These days, it’s not unusual for most of our activities to be run through our smartphones. Need to send a pal a few bucks for your half of dinner last night? Simply use Venmo (or just stiff ‘em and hope they forget about it). Trying to find a new boo? Just date your OS jump on Hinge or Tinder. Wanting to improve your meditation, productivity, piano skills, cooking, or budgeting? There are dozens, if not thousands, of options out there. But an app for tracking your cat’s bathroom habits? Yep, now that’s real, too.
Indeed, the new Litter-Robot 4 is a self-cleaning litter box from Whisker that [releases a very deep sigh] connects to Wi-Fi. Gone are the days of animals going to the bathroom outside like god intended; now, your cat can take a dump in a box and it’ll immediately synthesize the data and send it to your phone, so you can get a fun notification about it while you’re eating sushi or having sex.
Videos by VICE
Real talk, though—I have two cats, and I know that a lot of aspects of cat ownership can be very annoying. The Litter-Robot wants to address them. Its self-cleaning function sifts the litter and removes waste, which is honestly awesome, because scooping out your cat’s pee pee and doo doo is a huge pain in the ass; and the “waste drawer” is sealed (and comes with the option of Litter-Robot’s OdorTrap™ system), so your entire apartment doesn’t reek next time your small teenage son decides to take a nuclear, passive-aggressive shit because you decided to enjoy your life by going to see the new four-hour-long Martin Scorsese film and grab a bite after. You know, hypothetically….
And if outsourcing your cat parent duties to a machine wasn’t enough, you can also spy on your cat by receiving app insights about your cat’s weight—as if you don’t already know that he’s a Big Chungus—and insights about their “daily activities.” Another important feature has to do with preventing litter tracking. My least favorite part of having two cats is probably the fact that our guest room and my office are basically always dusted with a layer of kitty litter that’s been tracked around the house; all cat owners know the feeling of getting in bed and realizing that it’s actually you who has now tracked litter into the bed. Oh, the irony. “No more!” says Whisker.
Sorry, gotta run, just got a text from my cat’s ass. Later!
Learn more about the Litter-Robot 4 at Whisker’s website.
The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.
