Screenshots courtesy of Molly Higgins

Seeing is believing

When the box is set up for the first time, you get a free trial of Premium Petkit Care+, which essentially allows you to watch all the playback when your cat uses it (without it, you can only see photos of the times your pet domestic appears). The free trial of the premium plan lasts 30 days from installation, and has three levels of subscription plans, starting at $4 per month for Basic and going up to $12 per month for Premium+. With Premium version playback, you can literally watch how the metaphorical sausage is made in the box, as you record your cat with the box in all its glory, followed by a recording of the litter tumbling while the stool is separated from clean litter and dispensed into the airtight bag below. After showing the stool, there is a graph where it has an illustration that shows a normal versus abnormal stool so you can identify any changes or abnormalities (one of the most effective ways to monitor your cat's health). Although this is a good idea in theory, the videos are not in high definition and were always in black and white, which made actually watching anything very difficult (I often found myself saying, "Yeah, it's a small gray image of a tiny cat").

One of my cats is a massive 20 pound gray tabby and the other is a super fluffy 12 pound calico. When I had the Petkit Care+ process, it correctly identified the cats on 75 percent of the time, but once it expired, which cat it was that was never automatically identified, despite the fact that they looked completely different.

Pack it Up

The litter box can use many types of litter, including clay and tofu, but has different litter sifting grids to ensure that it separates properly. The 10L basket lasts up to 20 days with a single cat, and is located in the back of the device. Like other Petkit boxes I've tested, it stinks a lot because of the proprietary odor eliminator ($20 for three refills) and sealed garbage bag. When the waste bin is full, open the lid of the trunk, remove the dirty bag, replace it with a clean bag, and clip in the lid of the refill ring to make sure it stays in place properly. Part of the reason the rear trunk end is so massive is because of the automatic packing system. It rises during operation, and when the bag is full, it has auto-packing, auto-sealing, and auto-bagging. Then, when the sealed garbage bag is ready, the user only needs to remove it (you need to do it manually with the buttons of the device, and be present to get out and refresh). Because of this packaging system, you will need special Petkit refill rings and trash bags (three for $35). Although the smart box shows images of the stool, they are not super detailed, so I recommend you also check the stool itself to make sure there is nothing wrong with it.

Screenshots courtesy of Molly Higgins