Hi everyone! This is Kristin with the Tech
Reviewer. Love the idea of an automatic self cleaning litter box for your cat, but not
sure which kind to get? The Litter-Robot is probably the brand leader in the field, but
there are an increasing number of competitors. A company called CatLink recently sent me out
their Scooper Young automatic self cleaning litter box to check out—it uses the same basic
self cleaning mechanism as the Litter-Robot line, but has a few special features of its own. Is
it a better choice than the Litter-Robot 3? Let’s check it out and see how it compares! So Litter-Robot was the first company to come
up with the idea of a weight activated, timed, sifting rolling globe mechanism for self cleaning
litter boxes, and both the Litter-Robot 3 and the Scooper Young operate under the same basic
principle. You have a globe which is partially filled with cat litter, with a sifting screen
on one side. When your cat enters the globe, it trips a weight sensor which causes the globe to
begin slowly rotating once the cat has left and a specified period of time has elapsed. Rotation
causes the litter to pass over the sifting screen—clean litter passes through the screen and
clumps are separated out, where they eventually tumble down into a waste drawer at the bottom of
the unit. Then, the rotation slowly reverses, and the clean litter pours back through the screen to
fill the bottom of the globe again. In this way, your cat always has a clean bed of litter to use,
and litter box odors are greatly reduced. Zero scooping is required, and depending on the design
of the unit, and the number of cats you have, you might be able to get away with changing out
the litter waste bag as infrequently as once every three weeks, although I really wouldn’t recommend
waiting that long. Odors do build up over time. With the Litter-Robot 3, and two cats, I change
the waste bag out twice a week. The waste bag isn’t full at that point…I could definitely go
longer, but it starts to smell after 4 days. With the CatLink Scooper Young, I should theoretically
be able to wait considerably longer…their website says 2 to 3 weeks for one cat…but you
are going to run into the same odor issue. CatLink’s Scooper Young is its basic model.
They also sell the Scooper Luxury Pro, a wifi enabled model that is designed to
work with a whole suite of cat products: it works together with the wifi enabled CatLink
One Automatic Feeder and CatLink Pure Automatic Water Fountain to give you a complete picture of
your cat’s daily lifestyle via the CatLink App: you can see the number of times and duration of
eating, drinking and litter box usage. By having your cats wear the RFID tracking collars that come
with the products, the system is designed to track the usage of each individual cat. The system has a
great deal of promise, and tons of cool features, but there are some things which don’t quite work
yet. So after testing out the Scooper Luxury Pro for a few weeks, I asked the company to send
me the Scooper Young. Sometimes going lower tech can be a good thing. The fewer features
a product has, the fewer things can go wrong. The Scooper Young and Scooper Luxury Pro
are basically identical in their physical appearance and mechanical operation. They are
the same size, with the same size globe interior, entryway opening, and waste drawer capacity.
The fancier Luxury Pro has a control panel with more options, and it also features
a light in the interior of the globe, as well as a UV-C sterilization process for
the waste drawer. Both devices use a weight sensor to determine if your cat has used the
device (and therefore needs a cleaning cycle), as well as to detect the entry of your cat into
the device while it is in the middle of a cleaning cycle (and therefore stop temporarily), but the
Luxury Pro also features a special radar sensor to assist in cat detection as well. And, of course,
the Luxury Pro is wifi enabled, with an APP, so you can get ‘up to the moment’ notifications
about your cat’s use of the Luxury Pro…and in general, probably more information
than you possibly wanted to know. So how does the Scooper Young compare with
the Litter Robot 3? The external size of the two units is similar, except for the depth.
The Litter-Robot is noticeably deeper than the Scooper Young...in part because it
has a small step in the front…something the Scooper Young lacks. Both devices have an
opening that is fairly high from the floor, but the Litter-Robot’s step makes it
easier for cats to get into. However, CatLink makes an excellent product to address
this shortcoming—the CatLink Ramp. It provides both an easy way for cats to get into the
Scooper Young as well as decent anti litter tracking functionality due to the litter
catching grate across the top. It’s stable, secure and my cats really liked just hanging out
on it. Great product…but adds significantly to the size of the Scooper Young, completely erasing
its depth advantage. It is also pretty pricey. The interior of the Scooper Young is smaller than
the Litter-Robot 3 in all dimensions. The entryway of the two machines is equally wide, but the
Litter-Robot’s entrance is a lot taller. My cats had no problem fitting into the Scooper Young,
but they are relatively small cats. People with large cats might have more issues. Speaking of
size, the Scooper Young will accommodate smaller cats than the Litter-Robot: it will work in
automatic mode with cats as small as 3.3 pounds, while the Litter-Robot has a minimum
weight of 5 pounds for its automatic mode. The Litter-Robot 3 doesn’t have a maximum
weight limit, however, while the Scooper Young has an upper limit of 22 pounds…probably
due to its smaller interior dimensions. The waste drawer of the Scooper Young is large
and well designed, with a clever little hump in the middle designed to foil the tendency
of waste clumps to pile up in a mountain in the middle of the drawer, filling up
the waste drawer prematurely. It should theoretically allow you to wait longer than the
Litter-Robot 3 between changes of the waste bag, because it will accommodate more waste…perhaps
2 to 3 weeks if you have a small, single cat. For that same cat, the Litter-Robot would probably
require a litter waste bag switchout at 7-10 days. However, keep in mind that long waits are not
optimal, because the unit will begin to smell. The downside of the Scooper Young waste
drawer system is the proprietary bag size it requires. Unlike the Litter-Robot 3, which
works fine with standard large kitchen trash bags, you have to buy special trash bags
for the Scooper Young from CatLink. They are an odd size and currently
run you $14.99 for 40 bags on Amazon. Both units are designed to work with clumping
litter only, but the Scooper Young includes an additional screen for the litter box interior
that allows it to be used with a combination of clay clumping litter and tofu litter, as
well as the standard clumping clay litter. The Litter-Robot 3 does not come with this option
and will only work with clumping clay litter. Finally, in terms of noise level, the CatLink
Scooper Young is remarkably quiet—much quieter during its cleaning
cycle than the Litter-Robot 3. If you aren’t in the same room with it, you won’t
hear it at all, whereas the Litter-Robot 3 is relatively noisy when a cleaning cycle is being
performed, and can be heard from an adjacent room. So, which is a better choice? Both are
good. The Scooper Young is a clear winner on noise and waste drawer capacity.
If those are big areas of concern, then going with the Scooper
Young might be warranted. Price wise, the regular price for the Scooper
Young is a bit higher than the Litter-Robot 3, but it is frequently discounted and these discounts
may result in a lower price overall. However, keep in mind that at least for a new user of CatLink’s
products, the CatLink Ramp accessory is strongly recommended. Without a secure step up, many cats
might feel nervous about accessing the Scooper Young. They aren’t going to want to jump right in
to the device (which is what they would need to do without the CatLink Ramp). Once they are used to
the device, then the Ramp becomes less necessary, but honestly, the cats like it, and it
does quite a good job in cutting down on litter tracking. So if you are pricing out
the Scooper Young as a first time CatLink buyer, I would strongly recommend making sure to include
the cost of the Ramp in your calculations. Size wise, both are huge. They require
much more of a commitment than your standard litter box in terms of placement.
The Scooper Young will stick out less from a wall than the Litter-Robot 3…but only
if you aren’t using the CatLink Ramp. In terms of warranty, the CatLink Scooper
Young comes with a one year warranty, whereas the Litter-Robot 3 has an 18 month
warranty, with an option to purchase an additional extended warranty as well. In addition,
Litter-Robot is a much more established brand, around for more than 20 years (as
opposed to 5 years for CatLink), so if your device needs service in the
future, Litter-Robot might be a better bet. And as far as customer service is concerned,
the Litter-Robot 3 might be a better choice for customers in the US, because all the customer
service and technical support for Litter-Robot products are based in the US…in fact, the
entire company is US-based, with all design, assembly, fulfillment and repair being
done in either Michigan or Wisconsin. Being China-based, customer service might
not be quite a convenient with CatLink. What do the cats think? I had the CatLink and
Litter-Robot units set up in my laundry room for over a month and after the first week, the
cats seemed to use the two equally frequently. I didn’t notice any difference in odor between
the two. Litter tracking was less with the CatLink unit…but only because of the Ramp catching tracked
litter. Overall, I think both units are good. If you’ve watched my other automatic litter box
videos, you’ll know that I’m a real Litter-Robot fan. I’ve used their products for many years and
I think they are great quality and well designed. That much said, the CatLink Scooper Young is
the best Litter-Robot competitor that I’ve run into yet. It’s much better than the ChillX
AutoEgg that I reviewed a few years back, and it beats out the Leo’s Loo as well. Is
it better than the Litter-Robot 3 overall? My general feeling would be no…but I do think
it is very good. There’s no question that it’s much quieter than the Litter-Robot 3, and
its waste drawer capacity is impressive, but the irritating proprietary drawer liners,
the shorter warranty, and the relative newness of the company to the automatic litter
box space are significant concerns. I think that the CatLink Luxury Pro suite of wifi
enabled products that CatLink initially sent me out has a lot of promise. With their integrated
automatic feeder and water fountain devices and health monitoring APP, you can track your cats’
eating and drinking habits as well as their litter box usage, and assuming you can convince your
cats to wear the necessary tracking collars, you can even monitor the usage of individual
cats. The Luxury Pro litter box itself has tons of bells and whistles, measuring
the level of cat litter in the device, providing UV sterilization in the waste drawer,
and using radar as well as weight sensors to determine if your pet has entered or exited
the device. However, the system still needs a bit more development in my view, as not all the
promised features actually perform as designed. I look forward to seeing what CatLink comes
up with in future for its Luxury Pro line. The CatLink Scooper Young, Ramp and
other CatLink products are available from Amazon.com as well as from CatLink’s website and are priced at $539.99 for the Scooper Young and $99 for the Ramp. The CatLink Luxury Pro is priced at $639.99. The Litter-Robot 3 is available
directly from Litter-Robot and is priced at $499. Please be sure to check the description
below for links to these products, as well as affiliate coupon codes especially
for my viewers. Many thanks to the kind folks at CatLink and Litter-Robot for
sending me out these products to review. If you have any questions, feel free to put them
in the comments section below, and please consider hitting that subscribe button because I’ve got
a lot more product reviews coming up. Again, this is Kristin with the Tech Reviewer. Thanks
so much for watching, and have a wonderful day!
