely necessary. Luckily it would be the first to arrive: My packages according to the website would be (1) Litter Robot + Hopper, (2) Drawer Lining Bags, (3) Litter.
I was surprised the Litter Robot was listed on the website as being in the first package and already shipped, since the webite also said something like "building your robot" or something, implying it wasn't ready to be shipped yet. Oh well, the shipping clearly showed Litter Robot + Hopper in package #1.
Nope, package #1 was just the Hopper. The actual packages I received were (1) Hopper, (2) Robot + Liner, (3) Litter.
Obviously not a huge issue, but not a great start that their shipping information on their website, including when I could expect a large package which obviously showed it had something worth several hundred dollars in it, was incorrect. Oh well, it's finally here!
Setting Up & Bundles
When I first took the items out of their boxes, I was surprised that it looked line mine was broken or missing a piece. The back of the unit looked like a cover was missing; I have since realized that this is because it had a hopper-bonnet preinstalled. The quickstart guide that shows me how to set it up shows a different bonnet, which led to some confusion for me, and I also did not realize I wouldn't receive a normal bonnet. (Which would have been nice to have in case the litter hopper wasn't working. Spoiler alert for later on, it doesn't work, and now I can't even have the smooth back plate without contacting the company.)
The people who created the "quickstart guides" for the devices have never actually, practically, followed their instructions. You've just opened your LR4 and turn to the first page of the quick start guide. You are instructed to set it on a firm, flat surface near an outlet, no problem. You are then instructed to fill the robot with litter, done. You are then instructed to get to the small plug on the base of the unit to plug in the power, something that would have been infinitely easier to do before filling the drum. Even worse, my unit's wiring had come loose in shipping, so I had to actually take the drawer out and feed the interior cable back toward the "hole" where the power cord plugged in, holding it in place from inside the unit while I pushed the plug in from the outside. This is not something I should have to have done in the first place, but it made an already poorly placed instruction even more difficult. But, okay, I've got it plugged in, done.
Time to put on the litter hopper accessory! Step #1. . . Turn the unit, which is now filled with litter, upside down to install a new anti-tip guard. Why wasn't this installed if they already pre-installed the bonnet? No clue. But now I get to get all the litter back out so I can install the anti tip guard. And I get to fight with my poorly mounted interior power cable again, too, since that needs to be threaded through the tip guard properly. Okay, done.
Attach the hopper to the robot, great. Okay. I'm trying here. It's not working. Is it because something on my unit is broken? The power cable had already been essentially broken off inside, and the surfaces in this hook tab sure look rough enough to make me think something was broken off there. I honestly think it's broken.
After a while of comparing my unit to the images int he hopper set up I find a likely issue; my bonnet has "gaps." The images show I need to attach it without gaps. It doesn't tell me how to attach it without gaps. The thing's brand new, there's no litter in it, and I've finagled this bonnet on and off in every way I can, but there are always gaps. Checking reddit it seems a lot of people struggling with this got a new bonnet from Whisker, but this is literally a brand new machine, there's no reason I should be having to get a part replacement. Eventually I do finally get it into place, apparently, somehow. I don't know how, since there is no indication of what I did differently one time versus the other, but apparently the Hopper accepts the configuration, finally. Hooray.
Wow. It's set up. So exciting! And the hopper is working, too!
First 3-4 Days
Thankfully, my cats take to it very well, so no "training" required. The litter hopper is very enthusiastic, it goes through 12 lb of litter in two days. I disable it in the app, but do not remove it from the unit, wanting to see how its use of litter differs from if I just fill manually.
Other than the litter over-use from the hopper, I'm pretty pleased! The scales are worthless despite one cat weighing ~7 lb and one weighing about 12 lb, I get weights around 9 lb regularly, god only knows what's happening there, but otherwise it's going well.
Day 5, Problems Return
Filling the litter manually has been fine, and it's time to empty the drawer. The special drawer liners specifically made by the company by this machine has holes along the sides, not places that are going to cause llitter/poop to fall out on the way to the trash can, but I'm very unimpressed that even the special bags made especially for this device are falling apart. As I'm putting the tray back in with another bag, I decide I want to try the litter hopper again. I enable it in the app.
But it's not working. I don't know why, nothing's changed, I hadn't even removed it from the device. But it's throwing errors and not dispensing.
"Hey, removing it and then reinstalling it can help for things like this, I'll try that."
Nope, I have tried for literal hours, uninstalling and reinstalling the hopper, uninstalling and reinstalling the bonnet, making sure no litter is anywhere in any spots, but it is impossible to get this thing back on in the magical gapless configuration that lets the motor of the hopper connect and work. And if I decide to just go without the hopper, I still have to deal with the ill-fitting hopper bonnet, since, again, I wasn't given a plain bonnet.
Submitting a Ticket
I've still got in my mind that people on reddit who have had the gapped bonnet problem have received new bonnets from Whisker CS, so I submit a ticket. Submitting a ticket was pretty smooth, actually, including that I could use a QR code on my computer to swap to my phone easily to take a video, which they requested I do when I submit a ticket! I take a video explaining the bonnet and hopper situation, as the ticket system tells me to do, and I make sure to show the gap in the bonnet, and honestly all around the system. The response was really fast, too, despite being outside of business hours. I was impressed! Until the response was "Please send us a picture of the issue." I responded simply "The issue is displayed in the video I submitted with the ticket." The next day they sent me out a new bonnet that will hopefully fit properly. That arrives today, we'll see.
The Midnight Malfunction
I still don't know what happened last night, but I certainly woke up to find my cat peed in the bed right next to me, and the other peed on a rug in the living room near the robot. Theyve never gone outside the litterbox. I peer in the box, and find that it has gotten stuck mid-cycle, so all the litter is in the little catch area where they couldn't get in it even if they tried, and onlyu the bag of waste is showing at the bottom through the chute. For some reason the lights were solid red and the thing had gotten stuck mid-cycle in the middle of the night.
As I do a surprise massive laundry day to clean up after this, I'm also trying to fix the damn machine. I can make it manually start cycling by hitting the buttons on it, but even if no one goes anywhere near it, it stops halfway through because there's a cat detected. I've Googled this, too, and found that many redditors are able to fix this with canned air or a wet q-tip to the sensors.
I'm not stranger to maintenance of my things. But that's usually after a a year, a few years. Maybe 6 months. Not a week. The fact I even might need to do this 10 days in would be a huge design flaw. But I'm not sure if that even is the thing, because I've done those, now, and it's still broken and catching at every cycle, so that may not have even been my particular issue. But since the only thing the app tells me is that a cat was detected despite both my cats being in the other room with me while the cycle runs, I have no other ideas. Maybe the bonnet that arrives today will fix it somehow? Who knows.
Reliability
I had been on the fence about getting a LR, but was at a wedding and these came up. My step-sister loves hers. The other person who had one had "never gotten it to work." Well, I guess we now have 2/3 of the people who have never gotten it to work!
Some of my issues (incorrect info about package shipping, poorly thought out quick start guide order) are minor but speak to a lack of care by Whisker for the user experience. Other issues, though, are major. And that I've had this many problems, some of them quite major (an automatic litter box that can break in the middle of the night is not worth anything), is appalling.
But, honestly, it wouldn't be so offensive to me if it weren't for the price. The audacity to charge this much when the device and experience are so poor? Absolutely insulting.
Since the bonnet arrives today, I will give it a shot. I've set a reminder on my phone to "check in" with myself about it before the return window closes, because if it doesn't work flawlessly from here on out, I'll be returning it for sure (and I'll definitely be contacting CS, I don't care what their policy says, I won't be paying return shipping after they sent me broken garbage). If the bonnet is "the fix to cure all ills" then I will possibly keep it, but even if I do, I will not be recommending LR to anyone else based solely on my experiences already. The product is just so poor while being so pricy.
