Petsafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litterbox review

Our Verdict

Petsafe ScoopFree Smart Cocky-Cleaning Litterbox is an expensive mode to avoid cleaning your cat'due south litter box.

For

Cleans litterbox automatically
Tin can exist monitored and controlled from app
Works well

Against

Expensive
Still needs a good bit of maintenance

Tom's Guide Verdict

Petsafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litterbox is an expensive way to avoid cleaning your cat's litter box.

Pros

+
Cleans litterbox automatically
+
Can be monitored and controlled from app
+
Works well

Cons

-
Expensive
-
Still needs a practiced bit of maintenance

I adore my two cats, and accept seen them through seizures, cancer, and leg and tail amputations. (It might be more authentic to say I have a little less than one and three-quarters cats). However, owning cats ways scooping litter boxes, a drudging chore that neither I nor my married woman bask. The $200 PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Cocky-Cleaning Litterbox may exist a mouthful of a proper noun, but it does hope ane thing: You won't have to rake or scoop your furry friend'due south waste ever again.

As I discovered during this PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litterbox review, it makes things somewhat more user-friendly, but it'due south a steep toll for a little more than convenience.

PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Cocky-Cleaning Litter Box: Price and availability

The PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litterbox costs $199 for a non-covered model, and $235 for a model with a removable embrace. That'due south pretty pricey for a piece of plastic.

If you lot don't intendance nearly monitoring your litter box from your phone, PetSafe also sells a non-smart model (PetSafe ScoopFree Automated Cocky-Cleaning Cat Litter Box) for $139.

PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litter Box: Litter costs

In add-on to the device, you also need to purchase tray inserts with PetSafe's special litter. A pack of three inserts cost around $48. Each tray should concluding almost a month per cat, and around fifteen days if you lot accept two cats using it.

Alternatively, you tin can purchase a reusable tray ($49.95, and comes with i pack of litter), and so buy only the litter, which costs about $17 for a two-pack. It's a higher upfront cost, but volition be less expensive later on three months.

PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litter Box: Pattern

The blueprint of the ScoopFree litter box is pretty straightforward. The box itself measures 27.6 x 19.1 x half-dozen.ii inches, about the size of a large litter box. Information technology'due south a rectangle that'southward open on both the top and the lesser, with a metallic rake spanning the gap.

Petsafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litterbox review — (Epitome credit: Tom'south Guide)

On one of the narrow sides is a small LCD display and some buttons and lights that tell you if the machine is continued to Wi-Fi and how many times it'due south raked. Considering it runs on Air conditioning power, information technology needs to be fairly close to an outlet; the power cord is probably about 10 feet long, though.

The motorcar rests atop the litter box insert, which is basically a cardboard tray. You prepare the litter box on top of the tray, and then fill up the inside with PetSafe'due south litter.

On the inside of the machine are two small sensors that detect when your cat is in the litter box. The PetSafe volition wait until 20 minutes after the cat has left before it starts the raking process. The rake starts at one end, and slowly moves towards the other side, pushing the waste product in front of information technology. When it gets to the other side, a plastic trap door opens, the rake pushes the waste matter inside, and and so returns to its original position, and the trap door closes. Information technology's kind of neat to watch — if you don't mind looking at cat poop.

PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litter Box: Functioning and maintenance

I — also as my cats — were a bit skeptical about the automatic litter box at first. However, after a twenty-four hours or two, ane of my cats was using it regularly to do his business.

The PetSafe litter crystals as well did a proficient job at mitigating the odor of the cats' waste material; one of our cats isn't the virtually captious about buying his stuff, just nosotros didn't detect any extra odors, even after him using it for a month.

In the PetSafe app, you can monitor how many times the litter box was used, and when your niggling fur babies went to the bathroom. You can also change the amount of time the litter box will wait until it starts raking, and get notifications if information technology's being used a lot, which could indicate your true cat has wellness problems. The app too lets you specify the number of cats you have, as well as the number of litter boxes they use.

Petsafe's app says that you should wait to modify the litter tray after 25 days or about 60 rakes if you take two cats using two litter boxes. With the addition of the Petsafe, we had iv litter boxes, and it took just xx rakes over a period of near 30 days for it to be filled up. I as well knew it was time for the box to be emptied when the plastic trap door no longer fully closed shut.

Finally, it came time to empty the litter box, an unenviable task if there ever was one. I removed the peak section of the litter box to reveal the tray; all of my true cat'due south waste was hidden underneath a small paper-thin flap.

Emptying the tray is easiest if you lot can dump it into a garbage bin; less convenient is the cardboard tray, which must be folded in half if you lot desire to fit information technology hands into a garbage bag. Fifty-fifty though the tray is fabricated of cardboard, I didn't feel comfortable putting it in with the recycling.

The ScoopFree isn't totally maintenance-free, either. Several times, I found that cat excrement had go stuck in the rake, which caused the litter to become pushed back and forth. I then had to scrape off the stale poop from the rake to brand certain things worked equally they should.

PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Self-Cleaning Litter Box: Verdict

Can yous put a price on not having to make clean your cat's poop every few days? Turns out you tin can. The PetSafe ScoopFree Smart Cocky-Cleaning Litterbox did its chore and freed me from having to shovel sh-t. Mostly.

As I found out, this is not something you lot can simply forget about for a month, specially if your cat'south poop isn't the most, uh, consequent. For what the litterbox costs, I'd like a flake more than of a easily-free experience. If you don't want to spend $200 on a litter box, PetSafe also makes one that's not Internet-connected for $139. That'south however a heckuva lot more expensive than your standard $5 plastic litter box, fifty-fifty more if y'all opt for a reusable tray.

In the greater scheme of things, a cocky-cleaning litter box is frivolous. But if y'all've got better things to exercise than clean litter boxes all the time, the PetSafe ScoopFree could be worth the investment. And that'south the directly poop.

Michael A. Prospero is the deputy editor at Tom'due south Guide overseeing the home, smart home, drones, and fitness/wearables categories, every bit well as all buying guides and other evergreen content. When he's not testing out the latest running watch, skiing or grooming for a marathon, he's probably using the latest sous vide machine or some other cooking gadget.