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I watched this yesterday. It came just in time, because I was eyeballing those exact boxes on Amazon. I was so mortified I nearly cried. Coming home to (or even hearing) something like that happen because I wanted to save more time would have broken me. I would have never forgiven myself.
Just gotta get a reputable brand. I recently got a Popur X5 and it's been real nice.
Yeah, that's the plan. I'm still interested in them, but God it was scary to realize I almost bought that.
I almost cried watching that 😢
I did cry watching that. What the fuck man, how hard is it to make a litter box that doesn't kill pets!?!! You had one job!
My advice is to buy nothing from AliExpress or Temu.
Yeah, nah, I'm not gonna pay 10x the price for a knockoff arduino from a local seller that just buys it from AliExpress anyway. There's no better place to get electronic components and modules without bankrupting yourself
I can give Ali a pass for niche things, but Temu is straight up junk. The problem is when these cheaper products permeate everything while being pushed as high end. Etsy is basically useless now because of this. Almost everything on there is an overpriced knockoff.
None of this is necessarily AliExpress’ or Temu’s fault though. It’s just what happens in a capitalist system.
Yeah, AliExpress is the baby version of the wholesale platform Alibaba, and they're now a big enough company to also have their own cloud provider. Temu, Wish and Shein are all trash.
I'd rather pay 80% for things that have a 50% chance of turning out shit anyway. What makes you think Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart are any better?
Nobody should be buying an automatic litter box from any of these sites. They're all coming from China with the same build-quality regardless of whom you're buying it from. I do not get the hate against Chinese shops but loving American brands who do the exact same thing but can somehow get away with empathy from people
Products as a whole are going to shit in terms of quality. It’s part of the enshittification that late capitalism drives.
And automatic litter boxes have always been trash. I’ve had 2 in my lifetime and they were both bad. Just scoop that thing and call it a day!
Yeah I wouldn't really depend on such flimsy electronics for something so dear as a pet
Disagree, if you need a custom big machine made, there are some really good people on AliExpress.
I have had a couple of customized CNC machines custom built for a fraction of the price it would have cost to have it done over here. Even with the shipping costs it came out cheaper. And the people were really helpful, they use machines like mine all the time so they know their stuff. They offered really good advice and were excited to work with me. It's a bit butt clenching to fork over a lot of cash and hope a big ass pallet shows up 4 months later, but they've come through for me every time. YMMV.
Temu on the other hand can fuck off. It's just a scam site like Wish.
I'd argue there's a huge difference from chintzy household tech and industrial machinery on AliExpress.
I mean yeah thats how it works if you outsource your work to low wage, low work safety countries. And the result is that the machine shop near you goes bankrupt and you are now dependent on large corporations that can wipe out whole business segments on a whim. Sometimes you just dont have a choice, but if you do, dont buy cheap stuff from far away or big corpos.
The issue here though is that these were being sold by AliExpress through Amazon. Amazon has much more public trust than companies like AliExpress or Temu, so people aren't going to be immediately suspicious of everything for sale on there.
At this point Amazon is just a local warehouse selling the same products as AliExpress, but with faster shipping and more markup.
What happened that amazon suddenly became the "good guy" don't order from there either.
Even Amazon has gotten super sketch as of late. It’s hard to determine which products are good or not when the site is flooded with 500 duplicates from 500 clearly fake companies.
As of late? It's been shit for years.
Sometimes that can be convenient if I’m knowingly looking for a cheap Chinese knockoff to serve some non-critical purpose. Once it’s clear there’s a single mass produced model being rebranded by everybody, you can shop based on shipping time or price or seller feedback or whatever. Or if there’s no hurry, you can go find the product elsewhere at the “slow boat from China” price.
Unless I know the manufacturer, I don't buy from Amazon either.
It's 95% junk. Need to start holding corporations responsible and not just going "oh, it's a third party seller! It's not our fault."
They're taking fuck knows how much in fees, and worth trillions of dollars. Fine them. Massively.
I mean... yeah.
This should not need specific mention. But it's good that these warning exists, anyways. But it's also kinda obvious, you're ordering from Aliexpress/Temu. It's like those shitty china cat fountains that run the 220V line into the water basin and convert the power there. Because hey, why only fry your pet a little...
Most people are used to devices being at least somewhat safe. They don't expect devices they buy from a large online retailer to be that bad. A flaw here and there, sure, but basically a 100% chance of death? Yeah, that's not exactly to expect.
The problem is this automatic litter box was bought from Amazon, which was being resold from Aliexpress. People have some level of trust in Amazon. Misplaced trust I would say, as it becomes littered with sketchy 3rd party sellers who have no responsibility to their customers.
There's a lot of things wrong with Amazon of course, but this switch to Chinese shadow companies and their garbage products is really problematic. They create a new "brand", set up a new product they bought from some manufacturer in China, add a fuckton of fake reviews to boost themselves onto the front and when they sold everything they vanish, along with the product page and any possibility to share negative reviews from the lack of quality or other issues. It's literally a scam and needs to change.
Huh, I never really put much thought into that
My cat fountain uses a USB cable, so hopefully it's only like 5v when it leaves the brick/adapter.
The water fountain is a game changer, my male cat absolutely loves it. He washes his paws in bowls and doesn't drink much, but with the fountain he drinks a ton of water.
The detail that negative reviews warning of the danger kept getting removed or edited is really sinister
Thanks for the heads up, OP, but has anyone used one of the “authentic” version of these? Worth the money or nah? I’ve always been curious but can’t justify spending that much money on a litter box.
Getting a Litter-Robot 4 is the best purchase I've ever made. Wallet is still hurting a bit, but I have no regrets. Replaced 2 smelly litter boxes in my apartment with something that just sends me a notification once a week to empty the bin. It even tracks my cats weights, so it tells me who used the litter box, along with a chart of their weight.
I bought a refurbished litter robot about a year ago, and was initially aghast at myself for spending that kind of money for it, but now I am convinced it was worth the price.
It has made one of IMO the worst parts of cat ownership significantly easier, with the upside of being better for the cats as well.
Even with the high price I would recommend.
I wanted one but the automatic ones are WAY out of my price range, so I got an Omega Paw Roll' N Clean that I absolutely LOVE!
It makes taking care of litter almost completely effortless at a fraction of the price of the robot ones and it's economical to use too:
You just put clumping litter in, roll it to deposit the refuse into the handy drawer, roll it back to put the clean litter back in, and empty the drawer.
It takes me mere seconds a day to clean up after two adult cats, and it's cheap enough to buy and use that I can afford to give them that GOOD kitty kibble without neglecting their sanitary needs!
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Omega Paw, except as a thoroughly satisfied customer 😁
The advice I've always heard is that if you can do it yourself, it's always better. Animals can't tell you that they're sick, so every bit of info you can get on how they're doing is important. Having the machine automatically clean the litter box deprives you of that option.
With that being said, a clean litterbox is also really important. I plan on getting a couple of cats in the next 5 years after I've gotten my shit together (cats and incredibly messy houses don't mix), and I will probably get an automatic litter box because I don't want my depressive episodes to result in my cats being miserable. As this post shows, you should do your research. Find a litter box that has been endorsed by multiple unrelated reviewers if possible. Some of these boxes are dangerous, and many of them are kinda worthless.
The video in the OP was recommended to me a few days ago and was my introduction to this whole fiasco. This person has done a ton of reviews and has a couple of boxes he'd recommend.
EDIT: I literally linked to the video in the OP... I thought it was the video from one of the people who had a cat die.
Thanks for sharing! Not all people are aware of the possible dangers and I believe we tend to assume things are safe nowadays.
I have two Litter Robots and I love them. I spend 5 minutes a week cleaning cat boxes which is as simple as pulling the garbage bag out of the tray and putting in a new one. And every time the cats go in there, it's clean.
Expensive but worth it. They aren't perfect, but I haven't found anything better.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to stomach watching the video so I'll skip that. I'm just happy I'm way too paranoid when it comes to my cat's safety to use anything that works automatically in places the cat can reach on it's own without me being right there.
Even if something works just fine at the start: everything can start to malfunction. I don't care if the chance is so tiny it might not exist, if I can make it even smaller I'm all for it.
But thanks for sharing the danger these things are.