The Litter-Robot 5 Pro is the newest poop-scooping machine from Whisker, makers of the excellent Litter-Robot 4, and it brings facial recognition for your cats to the self-cleaning litter box line. The company is also introducing an optional subscription service, Whisker Plus, that monitors and tracks your kitty’s bathroom behavior over time to produce “detailed analysis of data trends,” which could help detect changes and spot issues early, according to the company.
It will cost you, though: $7.99 a month (or $79.99 a year) for the subscription to Plus and a whopping $899 for the Litter-Robot 5 Pro. It’s outfitted with two night vision-equipped, AI-powered cameras — one to scan your kitty’s visage and the other to watch its waste.
The company also announced two other new models this week, the camera-less Litter-Robot 5 for $799 and a slightly more budget-friendly Litter-Robot Evo for $599. All three models are available for preorder now at Whisker.com and will ship on November 3rd.
The self-cleaning machines that rotate after each use and dump the waste into a sealed bin have had a hardware redesign. They now feature a new control panel with an LCD display for on-device updates, which should mean less reliance on the app or trying to decipher flashing LED lights to know what’s going on. Whisker claims the 5 series models can tell the difference between pee and poop and will dispatch the latter quicker for better odor control. They also have a larger waste bin, so you shouldn’t have to empty it as often.
The main difference between the 5 and the 5 Pro is that the Pro has cameras and works with the new Whisker PetTag ($29), an RFID tag that aids the bot in identifying pets, especially for kitties that look similar. It also doubles as a digital ID, with a QR code that someone can scan to contact you if they find your pet. Both the 5 and the 5 Pro can accommodate up to five cats, one more than the Litter-Robot 4.
The cameras — one forward-facing camera that uses facial recognition and one interior-facing camera that watches the litter bed — are designed to provide more accurate activity tracking and help detect changes in routine. If you subscribe to Whisker Plus, you can also view and save video footage of your cat’s toilet activities — sorry, kitties, you can’t opt out.
The Litter-Robot Evo is the company’s cheapest robot at $599. It’s smaller, can accommodate up to two cats, and doesn’t have some of the fancier features of the Litter-Robot 4, such as automatic night lights or litter-level sensing. But it does have a new LCD display. The Litter-Robot 4 will continue to be sold at $699.
All the robots connect to the Whisker app, where you can initiate cycling remotely, get usage alerts, and get activity and weight tracking for each kitty. For the daily insights, trend and behavior tracking — and video footage — you need to upgrade to Whisker Plus.
Some of The Verge’s kitties will be putting these new bots to the test to see if this is AI gone too far or tech that could actually help keep your pet healthy.