It's essential that you understand that this video is about ONE specific design of Chinese imports that are deadly. The VAST majority of self-cleaning litter boxes are incredibly safe. AVOID generic machines and stick to established brands, ideally with a history of making them. Whisker's Litter Robot machines have been around for 25 years. I bought my first one in 2018, and for the last 2 and a half years, my cats have been using two Litter-Robot 4s. I trust them without question. I wouldn't risk their lives if they weren't safe. The best machines that I've tested are linked in the description. All are entirely safe. I also show many other safe ones in the video. Also, please check out my full reviews of many different ones; they are the most comprehensive reviews on TH-cam. Before you comment about laziness, please watch the first two minutes, during which I talk about why I and so many others use self-cleaning litter boxes. It's not laziness, well it isn't for me! Thank you. Philip Bloom Here is a link to a PDF of listings for the deadly machines on Amazon and Walmart in the USA: gopb.co/dangerousmachines Thankfully, Wayfair has now removed all the ones on its website. One down, two to go! Edit: Amazon have now removed all of their listings!!
It disgust me that there are so many of this exact product on amazon (the same design), i found out that this product has a lot of fake reviews too, I have reported every one of this product that is being sold needs to be mass reported to ensure only safe product is being sold.
this video made me so angry and sad that i had to take measures against everyone that sells this product as it is highly illegal as it breaks multiple safety precautions
I have been using a self cleaning litter box since I first got my cat. I AM lazy. After working since age 16 (am 58 now), I am allowed to be lazy. Cleaning a litter box multiple times a day sucks.
What accountability would you expect from these Chinese companies and from Ali Express or even Amazon? They have no problem selling you something toxic or deadly.
@@hansmikesen6355 It should not be a requirement to do extensive research on every single physical good you buy to make sure they aren't deadly in shockingly inept and negligent ways that are not readily apparent. Why in the world would you ever defend this sort of thing? Get a grip.
@@hansmikesen6355 I can't imagine my sister or old mother with zero engineering skills to do research about machine safety and design. They would look at all these amazing hitech magic pictures with sensors and stuff, see many reviews, see hundred of 5 stars, no negative, read positive reviews that are on top and say, people like it, it must be good.
My jaw dropped when you tried it for the first time and it INSTANTLY crushed the plush. No hesitation, no safety release, nothing. This should be illegal.
This is illegal. A product should be safe by design. But there is just no supervision on these kind of machines. Same goes for clothing, electric vehicles,. A lot of shit is being sold without any safety standards.
The issue is it isn’t illegal since all the cheap clone machines are made in china which has no laws about protecting pets or manufacturing cat guillotines. No idea why they can’t ban their importation to the US.
@@Pacman009 I suspect they are illegal to sell as Amazon does, but the government is unlikely to take note; they're far too busy making sure no yellow multimeters or blackcurrants make it through.
I mean, it should be, and it probably is. Except not where they actually make them, and the dropshippers who sell this don't care, since they're scammers and thus just evil in the first place, and neither do the places that host their shops (we're mostly talking Amazon, really) since they're amoral moneygrubbers who have their "we're not actually the sellers" as a legal fig leaf. Not much to be done except maybe make this a scandal so that it breaks through the by-design malaise around regulating big business and gets actually regulated like "no, Amazon, you're actually responsible for the things you sell".
My brothers cat passed by the same machine. He was an orange Persian,and 2 months old. His name was cheddar. When my brother found him,I was at his house. His body was on the floor,and his head was crushed inside. I thank you for spreading awareness about this.❤️
@@OneManFiveCats I'm not seeing it here on youtube, it's mostly on instagram, where I never seen a litter box ad before, and now I'm getting temu ads for this model of the video.
@@OneManFiveCats Yeah, sadly, that’s how the algorithms work when logging your user data. Most of the advertisements people will get after watching this will be for the cheap knockoff models because your devices heard the word affordable, litter robot, a bunch of brand names, and other related things pointing to the dangerous knockoff a good few times. Google (the parent company of TH-cam) profiles you and collects data from everything you do. Whether you get ads for the real litter robot or not can be highly dependent on what they’ve profiled you as based on your searches, answers to surveys, and usage data. If they’ve decided you’re likely lower income, they’ll market the cheaper knockoffs more because they know you’ll be less hesitant about the price; they may try the real one but are far less likely to push it as hard as the cheap alternatives. They don’t care what they’re advertising; as long as they’re making money, they could care less if it kills your pet. It’s just awful. Edit: grammar
That horrified me, too. Why would you ever make a machine like this that had a powerful enough motor than a full grown man would have difficulty freeing his hand from it, knowing cats would be interacting with it daily?
Even more worrying. What if you have a toddler. There's no chance a baby could remove their hand by themself and not getting serious injury if not broken hand/finger.
@@PixieoftheWood thats the scariest part. knowing that it could happen to any cat that uses this litterbox ANYTIME. Im just praying the people who use this litterbox find this video before something happens to their babies and immediately throw it out :(
As a software developer, I have something to add. Even if they fixed it with the firmware update, that is not sufficient. I have seen several prior bugs in software be reintroduced by a seemingly unrelated change. And I doubt this company has a good quality control system to mitigate this. There is a very high chance that a future firmware update could make this machine deadly again. My stance is, no self cleaning litter machine is safe if it has the mechanical potential to kill a cat, no matter the firmware shipped or provided.
Absolutely, there should be physical mechanisms to prevent it from using enough force to hold anything in place. Either a mechanism that completely disables the motor and or something that allows the rotating pieces to spin freely (that a cat would then push away from and be freed). A simple software update does not get rid of the fact that these need to be recalled and replaced
Even just a slip clutch would've helped here, made it so if any sort of resistance was on the motor output it'd have a physical slip instead of needing software to detect this and stop itself. But even then, I'd never trust a system designed in this way, as slip clutches can fail too.
@@ultimatums1QA is supposed to be a separate person’s job from the software developer. That way if the developer is bad it is caught and bad software doesn’t go out and the dev can be let go.
Absolutely disgusting. And the fact that these companies were just refunding or paying off the people who had their cats killed…. No amount of money can bring your loved pets back due to gross negligence 😢 glad you’re bringing light to this and that some of these listings have been removed
I've found a lot of idiots will claim that cats will be safe from various dangers because they have a good sense of "self preservation", I always tell them "then you've clearly never owned many, if any, cats. Or if you have, you weren't paying any attention."
My sister's cat burned his tummy fur because he walked over a candle despite the fact he had just made a face right before when he realized the little light was hot, that fecker knew and still walked over it. I even had the candle up where he doesn't go and he went out of his way to get up on the counter to check it out once lit.. These fur balls only use their brain cells to frustrate humans, not to keep themselves alive.
And what about elderly or disabled cats? A cat can feel unsafe and still not be able to protect themselves or escape a dangerous situation. My friend has a cat with cerebellar hypoplasia (wobbly cat syndrome) that can't maintain balance and has tremors and uncontrolled muscle movements. By that logic, he should have just not safety-proofed his home for that cat and let her die in a stupid, preventable accident because apparently she has magic cat spidey senses! That's such a load of crap.
@@starofgalaxies reminds me of that one gif where a dog and a cat got into a disagreement next to a candle, dog backed off when he saw the cat's tail catch fire, cat stopped and stared at its tail for a few seconds before running away from the candle [thankfully, cat moved fast enough to whip the flames off its tail but still]
That poor woman who settled... she thought she would be saving anyone else from having to go through this again, and instead she was silenced and the box is still being sold.
It's time for people to realize their lives are trivial, compared to the profit corporations can get. She couldn't win when there is a ridiculous instruction like "Don't use it unsupervised".
It's not just being sold, it's probably being sold by the same people. Drop-shippers can change their names easily, and some even have multiple names so they can cover searches with their products. That's why, when you put in a search for something on Amazon, a bunch of weirdly named companies show up, all with the exact same photos of the exact same product.
@@suzanneglover3146 agreed, I guess maybe we'll all just need to continue putting pressure on Amazon that this style of robot cat litter machine must be tested by a consumer safety agency before sale, or not be listed at all. In the meantime just get on the reviews and tell others of the dangers. If Amazon takes them down we deliver to this TH-cam person for follow-up.
The test with the stuffed animal broke my heart. The continued closing and screeching noises… my heart breaks for the cats and owners who have fallen victim to these machines. Thank you for sharing this information.
This isn’t a litter box, that thing could be marketed as an automatic cat euthanasia machine! I was wondering why would anyone let that design get past the drawing board, then I remembered “oh yeah, China”…. 😒
@@davemccage7918 i agree that the machine's design is criminal & shouldn't have been passed, but why do you guys dislike china so much 😭 my grandparents are immigrants from china & they hear comments like yours all the time. i just want to get where you guys are coming from ^^
Damn, even the stuffed-animal test is horrific. Mochi and Charlie deserved so much better from the designers of this machine and shame on everybody who let this get into the hands of consumers!
ngl i thought the stuffed animal test was both funny and horrific because the sound of the machine being stuck sounded like the stuffed animal was screaming
@@wellIhavenothingbettertodo theyre spread across a lot of different companies which come and go, finding the source of the machine is likely very difficult, and theyre likely not based in america and suing companies from other countries rarely results in winning the lawsuit due to differing laws in diffierent countries, especially countries with few animal cruelty laws like china, where the machines likely come from.
I sent the video to several o my local news stations and animal welfare facilities to hopefully gain momentum in spreading awareness of this dangerous machine
@@Schneewittchen1310 Not enough. Most cat owners are likely not going to be watching youtube videos, rather looking at the news. This NEEDS to be picked up by a major news outlet, this is outrageous.
As a disabled person, I am seriously considering an automatic litter box. This is VERY important information. I've been wary of automatic litter boxes due to the concern it could be unsafe.
Just make sure you save up and get a safe one! This fella's channel has very thorough reviews that should help you pick. Please don't let terrible companies tarnish what is an incredible accessibility tool for cat owners.
I'm not a very emotional person. Not many things give me strong reactions. This video, however, was deeply, deeply distressing-and it should be. There should be no world where we are comfortable with such deep-rooted greed and deliberate negligence that it takes innocent lives. Thank you for making this video.
I lost a cat to a coyote years ago because I assumed it was safe to install "cat door " for my beloved Suki. Today, many years later, the horror of seeing her eviscerated body haunts me. I cannot even imagine finding my cat dead in a machine designed to make their life better. You have done an invaluable service to the cat owner community.
A self cleaning machine does everything BUT make their life better. A little more comfort of course, but personally my cats couldnt care less about a dirty litter box : they'd do it somewhere else anyway if it really bothers them. Also my fearful ahh cat would be terrified if the place he just pooped in started moving and making noises but i guess that's a me problem. Plus inspecting cat feces can help prevending deadly diseases.
That must've been so incredibly horrible, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that was for you. Sending extra prayers/good vibes to your sweet Suki in kitty heaven.
Man I know how you feel. My cat got hit by a car, and seeing your buddy in that position, covered in bI00d is something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. So to buy a product like this, and to have a cat die in such a way in the comfort of YOUR own home, is just pure evil.
I'm so sorry for your experience, that's beyond tragic. I do want to say that you shouldn't blame coyotes, the predation pattern sounds much more like a mustelid like a weasel, or possibly a different small predator like a raccoon. People are quick to blame coyotes when there are tons of different predators out there
Was your cat killed outside or inside your home? If it was outside, that's on you for letting your cat go outside unsupervised. If it was inside, then again... why was your cat allowed outside unsupervised in the first place?
That's not even a litterbox at that point. That's a HORRIFIC mousetrap for cats. That company needs to be shut down and all sales must be tracked and returned ASAP.
@@anneelk9066 If they're talking about the metal ones that snap shut, they are. The close with so much force the mouse dies instantly from having its neck broken
Not only does it kill your cat, it also makes these creepy screeching noises. It's straight out of a horror movie about rouge machines. If anyone saw this happening they would be traumatized for life.
I'm willing to bet that creepy screeching noise is the gears of the motor grinding whilst it tries to force the door shut. Instead of...y'know...the pinch sensor doing its job and telling the motor to reverse.
The creepiest part is, during the orange plush test towards the beginning, the screeching sound before becoming more mechanical sounds kind of like a cat crying.
I hope this gets subtitled in Chinese and other languages in Asia. Because I can see it being distributed in the small street stores there without people thinking about what they’re actually selling
i completely agree, as a chinese person myself this type and style of branding is what you see littered all over online markets. i really hope this gets spread there too as i'd bet money its being sold in china if not more so than here
@@OneManFiveCats that’s awesome. I’m glad they’re coming. I feel like if this went viral in China it would put more pressure on aliexpress and other companies to remove this design
@@yfllll Wait, can Chinese people even access TH-cam? I was under the impression there was some Chinese knockoff TH-cam. You know, because... Westerners talk about certain things China's government has done that they don't like. I guess Hong Kong and Taiwan might still be able to see it though.
Recently, A cat feeder purchased by my father had clasped down on one of our kittens paws and my whole family had struggled to free her paw from the machine as she cried out in pain. Yes, my cat is alright. We'd been able to tear the machine apart in order to rescue her and she showed minimal damages other than a sore paw that caused limping for 2 days. I'm saddened that these kinds of off brand devices can even go so far as to unintentionally kill pets. I really wish that everyone who has this product disposes/returns it because these stories are heartbreaking. I still remember how I felt during that moment and I only hope that others get the relief I had when our kitten was safe.
Why is that possible in the first place? Either make the mechanism weak enough to not do damage, or make sure no paws can get stuck in them. Im so sorry your cat got hurt. Makes me angry that these things arent tested enough to find bugs like this. give him a good health pat :3
I'm not a cat owner but a lot of my friends and coworkers have cats so I'm commenting for the algorithm. This video is important and it should be spread and seen by as many cat owners (and their friends) as possible.
That photo with the bloody paw/claw marks made me sick to my stomach. I would be absolutely hysterical to find something like this had happened to my furry family members - I'm tearing up just thinking about it. Thank you for bringing this to people's attention, and thank you to those who have shared their horror stories, so that the danger of these products can be brought to light.
I was gagging as I watched his stuffy cat model for essentially decapitated by the test version. It’s the kind of reason I’m squicky about buying ANY of them (even the reliable ones).
That photo really broke my heart. It drives home how truly awful that cat's last moments were. Even more horrifying, imagine if a toddler tossed a toy in there, and then put their head in to get it out. How can these things even exist?
I think we have another safety hazard in this one. Humans. Can you imagine if a child had stuck their hand in there? If a full grown man, aware of what it does, could barely free himself. What chance does a child have? And heaven forbid the child stuck their head in there. If the parent didn't know how to rip it apart in seconds. These need to be REMOVED from sale!!
You're so right. This man's hand was literally getting crushed in that machine. My sis has a young one and they constantly stick their fingers into holes. This product would absolutely be a danger to them...
Exactly. I have three very young children and I know babies and toddlers are especially super curious and can get themselves into a situation in a matter of moments. I really hope anyone with children stays away from products like these.
Even a full grown person could get their head caught and their neck crushed in that ( not sure why an adult would need to do that, but people are weird)
I have a dog - fairly large at 50 lbs - who likes to steal from cat boxes and I can't even imagine how gutted I'd be if he got caught in this death trap. They're a danger to ALL pets, small children, unsuspecting adults...
As a software developer, i can share the same expert opinion that some others have shared: Software is not an acceptable safety measure. The hardware should be inherently safe; because sensors will degrade over time to the point that the software cannot reliably perform safety functions. If safety is preconditioned on correctly behaving software, you've already lost. Do not ever trust software, and especially not with actual real lives! If you have one of these machines, you should update it to the most safe software available just in case, followed by THROWING IT OUT AND NEVER USING IT AGAIN. You absolutely cannot trust that this machine is nonlethal after that update, even if it feels safer at first glance!
As a software developer; I cosign this 100% You don't implement safety in software. You can augment existing safety measures; but the fact that the physical design of the machine is dangerous means the machine is dangerous. Full stop
There are ways to make safety-critical software, but it is an extremely involved and expensive process that no consumer products company would ever endure. Hardware safeties are much simpler and are "open-source" by nature so they can be validated externally by users and reviewers.
@@adrianahlz1895 Honestly? Given that the alternative is human-operated vehicles, which are not shown to be significantly safer, I do think that question is entirely different. The logical conclusion of my previous stance and the fact that humans are at least equally dangerous is that we should never make self-driving cars, and also get rid of human-operated cars too. I do think this would be a good future, provided those resources can be invested in e.g. public transit. Banning cars works for me. If we must have cars, then I do think unsupervised self-driving cars would be quite scary. The current state where they require constant human supervision is acceptable; because ultimately that software is not safety critical or advertised as such. The human can override it at any time, and the human is responsible for ensuring the safety of everyone on the road, including themselves and their passengers. That being said, I would never dare to write code for an actual autonomous vehicle that will be on public roads; for one I don't have relevant experience for that field (so basically your question boils down to asking some catgirl her politics) and for two I should not be trusted in writing code that has the potential to end lives. no skilled software developer wants to do that, so it takes a truly special mind to write safe code. or sometimes, a truly careless author to write lethal code. most are neither. Fully unsupervised self-driving cars are scary, and maybe they'll never come. To be clear, I do think banning cars is the best output of this equation, but I don't think a future without cars on the road is foreseeable. In that case, both humans and software sucks. The next best thing is to just get software that sucks less than humans. This judgement is borrowed from CGP Grey, who basically states that yes, autonomous vehicles will still be dangerous and cause injury to people, they won't be perfect, of course not. But they don't *need* to be perfect because they're not competing against perfection. Humans are very dangerous and if self-driving cars can be shown to be reliably safer than humans within a significant margin, then I do think it would be beneficial to phase out human drivers entirely, eventually. Watch his video for some more thoughts on this, which has significantly influenced my opinions on self-driving cars.
That’s so sad! I cried so hard over the stuffed cat getting caught, because I can’t imagine the fear and pain that poor cat suffered before dying. Thank you for showing us this review. Amazon is one for protecting their sellers from unflattering reviews. I hope that family sued, if for no other reason than to help the child who witnessed the demise of their cat get the help in dealing with PTSD. I hope the family is doing better. I’m so sorry for their loss. 😢
One that is probably just a Chinese contractor that have no history in designing a pet product and is only in it to make a quick buck. For all we know that could've been an existing washing machine motor.
Doubt they actually had 500 horsepower. Could've been confused with a torque measurement (which would still be extremely high) or just a spelling error (highly likely if it was the seller saying that). I watched through most of the video, skimmed the rest, then re-skimmed looking for this number. Where is it in the video?
@@AttacMage i was being hyperbolic. I thought it would've been obvious given the fact that 500hp is enough to accelerate a couple ton car to 60mph in about 3 seconds. My point was that there was absolutely no reason to use a motor/gear reduction such that the litter box could also double as a guillotine.
This makes me SO UPSET. I couldn't imagine how devastated I'd be if my beloved cat, who's literally everything to me, was hurt or worse by a litterbox I purchased. This is a nightmare. I hope these owners get justice!
The only justice they can hope for is that these things are removed from sale so no other cat has to be lost. I also hope it sends to a message to these manufacturers to make sure future designs are safe.
@@OneManFiveCatslol I doubt these Chinese companies care. They'll just redesign the shell and vomit out the same product under Ehfhehvhwjvu or another brand name.
@antikommunistischaktion the country should ban the design. Or put an embargo on sales of these types of designs, if they're not going to hold the sellers liable for killing pets.
it is actually made by a Chinese company and for some weird reason they put an address on the Amztoy website I dont no if it is of a random address or if it is the company's address.
Some thoughts from someone who works in the sensor-embedded industry: 1. It is completely and utterly insane to even require a firmware update at all for the machine to be safe - I don't want to berate you for suggesting this is a fix, but to be absolutely clear: safety can never, ever be delegated to demanding people perform a firmware update, especially for the mass market. If you buy, IT SHOULD BE SAFE AT THE MOMENT OF BEING BOUGHT. Having firmware update capability can never, EVER excuse a product being actually dangerous. Strong MCAS vibes. 2. Safety-critical sensors should employ POSITIVE sanity controls. That is, the machine should CONSTANTLY CHECK itself for correct sensor behavior, and if at any point the sensing suite does not report appropriately, the machine should consider itself BROKEN AND STOP operating entirely until it is repaired. Yes, this does mean the machine will more easily stop working and enrage the user, but this is only if your sensor suite is garbage to begin with, in which case you should not be selling at all. 3. Sensors are microelectromechanical devices that can fail (this should almost never happen to good ones, but god knows what these companies are using). They should be used AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE for safety purposes, the REST OF THE DESIGN SHOULD BE INHERENTLY SAFE in every other possible way. You're not making an Abrams tank whose operators may as well be blown to bits by enemy missile fire, you're making a household objects used by the general consumer.
It’s what I said when after I updated the firmware, had I waste my time now it worked? I said no because it was shipped to me like this and to everyone else. Even right now, all those machines sitting in Amazon warehouses will not have the new firmware. With so many people who don’t use apps and with no warning that they need to update it, I had not wasted my time. Plus the physical design of it with that plastic fixed oval opening that closes off is beyond stupid if sensors do fail. There’s no physical or mechanical fail safe which there needs to be. That Popur waste bin lid cannot be opened by hand without breaking the motor. As soon as it closes the motor locks down. To open it you have to hold down the cycle button I believe. I don’t understand why the motor needs to lock down. It should be able to move backwards physically if a cat got in there and needed to lift it to get out. It’s just a bad design. When the Litter Robot 3 and 4 have sensor faults they stop working. The LR3 is notorious for pinch detectors failing generally due to corrosion from the fumes of urine clumps in the waste drawer. They should be made of a better material for sure, but they are only $6 to replace and will take a novice about 20 minutes to do with the instructional video from Whisker to do it. What’s utter madness is I’ve seen so many posts from people annoyed about it keep happening that they tape over the contacts to bypass them so the machine will work again, but without the pinch detectors. Utter madness. At least the pressure the motor exerts is low enough if a cat got caught in the waste drawer opening then wouldn’t get hurt and they should be able to free themselves. I tested the LR4 with the far superior pinch detectors disabled using my fist. It just felt like a light press and then it stopped, so I just removed my hand.
@@OneManFiveCats The thing about the LR3 (and possibly the 4) is that there is an additional safety already built in - the weight sensor. They made the weight sensor overly complicated (a poor design of variable pressure sensor) rather than the LR2 which had a foolproof on/off weight switch. If the weight sensor is tripped, then the unit should never even be running in the first place to NEED the pinch sensors. They ALSO added (stupidly) a continual resistance check against the "bonnet" light board - through those VERY dodgy side connectors. I have NINE of these LR3 units, and have disabled the pinch connectors AND taken that bonnet nonsense and put it entirely in the base. Why? Because intermittent trash connections should NOT be the source of "safety" if that is the goal! Make it sensitive enough (with a PROPER on/off idiot proof switch) that KNOWS when anything is onboard, and just never activate the motor then or stop it the instant the load changes. Yeah that makes it need a bit of an adjustable pressure spring, but that is WAY better than the existing VPS type they are using now.
@@OneManFiveCats I have 2 popurs and both waste bins (cardboard) can be very easily opened by hand...did not know it was an issue that they clamp shut for (most?) people? Had no idea.
I will say that Whisker's Litter Robot does follow these principles. Even as an owner if it's annoying every time there's a sensor issue the device doesn't function. But the alternative is worse, as seen by these knock off products
More people need to be seeing this video. It is genuinely terrifying that a grown man, prepared for this machine to pinch his hand, struggled that much to free himself. What if someone’s child got stuck? Those cats never even had a chance to free themselves and I have no clue how those parents explained to their two year old what happened.
This is why I shared this video to Facebook and LinkedIn - the only social networks I use: because I think everyone needs to see this video! As you say, it's not unsafe just for cats, it's unsafe for kids and adults too!🤦🏻♀️ Absolutely horrible product and whoever created it should end up in jail! 😡
@@theothertonydutch that’s an extremely inappropriate comment. That “harsh lesson” killed three different peoples pets and traumatized at least four humans, one of them being a child. You are downplaying how a two year old had to walk in on her beloved cat.
I just tried to find this video here, because I stumbled over it on reddit r/eddit and it wasn't easy to find by only the title alone. I guess something about the TH-cam algorithm and words like "kill" or deadly"? :/ It worked when I typed the name of the TH-cam channel as well.
Please reach out to @LouisRossmann as he has been tackling Amazon's bad behavior about dangerous goods. The more eyes on this, the safer we and our pets can be.
This is absolutely horrifying, I dont know how they didn't realize this would result in a cat being hanged. Rest in peace to Charlie and Mochi, they'll be missed by their owners and everyone who came here to see this video.
This is worse than them not realizing. The fact that they intentionally delete comments on their videos talking about it means that they are aware of the danger and don't care
@@asdcdweadasd thats the truth here, they probably didnt. Saw there was a market for these, scrambled together some trash and shipped it off. Thats all there is to it sadly. Nowadays you really have to do a lot of research for stuff like this to make sure you dont buy a death machine
Thank you for making this video. I’m crying thinking of all of the poor cats that have been injured or killed from using these boxes. My heart goes out to them and their families. I hope these horrible devices are permanently off the market and that no one ever has to go through this awful nightmare with their kitty again.
Thank you for sharing our sweet mochis story! Thank you for letting others know the dangers of certain litter boxes and what to look for. I had no idea what took look out for until unfortunately it was too late. Praying this reaches who it needs to! ❤❤❤
Amazon has become a cesspool of garbage products from China/Ali Express resellers. They usually have nonsensical names, or blatantly copy established products. It's race to the bottom for both pricing and quality. Fake reviews, or reviews that make no sense, on top of a loophole allowing items to be sold piggybacking an old inactive product with high rating. Please, look over what you're buying. If something happens to you, or your beloved pet, you'll be trying to sue Amazon, a company worth 1,798 trillion dollars, which is another way of saying you will be locked in court forever against lawyers costing thousands per hour and you will most likely lose. Or avoid buying from Amazon altogether, if you can help it.
Same, started sobbing seeing that stuffed animal get stuck in the machine, knowing a real, poor animal got stuck just like that. Even the hand test. Horrifying and so upsetting knowing a cat went through such a death
Wow, this is infuriating - cheaply made, mass-produced garbage that kills cats being sold under a bunch of different brands? Sketchy as hell; I'm glad somebody is doing due diligence, and reporting on this.
not to mention this preys on inexperienced or stressed cat owners who dont know what to look for and only go for something in their budget. If my baby didn't like her traditional box OR if i was injured again and couldnt clean after her..its a heartbreaking thought.
watching the plush demonstration and hearing mochi's story actually made me sick to my stomach. i literally can't imagine that happening to any of my cats. i pray that this video gets seen by as many people as possible and that the people selling these literal death traps for cats get punished as harshly as possible. everyone, please share this video with anyone you know to spread awareness of this and prevent people from buying these horrible machines
Here from Penguinz0’s video. Thank you so much for making this video and bringing awareness to pet owners. It’s devastating that a product like this is being sold to well-meaning cat owners. I appreciate the insight ❤
Selling these is just CRIMINAL!!! What the hell were the designers thinking? ALL of them and the sellers should be held accountable. PURE CRIMINAL!!!!!!!
It's ridiculous that something with such a fatal design flaw can just keep being produced and sold even once it starts killing cats. The fact that it's a generic design being sold on several retail sites is horrifying. There is no accountability from the manufacturers, amazon just deletes the listing and puts another one up with a different name. Imagine if this were something geared toward human babies. Its bad enough that cats are being killed by these things, but it also proves amazon and other sites selling these things are willing to host a product that is dangerous and faulty.
@@an8thdimensionalbeing142 It also is a danger to kids. Children are naturally curious and below a certain age would certainly not think anything of sticking their hands or even head into the litter box opening.
Thank you SO much for this video, despite how heartbreaking it was to watch. I have an automatic litterbox for my Felix Joseph, but it is an open-top, that just has the rake that moves the length of the box, and lifts the rake and takes waste back to the back of the box to the waste container. I'm relieved I've watched this video before taking a chance on buying a lower cost machine to get an enclosed box. I simply cannot afford a LitterRobot, and have constantly been on the lookout for more affordable options, and without seeing this video I very easily could have been deceived by one of the dangerous models you mentioned. The thought of losing my Felix Joseph brought tears to my eyes, and I could not handle losing him in the way that these horrific accidents caused others to lose their beloved cat. My heart goes out to the people who have lost their cat in one of these tragic ways, I am so truly sorry.
Well, I dont have a cat, I havent seen any videos about cats, and this video was in my feed, definetly the algorithm is working. I am going to shared this video to my friends who owns a cat or want a cat. I hope this will help save many lives.
Those poor, poor babies. Absolutely horrifying that these companies are already paying people to be silent about their death contraption. Thank you for spreading awareness of this.
@@marcodarko6941 💯 And not just her trauma, her 2 year-old also saw the gruesome scene. I wouldn't be surprised if she needed therapy after that, seriously speaking
Thank you so much for making this video. I just wrote an email to our national consumer protection organisation here in Germany, where I explained to them the points you make in your video. I also included a link to this video so that they can see, for themselves, how dangerous those products are. So again, thank you so much for this video, I hope it will lead to our consumer protection organisation issuing a warning to customers in Germany and thus saving the lives of our furry friends.
i didnt expect this to make me SOB but the idea of those cats having such a horrible death, and the thought of finding my babies that way... it's horrific. RIP to those sweet cats
This needs to be a top video for anyone with even the remotest of interests in adopting a cat. I don't have a self-cleaning litterbox for my two orange boys, just three large plastic litter boxes I clean twice a day, and I don't think I'm in the market for one, but I'm glad you made this video. For Charlie and Mochi, and all the other moggies that got hurt by badly-made products this video is too late. But maybe, just maybe, this'll save at least one other furbaby.
You don't even need sensors, A spring loaded clutch plate or pulley would do the job. Granted, it can be difficult to engineer something that's going to protect against a small cat getting stuck, but it's not really that hard or expensive. They clearly didn't even bother to test this as it's one of the easier eventualities to test for.
Even better they could have designed it not to have an opening which gets closed during the cleaning cycle. That way there’s nothing to trap the cat under any circumstances
@@molybdomancer195The most recent version of the Litter Robot actually has no door at all, it just rotates on one axis. My family owns one and we actually don’t smell anything even after the cat’s used it. It also moves fairly slow, meaning it doesn’t kick up litter dust. Personally, I’d just get one without a door. A door means more sensors and more places for safety controls to fail.
One idea I had to try and make it safer; a bigger opening, pieces that pop off if something gets stuck as a just in case, and a MANUAL door. Like, on hinges. To start the cleaning cycle, just CLOSE THE DOOR MANUALLY. If no cats OR children/other animals or parts were detected, the door would lock and start the process. If something WAS detected, the machine would beep for a few minutes (loudly so that people can hear it and get whatever’s in there out) and NOT start the cleaning process until whatever was in there is removed. I feel like that could greatly reduce the risk of cats getting caught in the door because it had motors that were too powerful, because there would be NO MOTORS in the door itself except for the lock, and in the box to clean it, and even then, those are WEAK motors.
I have the Amztoy litter box you showed in this video. THANK YOU! I called Amazon today and got a full refund. Will be disposing of this garbage and replacing it with a regular litter box.
I am so happy to hear this. Good riddance to it! Take a look at the Furrytail one I’ve linked in the description. It’s the best budget one you can get and it’s incredibly safe!
@@juleylikespandasThey have an option on their help page to get a phone call. I explained this video and how the listings even removed. Since it’s too large and I don’t have the box, they said to toss it out. Outside the return window too! The lady I talked to had cats so she was very understanding.
Seeing that machine crushing that plush toy made me feel sick... just knowing that had actually happened to someone's cat... this is so, so incredibly sad. I just can't imagine the horror of discovering such a gory scene, especially the poor child whose mom wasn't home. These poor people... poor kitties... 😞
Great video. It's sad how a "small settlement" can change a review from being "killed my cat" to "Good machine" on amazon. The man with the litterbox robot videos with the best production values on the internet is now also a consumer advocate that used his own funds to purchase and test an unsafe one to get the word out! Bravo!
I understand why they accepted the settlement-- it's very hard if not impossible to sue some Chinese mystery company for anything. Whatever amount they got, it was probably the only way the victims could get any settlement at all. As Five Cats Man showed, he couldn't even return his deadly machine for a refund.
@@stellarobado4269 Also keep in mind that even if it weren't a foreign company, cats are regarded as property in many parts of the world, definitely the US, so the damages that you'd be able to recover aren't typically that much. Certainly not enough to change the way that the company is operating or to get them to make changes to the design. What's particularly bad about this is that it's not that hard to test to see what sort of pressure is being applied by the door on anything that gets trapped in there. Idiots have been using carrots to demonstrate what happens with the Tesla Cybertruck closes on them.
Why is money more important than helping other people (and saving other cat lives?). There’s NO excuse for accepting money in exchange for removing information that can help other people. I have zero sympathy for that woman, and all the sympathy in the world for her poor deceased cat.
It absolutely breaks my heart to think about how terrifying that sweet kittys last moments were, and the clear bloody struggle on the bottom of the litter box makes me literally cry. NO cat should ever have to be killed like this in their own home, by something meant to improve their life, by something meant to comfort them, by something that is meant to be safe. Sweet kitty died alone, confused, scared, and painfully. I hope this sweet angel is having the best time in kitty heaven with lots of food, fun toys, and cozy beds.
It is unreasonable that a product should require a firmware update to be safe for consumers. I’m so sorry for all of the lost babies and friends, and for their families who had to face their ends.
@@gamerbeginner5019 Software can glitch out at random times, and it's not unusual for old bugs to re-appear with additional updates. I would never entrust my cat's life and wellbeing to a piece of code
I had to stop watching after the little kitten, I love my cats so much and to find my cat like that would cause me serious psychological damage. Thanks for bringing this to light!! ❤
These sorts of experiences would be horribly traumatic for the children who discovered their beloved kitties dead in this way. I’m almost in tears just thinking about it!
Pretty disgusting that they are simply rebranded and continue to sell them. For anyone who wants to take some form of action, you can use the link in the description to access the amazon links and use the "Report an issue with this product" button and declare it unsafe. The button is found under the description on the product page. Unsure how effective this is, but the more reports then the more likely the products will be looked at. Thanks for the video and spreading awareness!
They don't care about our pets. All they care about is money and profit. Nowadays barely anyone really cares about pet/human heath. This is so sick. We should drag them to court for this terrible machine. That's not a litter box that'sliterally a guillotine. If a person can't even give 5 minutes front 24 HOURS of a day to take care of their cats, they shouldn't have one.
There’s literally thousands of “brands” like this on Amazon. They buy generic crap, slap an auto generated brand name on it, and sell it until the listing goes down for one reason or another, rinse and repeat.
@@BrietheCattIt’s hard to stop drop shipped garbage, but we should still try. I wish there was a more effective way of doing it. Amazon should require areal human being to review products put up so someone can’t just relist/rebrand dangerous products.
I'm a cat owner who suffers from chronic fatigue. That being said, I will NEVER risk my cat's safety in the name of my own comfort by buying a machine like this. A few people suggested similar machines to me, but I couldn't help but picture exactly what the stuffed cat test looked like. Hell, I can see people who like 'cute' home accessories buying this death machine simply because of the 'cute ears' (I say this as someone who's prone to buying 'cute stuff') and suffering a horrible loss. It even comes in pink! What a horrible way to entrap people into harming their cats! While this video was heartbreaking and tragic, it's necessary to exist and for other pet owners to see this, so I'm commenting so the algorithm will carry it far.
I have severe chronic fatigue from my fibro, and my partner also has chronic fatigue. We got a litter robot 4 to help lessen the stress of litter scooping, it was not cheap but watching this video has definitely upped my appreciation for how well it works.
The Litter Robot is a safe brand to the point litter getting jammed in the right place sets off the pinch sensor and disables the machine, and by disabling it I mean it stops right there, it doesn't return to home it doesn't try to complete the cycle it'll freeze in place even if that means the cat can't actually use it, and you have to manually reset the machine. Yes this is annoying but I'd rather have an overzealous pinch sensor than a cheap Chinese one that doesn't work at all.
This is horrific. I'm a new cat owner, and I was more than happy to keep a litterbox for my girl so that she could live a long happy safe indoor life but nothing will ever make me more thankful to scoop it by hand every single day than this. Those poor beautiful angels. What a nightmare, for them and those that loved them.
I'm so glad that the algorithms on TH-cam worked well to show me this. Thank you for the video and I hope this will be noticed by many more! I never considered buying on amazon, as all of the designs look closed off and not safe. My gut was right. I'm heartbroken for the cats that lost their lives 💔I have 3 cats and love them dearly and can't imagine what I would feel something like this happened to them...
Omg, and I also had to pause at the part where the Garfield toy got stuck there. Gosh was this whole video really hard to sit through without getting emotionally crushed
Shame on any company that does not do their due diligence around safety features. Thanks for bringing awareness about these dodgy machines. I would be devastated if my cat met an early life due to company greed and shady practices.
The company does not care about the animals it hurt. Just like in game development. Companies do not test anymore, they release the product and test it on the consumers who buy it. It there are no problems it passed the test. If it didn't and animals die or get hurt? Oops. The executives probably make mean jokes about it.
What gets me is that there are several ways this sort of thing could be avoided. The cheapest being to use nylon gears engineered to place a limit on how much force can be applied to the mechanism. The neck is always going to be kind of delicate, but weaker gears would probably do the job. This is also a situation where using a flywheel to drive it or adding a sensor to indicate that the door has come into contact with something would do the job as well. I'm sure there are a bunch of other ways of doing this, but this sort of thing is why engineers generally get certified before practicing in many parts of the world. This was completely foreseeable and completely avoidable.
@@SmallSpoonBrigadethere's multiple ways past that too. First, don't have a solid ring for the entrance, next, monitor the draw on the motors. If it spikes, make it back off and stop. This kind of sensing technology has been in garage doors for many years. It's unexcusable that this was pushed to market with that kind of flaw.
I have two key families in my life with cats and they often need automatic things because they are increasingly disabled by illness & being elderly, so knowing this is an issue is really good to help them all stay safe. Thank you so much!
This is awful. I can't believe someone would design a litterbox this way! It's essentially a guillotine. Thank you for this informative video... it was horrific to watch, but SO important to be aware of. I feel sick. My heart aches for the families who lost their beloved kitties to this death trap of a machine.
When the machine clamped up on that plushie, that noise was terrible! I can't imagine that being the last thing a living being had to hear. Poor babies, I'm so glad this video is spreading out
Watching this with my sweet cat on the desk. This is so devastating. Thank you for spreading the dangers of this machine. I hope no other cats get needlessly killed by this thing.
The test with the banana made me feel sick, the way it took multiple “pushes” for it to even actually break it fully. The thought of a cats neck stuck there, first being crushed, then snapped, and only after, what, 15-30 minutes, being fully killed, that is, if they dont bleed out by then? Disgusting. I wish could say i cant believe these people, but this is the exact thing i expect from companies. Never believe that a company, no matter how well-reviewed, only has your best interest at heart. Of course, some products are genuinely good and fully succeed at the task, but in the end, it’s just because being good is profitable. Thank you for making this, praying no more babies are lost to this disgusting machine, that they arent produced anymore, and that Mochi can at least be a martyr and not just a tragedy in vain. Sending all the love to her mama, she’s so strong for sharing so quickly, even with how obviously hard it was for her to make that video, and so soon after it happened, it’s incredibly noble to want it out there asap so as many cats can be spared as possible.
I know right the TikTok ladys poor cat must have been in so much pain no cat should ever go through it makes me sick that the people making these things knows its killing cats but stills sells them its truly awfull
I would never, ever trust a machine with my pets because I am a software engineer and I know how these products get pushed out without any quality assurance whatsoever, and because I know how sensors and the like just fail after some time. Seeing this video has confirmed every single one of my fears. If I lost a cat to something like this it would absolutely destroy me.
QA or not, I'm kind of baffled any designer would trust safety to software when there are methods that do not need software. It's not like this is an autopilot where you have no choice but to rely on software for safety because the alternative is to put the car on rails.
Yes, absolutely. Software being the only thing between life and death is a horrible idea, this isn't a Space Shuttle. It is simple enough to make the machine physically incapable of causing injury, ie. the axially rotating models.
@@DKNguyen3.1415 Software should never be the first line of defense, let alone the only one. Software can fail, and even new updates can reintroduce bugs past fixes got rid of. The first thing to consider in safety should always, _always_ , be hardware
@@raerohan4241 You're not thinking about the full scope of failures. It should be "always, always...when possible". For example, if a quadcopter loses a rotor, the only way to get it back to the ground safely is software to compensate for the lost rotor control so it doesn't flip and remains upright as it loses altitude. There is no hardware based fail-safe for that.
I don't even use self-cleaning litter boxes, but decided to watch this out of curiosity since I have 4 cats. I'm literally in tears right now! This breaks my heart so much to imagine the pain and fear these cats went through. These companies are disgusting!
Just thinking about if my family ever gets this, (which they WONT because ill tell them to not buy any of these machines) then seeing my cat just dead from the machine, I just CANT think of it! It makes me so sad!
I have 2 cats, never thought about buying an automatic litter box, and I don’t plan on watching this video. I just can’t bring myself to it, the thought of people talking about THEIR kitties being horribly killed by a machine, no, I just can’t… but I would like the video and comment to feed the algorithm; more cat people NEED to know about this… I know is tedious, kinda time consuming and sometimes gross to clean the litter box, but I take scoop poop and urine balls for a million years than seeing (or find) my babies being decapitated or crushed to death ( as comments mention) without any posible way of helping them…. NO, JUST NO, I hope the poor cat tutors of this babies find solace and just THANK THEM for sharing this devastating stories to shed light on this topic for the sake of saving other kitties lives and spare the owners of experiencing such a traumatic experience…l how horrible 😞
As a person with terrible arthritis in my knees and 6 cats I have been shopping around debating what automatic litterbox to get and I want to say thank you so very much for this video. I would never forgive myself if something i bought was responsible for killing one of my beloved companions. Thank you
This is such a fantastic PSA! I’m disabled and on a limited income, so the idea of a cheaper automatic litter box is, on the surface, quite appealing. Your research into this has possibly saved the lives of my cats, and me from the years of heartbreak I know I would suffer if one of my angels were to be harmed in such a contraption. Thank you so much for your work!!
This!^^ these kinds of things prey in people in bad places already, who are lower income, disabled, or older, and want to give their cats a cleaner litter box, which only causes more devistation (not saying that ppl who are doing well dont love their animals, but often someone's pet might be the only good thing in their life). This video is informational and explanitory in a way that not many actual psas manage!
He has many videos reviewing good automatic litter boxes, you should check them out! If possible I'd suggest saving for an highly reliable one even if it's expensive, I'm sure it'd be worth it.
Had my hands over my mouth... I wanted to cry. Seeing it continue to close until GRINDING its mechanisms loudly at the resistance was f***ing horrifying )':
@@christinacody8653 And thankfully penguinz0/Charlie covered this video today so it has reached an even wider audience, the news will continue to hopefully spread 🙏
I couldn't finish the video once Mochis story came up. Just had to stop and hug my house panther and tell him I'll clean his litterbox for the rest of his life myself. He was slightly annoyed i woke him up, but liked the hug
"What the fuck mother, I was resting-" "I'M NEVER GONAN LET A MACHINE LIEKE THIUS HURT YOU OMFG I,M GOING TO CLEANM YOUR LITTER BOX FOR THE REST OF YORU LIFE-" "... Meow :3"
I'm so glad I found your TH-cam channel! I was planning to buy a litter box and gasped when I saw the Amtoy one-it's the exact one I had in my cart! My cat Halo and I can't thank you enough!
oh my god, my heart absolutely breaks for people who lost their cats this way… what a horrible way for the cats to lose their lives. the way my heart sunk in my chest and the lump in my throat hearing the owner tell their story of finding Mochi. I can’t imagine the amount of guilt they felt realising their purchase for their beloved pet ultimately led to their demise. I rarely cry while watching videos, but this got to me. Giving my cats the biggest hugs right now… Thank you for shedding light on these cases and the importance to not trust every company to ensure your pets safety
Yeah, it's genuinely soul shattering the cruelty of the way those cats were(and are) killed. I got stuck in a gap inside a cave once, and I was worried that I was very stuck. The fear from these machines must be plenty times more than that, because, at least I managed to get out without help, but in the case of the evil machines, there is no help, and no way out alive. Absolutely hideous what these companies are doing.
"Let's design an automatic litterbox that completely closes the small entrance with powerful motors and poorly programmed safety features! What could possibly go wrong?"
Disclosure: I came to the comment section first, and couldn't bring myself to watch the actual video, and I apologize to the content creator. I have never owned, nor will I ever own one of these types of litter boxes, especially after reading comments about cats being killed by them. Thank you for uploading❤
You should watch it. It’s this specific machine design that has appeared that is deadly. I’ve reviewed so many now and they are almost all safe. Safety is the number one factor for me as I wouldn’t touch them if they posed any risk to my cats.
@@OneManFiveCats What gets me is that it's not that expensive to include provisions in the design to avoid this. There are several options that would prevent cats from becoming trapped and I'm not sure that any of them is particularly expensive. It's pretty clear that they didn't do even the most rudimentary testing as it's not that hard to stick something in the opening and see what happens when it gets stuck.
The sites that are allowing these companies to sell to the US (Amazon and walmart) are who needs to be held responsible. This is probably legal in China and there's nothing we can do as Americans to stop a chinese company from doing what it wants, but Amazon and Walmart should be held accountable to American regulations.
Jesus Christ. I was already sick enough, but the test with the plush cat brought tears to my eyes. What a horrifically harrowing ten seconds. I genuinely don’t think I can watch the rest of this video, but I wanted to comment for the algorithm and leave it to play in full with my earbuds out. Thank you - this video could save lives.
DO NOT trust generic drop-shipped things from Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, Temu, etc. like this. Just because it's from Amazon or another website that seems legit, doesn't mean it's held to any safety standards in your country. These sellers do NOT care about quality or safety of their products, because there is no recourse should a customer be unhappy, or even injured, due to the item.
I bought the litter robot 4 after watching your review and a bunch of other research. I was deep in the clutches of depression and anxiety and wasn’t even taking care of myself. The Litter Robot 4 was amazingly helpful as it told me what it needed and all I had to do was respond. My cats had clean litter and were much happier. It was one less thing I was “failing” at. While I was privileged to have the ability to afford it, I could not imagine what would have happened if i purchased this brand due to budget and one of my fur babies had passed. I actually cannot contemplate it, especially considering the head space I was trapped in. We need the John Wick of cats to go out there and resolve this issue. Thank you for the video and the warning. We need more people like you getting the word out!
As a cat owner who suffers depression, sending you lots of love! ❤️❤️❤️ That’s what truly angers me the most, is that the most vulnerable but well-intentioned people are the ones that will suffer the most from trusting these deceptive products. So glad you were able to acquire the genuine Litter Robot! my heart hurts for those that saw this merely as a budget friendly option, not realizing that it’s a poorly engineered death-trap 🥲😭
This is a pretty universal problem with "no-name" brands on Amazon, they're all full of design flaws, often design flaws which lead to safety issues. That's kind of why they're cheap. You need to go with "proper" brands if you care about the thing you are purchasing or the thing you are purchasing for.
It's essential that you understand that this video is about ONE specific design of Chinese imports that are deadly. The VAST majority of self-cleaning litter boxes are incredibly safe.
AVOID generic machines and stick to established brands, ideally with a history of making them. Whisker's Litter Robot machines have been around for 25 years. I bought my first one in 2018, and for the last 2 and a half years, my cats have been using two Litter-Robot 4s. I trust them without question. I wouldn't risk their lives if they weren't safe.
The best machines that I've tested are linked in the description. All are entirely safe. I also show many other safe ones in the video. Also, please check out my full reviews of many different ones; they are the most comprehensive reviews on TH-cam.
Before you comment about laziness, please watch the first two minutes, during which I talk about why I and so many others use self-cleaning litter boxes. It's not laziness, well it isn't for me!
Thank you.
Philip Bloom
Here is a link to a PDF of listings for the deadly machines on Amazon and Walmart in the USA: gopb.co/dangerousmachines
Thankfully, Wayfair has now removed all the ones on its website. One down, two to go!
Edit: Amazon have now removed all of their listings!!
It disgust me that there are so many of this exact product on amazon (the same design), i found out that this product has a lot of fake reviews too, I have reported every one of this product that is being sold needs to be mass reported to ensure only safe product is being sold.
this video made me so angry and sad that i had to take measures against everyone that sells this product as it is highly illegal as it breaks multiple safety precautions
I haven't tried their rotating boxes, just their combing boxes are good for the price. They have high testing standards above all else.
@@foggy_nightsnot a fan of rake machines. See part 2 of my megatest to see why!
I have been using a self cleaning litter box since I first got my cat. I AM lazy. After working since age 16 (am 58 now), I am allowed to be lazy. Cleaning a litter box multiple times a day sucks.
As a product designer, I am so unbelievably angry. They made a literal guillotine for cats. The amount of criminal negligence here is indescribable.
What accountability would you expect from these Chinese companies and from Ali Express or even Amazon? They have no problem selling you something toxic or deadly.
@@hansmikesen6355 It should not be a requirement to do extensive research on every single physical good you buy to make sure they aren't deadly in shockingly inept and negligent ways that are not readily apparent. Why in the world would you ever defend this sort of thing? Get a grip.
y’all hiring ? legitimate question since it’s tough out here for IDers even with years of product design and development experience
@@hansmikesen6355 I can't imagine my sister or old mother with zero engineering skills to do research about machine safety and design. They would look at all these amazing hitech magic pictures with sensors and stuff, see many reviews, see hundred of 5 stars, no negative, read positive reviews that are on top and say, people like it, it must be good.
Product designer here too. I hate everything about this from an ergonomic to build quality standpoint. It's atrocious.
My jaw dropped when you tried it for the first time and it INSTANTLY crushed the plush. No hesitation, no safety release, nothing. This should be illegal.
This is illegal. A product should be safe by design. But there is just no supervision on these kind of machines. Same goes for clothing, electric vehicles,. A lot of shit is being sold without any safety standards.
The issue is it isn’t illegal since all the cheap clone machines are made in china which has no laws about protecting pets or manufacturing cat guillotines. No idea why they can’t ban their importation to the US.
@@Pacman009 I suspect they are illegal to sell as Amazon does, but the government is unlikely to take note; they're far too busy making sure no yellow multimeters or blackcurrants make it through.
i teared up when i saws that. it makes me shudder. poor kitties.
I mean, it should be, and it probably is. Except not where they actually make them, and the dropshippers who sell this don't care, since they're scammers and thus just evil in the first place, and neither do the places that host their shops (we're mostly talking Amazon, really) since they're amoral moneygrubbers who have their "we're not actually the sellers" as a legal fig leaf. Not much to be done except maybe make this a scandal so that it breaks through the by-design malaise around regulating big business and gets actually regulated like "no, Amazon, you're actually responsible for the things you sell".
No amount of software updates will ever fix a machine designed like a guillotine...
It's flawed by design.
Or the 200 newton motor that's gearboxed
@@Ardeact seriously why the fuck do they put something so overpowered in there
@@bazooka712 Something tells me the design was intentional
@@Ardeactme too😢. No offense I kind of looks like an among us character 😂 it might’ve Been an imposter🤣🤣
My brothers cat passed by the same machine. He was an orange Persian,and 2 months old. His name was cheddar. When my brother found him,I was at his house. His body was on the floor,and his head was crushed inside. I thank you for spreading awareness about this.❤️
I don't know what I'd do if I saw something like that. How awful. Poor kitty.
Rest in peace Cheddar ❤️
that is horrific. I feel so bad for cheddar and your brother. God, I want to start sobbing aggressively.
I hope cheddar is in a better place.
2 months? Damn. Rest in peace cheddar
that's absolutely heartbreaking. I'm so so sorry.
I hate how internet algorithms work, because after watching this video now I'm seeing ads for these exact kind of litter boxes.
But you aren’t. You are seeing ads for Litter Robots aren’t you? Those are the complete opposite to these hideous piece on junk.
@@OneManFiveCats I'm not seeing it here on youtube, it's mostly on instagram, where I never seen a litter box ad before, and now I'm getting temu ads for this model of the video.
@@SatanSupimpa seriously? That’s so bad.
@@OneManFiveCats Yeah, sadly, that’s how the algorithms work when logging your user data. Most of the advertisements people will get after watching this will be for the cheap knockoff models because your devices heard the word affordable, litter robot, a bunch of brand names, and other related things pointing to the dangerous knockoff a good few times. Google (the parent company of TH-cam) profiles you and collects data from everything you do. Whether you get ads for the real litter robot or not can be highly dependent on what they’ve profiled you as based on your searches, answers to surveys, and usage data. If they’ve decided you’re likely lower income, they’ll market the cheaper knockoffs more because they know you’ll be less hesitant about the price; they may try the real one but are far less likely to push it as hard as the cheap alternatives. They don’t care what they’re advertising; as long as they’re making money, they could care less if it kills your pet. It’s just awful.
Edit: grammar
That's why I turn off targeted advertising everywhere I can.
the fact that you had to FREE yourself with your other hand. knowing cats wouldn't be able to if they got caught makes me wanna cry.
They never had a chance. It's absolutely horrifying. Silencing owners who've lost cats to these machines is disgusting.
That horrified me, too. Why would you ever make a machine like this that had a powerful enough motor than a full grown man would have difficulty freeing his hand from it, knowing cats would be interacting with it daily?
Even more worrying. What if you have a toddler.
There's no chance a baby could remove their hand by themself and not getting serious injury if not broken hand/finger.
@@PixieoftheWood thats the scariest part. knowing that it could happen to any cat that uses this litterbox ANYTIME. Im just praying the people who use this litterbox find this video before something happens to their babies and immediately throw it out :(
@@PixieoftheWood It's China, that's what they do.
As a software developer, I have something to add. Even if they fixed it with the firmware update, that is not sufficient.
I have seen several prior bugs in software be reintroduced by a seemingly unrelated change. And I doubt this company has a good quality control system to mitigate this.
There is a very high chance that a future firmware update could make this machine deadly again.
My stance is, no self cleaning litter machine is safe if it has the mechanical potential to kill a cat, no matter the firmware shipped or provided.
Absolutely, there should be physical mechanisms to prevent it from using enough force to hold anything in place. Either a mechanism that completely disables the motor and or something that allows the rotating pieces to spin freely (that a cat would then push away from and be freed). A simple software update does not get rid of the fact that these need to be recalled and replaced
Even just a slip clutch would've helped here, made it so if any sort of resistance was on the motor output it'd have a physical slip instead of needing software to detect this and stop itself. But even then, I'd never trust a system designed in this way, as slip clutches can fail too.
This is amazing insight. Do you mind if I use your quote in an educational blog post or email to inform my cat-loving audience?
Software developers are lazy, no QA, ship it out, let customers be the test subjects.
@@ultimatums1QA is supposed to be a separate person’s job from the software developer. That way if the developer is bad it is caught and bad software doesn’t go out and the dev can be let go.
Absolutely disgusting. And the fact that these companies were just refunding or paying off the people who had their cats killed…. No amount of money can bring your loved pets back due to gross negligence 😢 glad you’re bringing light to this and that some of these listings have been removed
That photo with the blood is horrific. They could never pay me enough to take that down.
Fr!!!
Fr!!!
take the money, take it down then wait a day and put it back up, mentioning the company paid to take it down.
well it was with promise to remove the product. not everyone understands how amazon works
What's even more horrific to me is the fact that his review was somehow altered? How is that even possible on amazon?
I've found a lot of idiots will claim that cats will be safe from various dangers because they have a good sense of "self preservation", I always tell them "then you've clearly never owned many, if any, cats. Or if you have, you weren't paying any attention."
My sister's cat burned his tummy fur because he walked over a candle despite the fact he had just made a face right before when he realized the little light was hot, that fecker knew and still walked over it. I even had the candle up where he doesn't go and he went out of his way to get up on the counter to check it out once lit.. These fur balls only use their brain cells to frustrate humans, not to keep themselves alive.
And what about elderly or disabled cats? A cat can feel unsafe and still not be able to protect themselves or escape a dangerous situation. My friend has a cat with cerebellar hypoplasia (wobbly cat syndrome) that can't maintain balance and has tremors and uncontrolled muscle movements. By that logic, he should have just not safety-proofed his home for that cat and let her die in a stupid, preventable accident because apparently she has magic cat spidey senses! That's such a load of crap.
Yep. Assume cats are toddlers who can and will get into every nook and cranny in your house and plan accordingly.
Cats are like toddlers, always trying to find interesting ways to hurt/kill/maim themselves
@@starofgalaxies reminds me of that one gif where a dog and a cat got into a disagreement next to a candle, dog backed off when he saw the cat's tail catch fire, cat stopped and stared at its tail for a few seconds before running away from the candle [thankfully, cat moved fast enough to whip the flames off its tail but still]
That poor woman who settled... she thought she would be saving anyone else from having to go through this again, and instead she was silenced and the box is still being sold.
Well her message did get out in this video, so it's not a complete loss. Thank you for this information.
It's time for people to realize their lives are trivial, compared to the profit corporations can get.
She couldn't win when there is a ridiculous instruction like "Don't use it unsupervised".
Yeah that's probably the saddest part. Can't stop the machine from churning...
It's not just being sold, it's probably being sold by the same people. Drop-shippers can change their names easily, and some even have multiple names so they can cover searches with their products. That's why, when you put in a search for something on Amazon, a bunch of weirdly named companies show up, all with the exact same photos of the exact same product.
@@suzanneglover3146 agreed, I guess maybe we'll all just need to continue putting pressure on Amazon that this style of robot cat litter machine must be tested by a consumer safety agency before sale, or not be listed at all. In the meantime just get on the reviews and tell others of the dangers. If Amazon takes them down we deliver to this TH-cam person for follow-up.
The test with the stuffed animal broke my heart. The continued closing and screeching noises… my heart breaks for the cats and owners who have fallen victim to these machines. Thank you for sharing this information.
This isn’t a litter box, that thing could be marketed as an automatic cat euthanasia machine! I was wondering why would anyone let that design get past the drawing board, then I remembered “oh yeah, China”…. 😒
@@davemccage7918 i agree that the machine's design is criminal & shouldn't have been passed, but why do you guys dislike china so much 😭 my grandparents are immigrants from china & they hear comments like yours all the time. i just want to get where you guys are coming from ^^
Damn, even the stuffed-animal test is horrific. Mochi and Charlie deserved so much better from the designers of this machine and shame on everybody who let this get into the hands of consumers!
Holy shit, the hand test!
ngl i thought the stuffed animal test was both funny and horrific because the sound of the machine being stuck sounded like the stuffed animal was screaming
It is genuinely disgusting the harm that these 'products' (death machines) can do.
I don't understand why these people aren't suing them
@@wellIhavenothingbettertodo theyre spread across a lot of different companies which come and go, finding the source of the machine is likely very difficult, and theyre likely not based in america and suing companies from other countries rarely results in winning the lawsuit due to differing laws in diffierent countries, especially countries with few animal cruelty laws like china, where the machines likely come from.
This needs to be picked up by mainstream news outlets.
I sent the video to several o my local news stations and animal welfare facilities to hopefully gain momentum in spreading awareness of this dangerous machine
Asmon picked it up. 😂
Indeed! Penguinz0 made a video about it! That will reach many people.
@@Schneewittchen1310 Not enough. Most cat owners are likely not going to be watching youtube videos, rather looking at the news. This NEEDS to be picked up by a major news outlet, this is outrageous.
@ganjish_ Have they gave you any responses about that? I hope hey will actually raise awareness of this.
As a disabled person, I am seriously considering an automatic litter box. This is VERY important information. I've been wary of automatic litter boxes due to the concern it could be unsafe.
Don’t be put off by them. The vast majority are incredibly safe.
Just make sure you save up and get a safe one! This fella's channel has very thorough reviews that should help you pick. Please don't let terrible companies tarnish what is an incredible accessibility tool for cat owners.
There should be one where you get a button to make it clean idk if they exist but it's a better idea
My cat uses a litter robot from the official litter robot brand and it’s been very safe for him
Maybe try removing the door (or having someone remove it for you).
I'm not a very emotional person. Not many things give me strong reactions. This video, however, was deeply, deeply distressing-and it should be. There should be no world where we are comfortable with such deep-rooted greed and deliberate negligence that it takes innocent lives. Thank you for making this video.
I lost a cat to a coyote years ago because I assumed it was safe to install "cat door " for my beloved Suki. Today, many years later, the horror of seeing her eviscerated body haunts me. I cannot even imagine finding my cat dead in a machine designed to make their life better. You have done an invaluable service to the cat owner community.
A self cleaning machine does everything BUT make their life better. A little more comfort of course, but personally my cats couldnt care less about a dirty litter box : they'd do it somewhere else anyway if it really bothers them. Also my fearful ahh cat would be terrified if the place he just pooped in started moving and making noises but i guess that's a me problem. Plus inspecting cat feces can help prevending deadly diseases.
That must've been so incredibly horrible, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that was for you. Sending extra prayers/good vibes to your sweet Suki in kitty heaven.
Man I know how you feel. My cat got hit by a car, and seeing your buddy in that position, covered in bI00d is something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. So to buy a product like this, and to have a cat die in such a way in the comfort of YOUR own home, is just pure evil.
I'm so sorry for your experience, that's beyond tragic. I do want to say that you shouldn't blame coyotes, the predation pattern sounds much more like a mustelid like a weasel, or possibly a different small predator like a raccoon. People are quick to blame coyotes when there are tons of different predators out there
Was your cat killed outside or inside your home? If it was outside, that's on you for letting your cat go outside unsupervised. If it was inside, then again... why was your cat allowed outside unsupervised in the first place?
I don't have a cat, I'm not planning on having a cat either. But I'm commenting for the algorithm. It's important that people know about this.
Thank you
Absolutely. I’m unlikely to own a cat myself, but I’m utterly heartbroken hearing these stories.
Same
Awww YoUre So NoBlE AnD SeLfLeSs! If OnLy ThE ReSt Of ThE InTeRnEt WaS ThIs WhOlEsOmE!!!!
same here
bad and dangerous designs need to be shown
in the end also a toddler could climb in there..
That's not even a litterbox at that point. That's a HORRIFIC mousetrap for cats. That company needs to be shut down and all sales must be tracked and returned ASAP.
ngl a mousetrap is more humane then this, at least thats quick ;-;
They are from China, hard to track it down unless sue the Amazon instead.
@@sweeleongng333Animal abuse laws there are basically nonexistent, too
@@cosmicandy4620 mousetraps aren't quick
@@anneelk9066 If they're talking about the metal ones that snap shut, they are. The close with so much force the mouse dies instantly from having its neck broken
just told my cat through tears that i’m never complaining about having to clean his litterbox again
My sweet boy has two boxes and I vow to never groan about cleaning them again. What horror, I couldn't even imagine.
Not only does it kill your cat, it also makes these creepy screeching noises. It's straight out of a horror movie about rouge machines. If anyone saw this happening they would be traumatized for life.
'rouge' machines?
@@Calc_UlatorAre you asking for examples or questioning the spelling?
I'm willing to bet that creepy screeching noise is the gears of the motor grinding whilst it tries to force the door shut. Instead of...y'know...the pinch sensor doing its job and telling the motor to reverse.
@@Roadent1241 Questioning the spelling, I'd assume. Because the spelling is incorrect, unless this person wanted to make a pun
The creepiest part is, during the orange plush test towards the beginning, the screeching sound before becoming more mechanical sounds kind of like a cat crying.
I hope this gets subtitled in Chinese and other languages in Asia. Because I can see it being distributed in the small street stores there without people thinking about what they’re actually selling
i completely agree, as a chinese person myself this type and style of branding is what you see littered all over online markets. i really hope this gets spread there too as i'd bet money its being sold in china if not more so than here
I put on Chinese subs etc earlier today but the timings were off so I am redoing them.
@@OneManFiveCats that’s awesome. I’m glad they’re coming. I feel like if this went viral in China it would put more pressure on aliexpress and other companies to remove this design
@@yfllll Wait, can Chinese people even access TH-cam? I was under the impression there was some Chinese knockoff TH-cam. You know, because... Westerners talk about certain things China's government has done that they don't like.
I guess Hong Kong and Taiwan might still be able to see it though.
@@yfllllExcept TH-cam is blocked in China.
Recently, A cat feeder purchased by my father had clasped down on one of our kittens paws and my whole family had struggled to free her paw from the machine as she cried out in pain. Yes, my cat is alright. We'd been able to tear the machine apart in order to rescue her and she showed minimal damages other than a sore paw that caused limping for 2 days. I'm saddened that these kinds of off brand devices can even go so far as to unintentionally kill pets. I really wish that everyone who has this product disposes/returns it because these stories are heartbreaking. I still remember how I felt during that moment and I only hope that others get the relief I had when our kitten was safe.
Tell us which one it was!
I'm so glad your kitty is OK. Hope she's having all the pets/cuddles.
Why is that possible in the first place?
Either make the mechanism weak enough to not do damage, or make sure no paws can get stuck in them.
Im so sorry your cat got hurt. Makes me angry that these things arent tested enough to find bugs like this.
give him a good health pat :3
I have a generic cat feeder from amazon, but it seems rather safe by design, what was yours?
what kind of feeder ? its incredibly important to share so it doesnt happen for others
I'm not a cat owner but a lot of my friends and coworkers have cats so I'm commenting for the algorithm. This video is important and it should be spread and seen by as many cat owners (and their friends) as possible.
That photo with the bloody paw/claw marks made me sick to my stomach. I would be absolutely hysterical to find something like this had happened to my furry family members - I'm tearing up just thinking about it.
Thank you for bringing this to people's attention, and thank you to those who have shared their horror stories, so that the danger of these products can be brought to light.
I was gagging as I watched his stuffy cat model for essentially decapitated by the test version. It’s the kind of reason I’m squicky about buying ANY of them (even the reliable ones).
@@christinacody8653 Yes It's not so hard to clean it by hand, only if you have 5 or more cats you can think about this damn machines
That photo really broke my heart. It drives home how truly awful that cat's last moments were. Even more horrifying, imagine if a toddler tossed a toy in there, and then put their head in to get it out. How can these things even exist?
Discovering the bloody claw marks must that been absolutely devastating, not to mention the visualising of their last moments.
time stamp?
I think we have another safety hazard in this one. Humans. Can you imagine if a child had stuck their hand in there? If a full grown man, aware of what it does, could barely free himself. What chance does a child have? And heaven forbid the child stuck their head in there. If the parent didn't know how to rip it apart in seconds. These need to be REMOVED from sale!!
You're so right. This man's hand was literally getting crushed in that machine. My sis has a young one and they constantly stick their fingers into holes. This product would absolutely be a danger to them...
Scary. So scary
Exactly. I have three very young children and I know babies and toddlers are especially super curious and can get themselves into a situation in a matter of moments. I really hope anyone with children stays away from products like these.
Even a full grown person could get their head caught and their neck crushed in that ( not sure why an adult would need to do that, but people are weird)
I have a dog - fairly large at 50 lbs - who likes to steal from cat boxes and I can't even imagine how gutted I'd be if he got caught in this death trap. They're a danger to ALL pets, small children, unsuspecting adults...
As a software developer, i can share the same expert opinion that some others have shared: Software is not an acceptable safety measure. The hardware should be inherently safe; because sensors will degrade over time to the point that the software cannot reliably perform safety functions. If safety is preconditioned on correctly behaving software, you've already lost. Do not ever trust software, and especially not with actual real lives!
If you have one of these machines, you should update it to the most safe software available just in case, followed by THROWING IT OUT AND NEVER USING IT AGAIN. You absolutely cannot trust that this machine is nonlethal after that update, even if it feels safer at first glance!
As a software developer; I cosign this 100%
You don't implement safety in software. You can augment existing safety measures; but the fact that the physical design of the machine is dangerous means the machine is dangerous. Full stop
If anyone needs proof you never trust software as the sole safety feature, just look into the Therac-25 incidents.
What is your opinion on self diving cars?
There are ways to make safety-critical software, but it is an extremely involved and expensive process that no consumer products company would ever endure. Hardware safeties are much simpler and are "open-source" by nature so they can be validated externally by users and reviewers.
@@adrianahlz1895 Honestly? Given that the alternative is human-operated vehicles, which are not shown to be significantly safer, I do think that question is entirely different.
The logical conclusion of my previous stance and the fact that humans are at least equally dangerous is that we should never make self-driving cars, and also get rid of human-operated cars too. I do think this would be a good future, provided those resources can be invested in e.g. public transit. Banning cars works for me.
If we must have cars, then I do think unsupervised self-driving cars would be quite scary. The current state where they require constant human supervision is acceptable; because ultimately that software is not safety critical or advertised as such. The human can override it at any time, and the human is responsible for ensuring the safety of everyone on the road, including themselves and their passengers. That being said, I would never dare to write code for an actual autonomous vehicle that will be on public roads; for one I don't have relevant experience for that field (so basically your question boils down to asking some catgirl her politics) and for two I should not be trusted in writing code that has the potential to end lives. no skilled software developer wants to do that, so it takes a truly special mind to write safe code. or sometimes, a truly careless author to write lethal code. most are neither.
Fully unsupervised self-driving cars are scary, and maybe they'll never come. To be clear, I do think banning cars is the best output of this equation, but I don't think a future without cars on the road is foreseeable. In that case, both humans and software sucks. The next best thing is to just get software that sucks less than humans. This judgement is borrowed from CGP Grey, who basically states that yes, autonomous vehicles will still be dangerous and cause injury to people, they won't be perfect, of course not. But they don't *need* to be perfect because they're not competing against perfection. Humans are very dangerous and if self-driving cars can be shown to be reliably safer than humans within a significant margin, then I do think it would be beneficial to phase out human drivers entirely, eventually. Watch his video for some more thoughts on this, which has significantly influenced my opinions on self-driving cars.
That’s so sad! I cried so hard over the stuffed cat getting caught, because I can’t imagine the fear and pain that poor cat suffered before dying.
Thank you for showing us this review. Amazon is one for protecting their sellers from unflattering reviews.
I hope that family sued, if for no other reason than to help the child who witnessed the demise of their cat get the help in dealing with PTSD.
I hope the family is doing better. I’m so sorry for their loss. 😢
What kind of a sadist designs a litter robot with a 500 horsepower motor?!
One that is probably just a Chinese contractor that have no history in designing a pet product and is only in it to make a quick buck. For all we know that could've been an existing washing machine motor.
IDK how much HP is needed but having scraped some tough kitty kookies from litter pans by hand, it feels like a lot sometimes
@@stellarobado4269 probably not much. The Space Needle uses a 1.5 HP motor to spin the entire restaurant.
Doubt they actually had 500 horsepower. Could've been confused with a torque measurement (which would still be extremely high) or just a spelling error (highly likely if it was the seller saying that).
I watched through most of the video, skimmed the rest, then re-skimmed looking for this number. Where is it in the video?
@@AttacMage i was being hyperbolic. I thought it would've been obvious given the fact that 500hp is enough to accelerate a couple ton car to 60mph in about 3 seconds. My point was that there was absolutely no reason to use a motor/gear reduction such that the litter box could also double as a guillotine.
This makes me SO UPSET. I couldn't imagine how devastated I'd be if my beloved cat, who's literally everything to me, was hurt or worse by a litterbox I purchased. This is a nightmare. I hope these owners get justice!
The only justice they can hope for is that these things are removed from sale so no other cat has to be lost. I also hope it sends to a message to these manufacturers to make sure future designs are safe.
@@OneManFiveCatslol I doubt these Chinese companies care. They'll just redesign the shell and vomit out the same product under Ehfhehvhwjvu or another brand name.
@antikommunistischaktion the country should ban the design. Or put an embargo on sales of these types of designs, if they're not going to hold the sellers liable for killing pets.
it is actually made by a Chinese company and for some weird reason they put an address on the Amztoy website I dont no if it is of a random address or if it is the company's address.
We need a John Wick
Some thoughts from someone who works in the sensor-embedded industry:
1. It is completely and utterly insane to even require a firmware update at all for the machine to be safe - I don't want to berate you for suggesting this is a fix, but to be absolutely clear: safety can never, ever be delegated to demanding people perform a firmware update, especially for the mass market. If you buy, IT SHOULD BE SAFE AT THE MOMENT OF BEING BOUGHT. Having firmware update capability can never, EVER excuse a product being actually dangerous. Strong MCAS vibes.
2. Safety-critical sensors should employ POSITIVE sanity controls. That is, the machine should CONSTANTLY CHECK itself for correct sensor behavior, and if at any point the sensing suite does not report appropriately, the machine should consider itself BROKEN AND STOP operating entirely until it is repaired. Yes, this does mean the machine will more easily stop working and enrage the user, but this is only if your sensor suite is garbage to begin with, in which case you should not be selling at all.
3. Sensors are microelectromechanical devices that can fail (this should almost never happen to good ones, but god knows what these companies are using). They should be used AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE for safety purposes, the REST OF THE DESIGN SHOULD BE INHERENTLY SAFE in every other possible way. You're not making an Abrams tank whose operators may as well be blown to bits by enemy missile fire, you're making a household objects used by the general consumer.
It’s what I said when after I updated the firmware, had I waste my time now it worked? I said no because it was shipped to me like this and to everyone else. Even right now, all those machines sitting in Amazon warehouses will not have the new firmware. With so many people who don’t use apps and with no warning that they need to update it, I had not wasted my time. Plus the physical design of it with that plastic fixed oval opening that closes off is beyond stupid if sensors do fail. There’s no physical or mechanical fail safe which there needs to be. That Popur waste bin lid cannot be opened by hand without breaking the motor. As soon as it closes the motor locks down. To open it you have to hold down the cycle button I believe. I don’t understand why the motor needs to lock down. It should be able to move backwards physically if a cat got in there and needed to lift it to get out. It’s just a bad design.
When the Litter Robot 3 and 4 have sensor faults they stop working. The LR3 is notorious for pinch detectors failing generally due to corrosion from the fumes of urine clumps in the waste drawer. They should be made of a better material for sure, but they are only $6 to replace and will take a novice about 20 minutes to do with the instructional video from Whisker to do it.
What’s utter madness is I’ve seen so many posts from people annoyed about it keep happening that they tape over the contacts to bypass them so the machine will work again, but without the pinch detectors. Utter madness. At least the pressure the motor exerts is low enough if a cat got caught in the waste drawer opening then wouldn’t get hurt and they should be able to free themselves.
I tested the LR4 with the far superior pinch detectors disabled using my fist. It just felt like a light press and then it stopped, so I just removed my hand.
@@OneManFiveCats The thing about the LR3 (and possibly the 4) is that there is an additional safety already built in - the weight sensor. They made the weight sensor overly complicated (a poor design of variable pressure sensor) rather than the LR2 which had a foolproof on/off weight switch. If the weight sensor is tripped, then the unit should never even be running in the first place to NEED the pinch sensors. They ALSO added (stupidly) a continual resistance check against the "bonnet" light board - through those VERY dodgy side connectors.
I have NINE of these LR3 units, and have disabled the pinch connectors AND taken that bonnet nonsense and put it entirely in the base. Why? Because intermittent trash connections should NOT be the source of "safety" if that is the goal! Make it sensitive enough (with a PROPER on/off idiot proof switch) that KNOWS when anything is onboard, and just never activate the motor then or stop it the instant the load changes. Yeah that makes it need a bit of an adjustable pressure spring, but that is WAY better than the existing VPS type they are using now.
@@OneManFiveCats I have 2 popurs and both waste bins (cardboard) can be very easily opened by hand...did not know it was an issue that they clamp shut for (most?) people? Had no idea.
@@SakuraPomeranian how old are your Popurs?
I will say that Whisker's Litter Robot does follow these principles. Even as an owner if it's annoying every time there's a sensor issue the device doesn't function. But the alternative is worse, as seen by these knock off products
I cried so hard. Those kitties didn't deserve to get their little lives cut so short. I really hope this reaches more people.
More people need to be seeing this video. It is genuinely terrifying that a grown man, prepared for this machine to pinch his hand, struggled that much to free himself. What if someone’s child got stuck? Those cats never even had a chance to free themselves and I have no clue how those parents explained to their two year old what happened.
This is why I shared this video to Facebook and LinkedIn - the only social networks I use: because I think everyone needs to see this video! As you say, it's not unsafe just for cats, it's unsafe for kids and adults too!🤦🏻♀️ Absolutely horrible product and whoever created it should end up in jail! 😡
Seeing a deceased cat can be just as traumatizing as seeing an injured human child.
This needs to be ON THE NEWS.
Harsh lesson about cost and quality.
@@theothertonydutch that’s an extremely inappropriate comment. That “harsh lesson” killed three different peoples pets and traumatized at least four humans, one of them being a child. You are downplaying how a two year old had to walk in on her beloved cat.
Thank you, please do not allow anyone or company to bully this from being removed.
Oh I won’t.
I have already reported some of these items on Amazon.
I just tried to find this video here, because I stumbled over it on reddit r/eddit and it wasn't easy to find by only the title alone.
I guess something about the TH-cam algorithm and words like "kill" or deadly"? :/
It worked when I typed the name of the TH-cam channel as well.
Please reach out to @LouisRossmann as he has been tackling Amazon's bad behavior about dangerous goods.
The more eyes on this, the safer we and our pets can be.
I don't share much on fb but I shared this.
This is absolutely horrifying, I dont know how they didn't realize this would result in a cat being hanged. Rest in peace to Charlie and Mochi, they'll be missed by their owners and everyone who came here to see this video.
This is worse than them not realizing. The fact that they intentionally delete comments on their videos talking about it means that they are aware of the danger and don't care
I think, by hanging they meant that the head was, decapitated
I don’t think they cared
@@asdcdweadasd thats the truth here, they probably didnt.
Saw there was a market for these, scrambled together some trash and shipped it off.
Thats all there is to it sadly. Nowadays you really have to do a lot of research for stuff like this to make sure you dont buy a death machine
They don't care. Typically Chinese, making money is more important then morality or ethics.
Thank you for making this video. I’m crying thinking of all of the poor cats that have been injured or killed from using these boxes. My heart goes out to them and their families. I hope these horrible devices are permanently off the market and that no one ever has to go through this awful nightmare with their kitty again.
Thank you for sharing our sweet mochis story! Thank you for letting others know the dangers of certain litter boxes and what to look for. I had no idea what took look out for until unfortunately it was too late. Praying this reaches who it needs to! ❤❤❤
mochi's story will save countless others ❤
RIP Mochi.
I'm sorry for your loss :(
Amazon has become a cesspool of garbage products from China/Ali Express resellers. They usually have nonsensical names, or blatantly copy established products. It's race to the bottom for both pricing and quality. Fake reviews, or reviews that make no sense, on top of a loophole allowing items to be sold piggybacking an old inactive product with high rating.
Please, look over what you're buying. If something happens to you, or your beloved pet, you'll be trying to sue Amazon, a company worth 1,798 trillion dollars, which is another way of saying you will be locked in court forever against lawyers costing thousands per hour and you will most likely lose. Or avoid buying from Amazon altogether, if you can help it.
I am so sorry for your loss. May mochi rest in peace.
The stuffed animal tests literally made me sick and start crying. This is truly horrific, my God.
I almost stopped watching there, it was so wrenching to see.
I agree. Absolutely chilling.
Same, then I genuinely panicked when his hand got stuck as well... this is damn terrifying
Same, started sobbing seeing that stuffed animal get stuck in the machine, knowing a real, poor animal got stuck just like that. Even the hand test. Horrifying and so upsetting knowing a cat went through such a death
I cried a bit more even after the video has ended… It’s giving me trauma…
Wow, this is infuriating - cheaply made, mass-produced garbage that kills cats being sold under a bunch of different brands? Sketchy as hell; I'm glad somebody is doing due diligence, and reporting on this.
not to mention this preys on inexperienced or stressed cat owners who dont know what to look for and only go for something in their budget. If my baby didn't like her traditional box OR if i was injured again and couldnt clean after her..its a heartbreaking thought.
watching the plush demonstration and hearing mochi's story actually made me sick to my stomach. i literally can't imagine that happening to any of my cats. i pray that this video gets seen by as many people as possible and that the people selling these literal death traps for cats get punished as harshly as possible. everyone, please share this video with anyone you know to spread awareness of this and prevent people from buying these horrible machines
Here from Penguinz0’s video. Thank you so much for making this video and bringing awareness to pet owners. It’s devastating that a product like this is being sold to well-meaning cat owners. I appreciate the insight ❤
Me too
Me three
Me four 😢
Came here just to upvote the video and hope to god this going viral will save more cats.
The Litter Box Situation is Insane
This is sickening, the manufacturers should be jailed for selling this
@Alfred-Neuman
fuck you for saying this that's so insensitive
@@Alfred-Neumanwtf?
Selling these is just CRIMINAL!!! What the hell were the designers thinking? ALL of them and the sellers should be held accountable. PURE CRIMINAL!!!!!!!
It's ridiculous that something with such a fatal design flaw can just keep being produced and sold even once it starts killing cats. The fact that it's a generic design being sold on several retail sites is horrifying. There is no accountability from the manufacturers, amazon just deletes the listing and puts another one up with a different name. Imagine if this were something geared toward human babies. Its bad enough that cats are being killed by these things, but it also proves amazon and other sites selling these things are willing to host a product that is dangerous and faulty.
@@an8thdimensionalbeing142 It also is a danger to kids. Children are naturally curious and below a certain age would certainly not think anything of sticking their hands or even head into the litter box opening.
UTTP is criminal too.
It's kind of our fault too we create a demand for Chinese crap because we love cheap stuff and now the market is infested with the damn things
Accountable? This is garbage from China - nobody will be held accountable.
Thank you SO much for this video, despite how heartbreaking it was to watch. I have an automatic litterbox for my Felix Joseph, but it is an open-top, that just has the rake that moves the length of the box, and lifts the rake and takes waste back to the back of the box to the waste container. I'm relieved I've watched this video before taking a chance on buying a lower cost machine to get an enclosed box. I simply cannot afford a LitterRobot, and have constantly been on the lookout for more affordable options, and without seeing this video I very easily could have been deceived by one of the dangerous models you mentioned. The thought of losing my Felix Joseph brought tears to my eyes, and I could not handle losing him in the way that these horrific accidents caused others to lose their beloved cat. My heart goes out to the people who have lost their cat in one of these tragic ways, I am so truly sorry.
This needs to be higher in the algorithm. Any cat owner thinking about buying a self-cleaning litter box should see this.
Well, I dont have a cat, I havent seen any videos about cats, and this video was in my feed, definetly the algorithm is working. I am going to shared this video to my friends who owns a cat or want a cat. I hope this will help save many lives.
bro risked his hand to tell us about how dangerous that piece of machine is, thanks a million.
Those poor, poor babies. Absolutely horrifying that these companies are already paying people to be silent about their death contraption. Thank you for spreading awareness of this.
companies having blood on their hands is very old concept it never goes away
I wouldn't say sht. I would take them straight to court for the trauma alone.
@@marcodarko6941 💯 And not just her trauma, her 2 year-old also saw the gruesome scene. I wouldn't be surprised if she needed therapy after that, seriously speaking
yeah!
Thank you so much for making this video. I just wrote an email to our national consumer protection organisation here in Germany, where I explained to them the points you make in your video. I also included a link to this video so that they can see, for themselves, how dangerous those products are. So again, thank you so much for this video, I hope it will lead to our consumer protection organisation issuing a warning to customers in Germany and thus saving the lives of our furry friends.
i didnt expect this to make me SOB but the idea of those cats having such a horrible death, and the thought of finding my babies that way... it's horrific. RIP to those sweet cats
As someone who just got a cat, this video traumatized me
yeah...
That 3 mouth old kitten that was rescued into a loving home, just shattered my heart 😢
That could have been my cat! She just turned 1 year old too! 😡💢😡
yeah...
hearing people describe what happened to their cats is so gut wrenching, i dont think i could continue living if i found my cat like that
This needs to be a top video for anyone with even the remotest of interests in adopting a cat.
I don't have a self-cleaning litterbox for my two orange boys, just three large plastic litter boxes I clean twice a day, and I don't think I'm in the market for one, but I'm glad you made this video.
For Charlie and Mochi, and all the other moggies that got hurt by badly-made products this video is too late. But maybe, just maybe, this'll save at least one other furbaby.
Or a curious toddler!
A design like this should be totally scrapped. There's no update that can make this fully safe.
The update is cutting the front in two. I'm not saying that you should do it, unless you already have one of those machines and want to use it.
It's already been updated. I found several on Aliexpress that look very similar, but it now rotates on the X axis leaving the opening, open.
@@taylorlightfoot you've just found different clones.
The basic design is bad. Like you say, the way it rotates means there is always a way to trap cats. Relying on sensors is second best at most.
You don't even need sensors, A spring loaded clutch plate or pulley would do the job. Granted, it can be difficult to engineer something that's going to protect against a small cat getting stuck, but it's not really that hard or expensive. They clearly didn't even bother to test this as it's one of the easier eventualities to test for.
Even better they could have designed it not to have an opening which gets closed during the cleaning cycle. That way there’s nothing to trap the cat under any circumstances
@@molybdomancer195The most recent version of the Litter Robot actually has no door at all, it just rotates on one axis. My family owns one and we actually don’t smell anything even after the cat’s used it. It also moves fairly slow, meaning it doesn’t kick up litter dust.
Personally, I’d just get one without a door. A door means more sensors and more places for safety controls to fail.
One idea I had to try and make it safer; a bigger opening, pieces that pop off if something gets stuck as a just in case, and a MANUAL door. Like, on hinges. To start the cleaning cycle, just CLOSE THE DOOR MANUALLY. If no cats OR children/other animals or parts were detected, the door would lock and start the process. If something WAS detected, the machine would beep for a few minutes (loudly so that people can hear it and get whatever’s in there out) and NOT start the cleaning process until whatever was in there is removed. I feel like that could greatly reduce the risk of cats getting caught in the door because it had motors that were too powerful, because there would be NO MOTORS in the door itself except for the lock, and in the box to clean it, and even then, those are WEAK motors.
I have the Amztoy litter box you showed in this video. THANK YOU! I called Amazon today and got a full refund. Will be disposing of this garbage and replacing it with a regular litter box.
I am so happy to hear this. Good riddance to it! Take a look at the Furrytail one I’ve linked in the description. It’s the best budget one you can get and it’s incredibly safe!
I have the same Amztoy litterbox 😢 can you tell me how you were able to contact Amazon?
@juleylikespandas throw it!
@@juleylikespandas You go through the help agent on their website and eventually it gives up and asks you to speak to someone. It's a pain in the ass.
@@juleylikespandasThey have an option on their help page to get a phone call. I explained this video and how the listings even removed. Since it’s too large and I don’t have the box, they said to toss it out. Outside the return window too! The lady I talked to had cats so she was very understanding.
Seeing that machine crushing that plush toy made me feel sick... just knowing that had actually happened to someone's cat... this is so, so incredibly sad. I just can't imagine the horror of discovering such a gory scene, especially the poor child whose mom wasn't home. These poor people... poor kitties... 😞
Great video. It's sad how a "small settlement" can change a review from being "killed my cat" to "Good machine" on amazon.
The man with the litterbox robot videos with the best production values on the internet is now also a consumer advocate that used his own funds to purchase and test an unsafe one to get the word out! Bravo!
Thank you 😊
I understand why they accepted the settlement-- it's very hard if not impossible to sue some Chinese mystery company for anything. Whatever amount they got, it was probably the only way the victims could get any settlement at all. As Five Cats Man showed, he couldn't even return his deadly machine for a refund.
@@stellarobado4269 “five cats man” 🙃. You can call me “man” or Philip. Either is fine!
@@stellarobado4269 Also keep in mind that even if it weren't a foreign company, cats are regarded as property in many parts of the world, definitely the US, so the damages that you'd be able to recover aren't typically that much. Certainly not enough to change the way that the company is operating or to get them to make changes to the design. What's particularly bad about this is that it's not that hard to test to see what sort of pressure is being applied by the door on anything that gets trapped in there. Idiots have been using carrots to demonstrate what happens with the Tesla Cybertruck closes on them.
Why is money more important than helping other people (and saving other cat lives?). There’s NO excuse for accepting money in exchange for removing information that can help other people. I have zero sympathy for that woman, and all the sympathy in the world for her poor deceased cat.
It absolutely breaks my heart to think about how terrifying that sweet kittys last moments were, and the clear bloody struggle on the bottom of the litter box makes me literally cry. NO cat should ever have to be killed like this in their own home, by something meant to improve their life, by something meant to comfort them, by something that is meant to be safe. Sweet kitty died alone, confused, scared, and painfully. I hope this sweet angel is having the best time in kitty heaven with lots of food, fun toys, and cozy beds.
yeah.
😭 💔
It is unreasonable that a product should require a firmware update to be safe for consumers. I’m so sorry for all of the lost babies and friends, and for their families who had to face their ends.
Even update it still 100% safe
@@gamerbeginner5019 No because these still have a fatal _design..._
@@gamerbeginner5019 Software can glitch out at random times, and it's not unusual for old bugs to re-appear with additional updates. I would never entrust my cat's life and wellbeing to a piece of code
I had to stop watching after the little kitten, I love my cats so much and to find my cat like that would cause me serious psychological damage. Thanks for bringing this to light!! ❤
These sorts of experiences would be horribly traumatic for the children who discovered their beloved kitties dead in this way. I’m almost in tears just thinking about it!
Me too 😢
it's one hell life lesson about the cycle of life at least
I’m hoping it’s not one of her daughter’s earliest long term memories..I’m just hoping she didn’t realize what was going on idek
@@ember9361its not a cycle of life there was no natural selection it was just put into a death trap
@@stop08it thankfully i dont think her daughter actually saw mochi, just knows that she passed, but i cant imagine how horrific it must be..
Pretty disgusting that they are simply rebranded and continue to sell them.
For anyone who wants to take some form of action, you can use the link in the description to access the amazon links and use the "Report an issue with this product" button and declare it unsafe. The button is found under the description on the product page. Unsure how effective this is, but the more reports then the more likely the products will be looked at.
Thanks for the video and spreading awareness!
Yeah they rebranded it on amazon and ebay. It’s now called “Lpettog Self Cleaning Cat Litter Box”
They don't care about our pets. All they care about is money and profit. Nowadays barely anyone really cares about pet/human heath. This is so sick. We should drag them to court for this terrible machine. That's not a litter box that'sliterally a guillotine. If a person can't even give 5 minutes front 24 HOURS of a day to take care of their cats, they shouldn't have one.
There’s literally thousands of “brands” like this on Amazon. They buy generic crap, slap an auto generated brand name on it, and sell it until the listing goes down for one reason or another, rinse and repeat.
@@BrietheCattIt’s hard to stop drop shipped garbage, but we should still try. I wish there was a more effective way of doing it. Amazon should require areal human being to review products put up so someone can’t just relist/rebrand dangerous products.
I'm a cat owner who suffers from chronic fatigue. That being said, I will NEVER risk my cat's safety in the name of my own comfort by buying a machine like this. A few people suggested similar machines to me, but I couldn't help but picture exactly what the stuffed cat test looked like. Hell, I can see people who like 'cute' home accessories buying this death machine simply because of the 'cute ears' (I say this as someone who's prone to buying 'cute stuff') and suffering a horrible loss. It even comes in pink! What a horrible way to entrap people into harming their cats!
While this video was heartbreaking and tragic, it's necessary to exist and for other pet owners to see this, so I'm commenting so the algorithm will carry it far.
Please don’t let these horrific machines out your off the others. I wouldn’t use them if they put my cats in any danger whatsoever.
I have severe chronic fatigue from my fibro, and my partner also has chronic fatigue. We got a litter robot 4 to help lessen the stress of litter scooping, it was not cheap but watching this video has definitely upped my appreciation for how well it works.
The Litter Robot is a safe brand to the point litter getting jammed in the right place sets off the pinch sensor and disables the machine, and by disabling it I mean it stops right there, it doesn't return to home it doesn't try to complete the cycle it'll freeze in place even if that means the cat can't actually use it, and you have to manually reset the machine. Yes this is annoying but I'd rather have an overzealous pinch sensor than a cheap Chinese one that doesn't work at all.
@@antikommunistischaktion you are talking about the LR3? Right?
@@OneManFiveCats Yeah. I would imagine the LR4 fixed the litter jamming the pinch sensor issue.
This is horrific. I'm a new cat owner, and I was more than happy to keep a litterbox for my girl so that she could live a long happy safe indoor life but nothing will ever make me more thankful to scoop it by hand every single day than this.
Those poor beautiful angels. What a nightmare, for them and those that loved them.
i just cried at mochis story. finding your baby in that state must’ve been so scary for her family.
Tears came to my eyes in the first 5 seconds. Could not watch the rest. Came here through penguinz0's video. Thank you for your work.
Thank you very much. 😔
felt physically sick watching the test run on the Garfield plush. so scary
I was too, I wasn’t prepared for how much the demonstration would bother me. It made the reality of what happened to those cats seem much more real.
I'm so glad that the algorithms on TH-cam worked well to show me this. Thank you for the video and I hope this will be noticed by many more!
I never considered buying on amazon, as all of the designs look closed off and not safe. My gut was right. I'm heartbroken for the cats that lost their lives 💔I have 3 cats and love them dearly and can't imagine what I would feel something like this happened to them...
Thanks for this PSA. Poor families losing their loved pets like this... I cried
just the stuffy garfield getting caught in it was upsetting viewing
@@nezuminora9528 yes, totally
I did too. Many hugs to you!
It nearly did make me cry, I got two cats at home and crist this is just. Depressing
Same. Just imagining that is heartbreaking.
I cried so hard seeing the stories about the beautiful kitties who lost their lives to this horrible machine 😭💔
Omg, and I also had to pause at the part where the Garfield toy got stuck there. Gosh was this whole video really hard to sit through without getting emotionally crushed
@@cuckoophendula8211 It was awful imagining that happening to a poor kitty. Especially when he put his hand in there and struggled to get it out.
Shame on any company that does not do their due diligence around safety features. Thanks for bringing awareness about these dodgy machines. I would be devastated if my cat met an early life due to company greed and shady practices.
The company does not care about the animals it hurt. Just like in game development. Companies do not test anymore, they release the product and test it on the consumers who buy it. It there are no problems it passed the test. If it didn't and animals die or get hurt? Oops. The executives probably make mean jokes about it.
Temu are selling these now too
What gets me is that there are several ways this sort of thing could be avoided. The cheapest being to use nylon gears engineered to place a limit on how much force can be applied to the mechanism. The neck is always going to be kind of delicate, but weaker gears would probably do the job. This is also a situation where using a flywheel to drive it or adding a sensor to indicate that the door has come into contact with something would do the job as well.
I'm sure there are a bunch of other ways of doing this, but this sort of thing is why engineers generally get certified before practicing in many parts of the world. This was completely foreseeable and completely avoidable.
@@SmallSpoonBrigadethere's multiple ways past that too. First, don't have a solid ring for the entrance, next, monitor the draw on the motors. If it spikes, make it back off and stop. This kind of sensing technology has been in garage doors for many years. It's unexcusable that this was pushed to market with that kind of flaw.
china is pretty behind on animal cruelty laws. or realizing that animals are sentient.
I have two key families in my life with cats and they often need automatic things because they are increasingly disabled by illness & being elderly, so knowing this is an issue is really good to help them all stay safe. Thank you so much!
This is awful. I can't believe someone would design a litterbox this way! It's essentially a guillotine. Thank you for this informative video... it was horrific to watch, but SO important to be aware of. I feel sick. My heart aches for the families who lost their beloved kitties to this death trap of a machine.
Bottom line, if it's not safe to have around a toddler, then it's not safe to have around a cat.
It's literally just a guillotine, but somehow even less humane.
5:34 that’s so terrifying and horrendous. I’d lose my mind if I found any cat like that.
just imagining what any poor kitty would be feeling in that moment makes me so so sad and furious!!!!
When the machine clamped up on that plushie, that noise was terrible! I can't imagine that being the last thing a living being had to hear. Poor babies, I'm so glad this video is spreading out
Watching this with my sweet cat on the desk. This is so devastating. Thank you for spreading the dangers of this machine. I hope no other cats get needlessly killed by this thing.
5:06 is the stuff of nightmares. I can't imagine what that woman went through when she found her cat like that. It actually gave me chills
The test with the banana made me feel sick, the way it took multiple “pushes” for it to even actually break it fully. The thought of a cats neck stuck there, first being crushed, then snapped, and only after, what, 15-30 minutes, being fully killed, that is, if they dont bleed out by then? Disgusting. I wish could say i cant believe these people, but this is the exact thing i expect from companies. Never believe that a company, no matter how well-reviewed, only has your best interest at heart. Of course, some products are genuinely good and fully succeed at the task, but in the end, it’s just because being good is profitable. Thank you for making this, praying no more babies are lost to this disgusting machine, that they arent produced anymore, and that Mochi can at least be a martyr and not just a tragedy in vain. Sending all the love to her mama, she’s so strong for sharing so quickly, even with how obviously hard it was for her to make that video, and so soon after it happened, it’s incredibly noble to want it out there asap so as many cats can be spared as possible.
I know right the TikTok ladys poor cat
must have been in so much pain no cat should ever go through it makes me sick that the people making these things knows its killing cats but stills sells them its truly awfull
I would never, ever trust a machine with my pets because I am a software engineer and I know how these products get pushed out without any quality assurance whatsoever, and because I know how sensors and the like just fail after some time. Seeing this video has confirmed every single one of my fears. If I lost a cat to something like this it would absolutely destroy me.
QA or not, I'm kind of baffled any designer would trust safety to software when there are methods that do not need software. It's not like this is an autopilot where you have no choice but to rely on software for safety because the alternative is to put the car on rails.
Thats why he suggest machines with mechanical fail safes as well. Things that won't lock your cat up
Yes, absolutely. Software being the only thing between life and death is a horrible idea, this isn't a Space Shuttle. It is simple enough to make the machine physically incapable of causing injury, ie. the axially rotating models.
@@DKNguyen3.1415 Software should never be the first line of defense, let alone the only one. Software can fail, and even new updates can reintroduce bugs past fixes got rid of. The first thing to consider in safety should always, _always_ , be hardware
@@raerohan4241 You're not thinking about the full scope of failures. It should be "always, always...when possible". For example, if a quadcopter loses a rotor, the only way to get it back to the ground safely is software to compensate for the lost rotor control so it doesn't flip and remains upright as it loses altitude. There is no hardware based fail-safe for that.
This needs to be seen by more people
I don't even use self-cleaning litter boxes, but decided to watch this out of curiosity since I have 4 cats. I'm literally in tears right now! This breaks my heart so much to imagine the pain and fear these cats went through. These companies are disgusting!
Just thinking about if my family ever gets this, (which they WONT because ill tell them to not buy any of these machines) then seeing my cat just dead from the machine, I just CANT think of it! It makes me so sad!
I have 2 cats, never thought about buying an automatic litter box, and I don’t plan on watching this video. I just can’t bring myself to it, the thought of people talking about THEIR kitties being horribly killed by a machine, no, I just can’t… but I would like the video and comment to feed the algorithm; more cat people NEED to know about this… I know is tedious, kinda time consuming and sometimes gross to clean the litter box, but I take scoop poop and urine balls for a million years than seeing (or find) my babies being decapitated or crushed to death ( as comments mention) without any posible way of helping them…. NO, JUST NO, I hope the poor cat tutors of this babies find solace and just THANK THEM for sharing this devastating stories to shed light on this topic for the sake of saving other kitties lives and spare the owners of experiencing such a traumatic experience…l how horrible 😞
As a person with terrible arthritis in my knees and 6 cats I have been shopping around debating what automatic litterbox to get and I want to say thank you so very much for this video. I would never forgive myself if something i bought was responsible for killing one of my beloved companions. Thank you
They’re switching names, deleting comments/reviews. Thank you for the deep dive, and exposing these scammers.
The comment wasn't deleted by them. The comment contained an email, so TH-cam's automated system deletes the comment as soon as it's posted.
that video of sweet Charlie broke me. What horror these owners have experienced. Thank you for this video and rest well beautiful Mochi and Charlie.
This is such a fantastic PSA! I’m disabled and on a limited income, so the idea of a cheaper automatic litter box is, on the surface, quite appealing. Your research into this has possibly saved the lives of my cats, and me from the years of heartbreak I know I would suffer if one of my angels were to be harmed in such a contraption. Thank you so much for your work!!
This!^^ these kinds of things prey in people in bad places already, who are lower income, disabled, or older, and want to give their cats a cleaner litter box, which only causes more devistation (not saying that ppl who are doing well dont love their animals, but often someone's pet might be the only good thing in their life). This video is informational and explanitory in a way that not many actual psas manage!
He has many videos reviewing good automatic litter boxes, you should check them out! If possible I'd suggest saving for an highly reliable one even if it's expensive, I'm sure it'd be worth it.
I was in tears just seeing the stuffed toy stuck!
Same. Was gagging over the imagery. Glad he is informing the public on this.
Same 😭
Had my hands over my mouth... I wanted to cry. Seeing it continue to close until GRINDING its mechanisms loudly at the resistance was f***ing horrifying )':
@@christinacody8653 And thankfully penguinz0/Charlie covered this video today so it has reached an even wider audience, the news will continue to hopefully spread 🙏
I couldn't finish the video once Mochis story came up. Just had to stop and hug my house panther and tell him I'll clean his litterbox for the rest of his life myself. He was slightly annoyed i woke him up, but liked the hug
"What the fuck mother, I was resting-"
"I'M NEVER GONAN LET A MACHINE LIEKE THIUS HURT YOU OMFG I,M GOING TO CLEANM YOUR LITTER BOX FOR THE REST OF YORU LIFE-"
"... Meow :3"
@@Blind_Eye046 I love that cats have a very sophisticated way of speaking~
I'm so glad I found your TH-cam channel! I was planning to buy a litter box and gasped when I saw the Amtoy one-it's the exact one I had in my cart! My cat Halo and I can't thank you enough!
@@StarChild75 what a relief! Where were you buying it from?
oh my god, my heart absolutely breaks for people who lost their cats this way… what a horrible way for the cats to lose their lives. the way my heart sunk in my chest and the lump in my throat hearing the owner tell their story of finding Mochi. I can’t imagine the amount of guilt they felt realising their purchase for their beloved pet ultimately led to their demise. I rarely cry while watching videos, but this got to me. Giving my cats the biggest hugs right now…
Thank you for shedding light on these cases and the importance to not trust every company to ensure your pets safety
Yeah, it's genuinely soul shattering the cruelty of the way those cats were(and are) killed. I got stuck in a gap inside a cave once, and I was worried that I was very stuck. The fear from these machines must be plenty times more than that, because, at least I managed to get out without help, but in the case of the evil machines, there is no help, and no way out alive. Absolutely hideous what these companies are doing.
"Let's design an automatic litterbox that completely closes the small entrance with powerful motors and poorly programmed safety features! What could possibly go wrong?"
Disclosure: I came to the comment section first, and couldn't bring myself to watch the actual video, and I apologize to the content creator. I have never owned, nor will I ever own one of these types of litter boxes, especially after reading comments about cats being killed by them. Thank you for uploading❤
You should watch it. It’s this specific machine design that has appeared that is deadly. I’ve reviewed so many now and they are almost all safe. Safety is the number one factor for me as I wouldn’t touch them if they posed any risk to my cats.
@@OneManFiveCats What gets me is that it's not that expensive to include provisions in the design to avoid this. There are several options that would prevent cats from becoming trapped and I'm not sure that any of them is particularly expensive. It's pretty clear that they didn't do even the most rudimentary testing as it's not that hard to stick something in the opening and see what happens when it gets stuck.
I can't watch it either.
@@mefambriniI had to skip some parts. It’s some dark stuff
I shouldn't have watched Charlie's video... it's just so disturbing even though he was just reiterating the same points here
This made me cry so much I had to leave the video, it’s my absolute worst nightmare and made me feel sick, I can’t even imagine.
Same!!
Every single one of 'em selling this should be accountable, and anyone who made it also. It should be safe even without software.
In a perfect world, they would be. But this is China, where they don't even care if a human gets killed from a machine
It's a Chinese company so good luck.
They're Chinese. I really doubt we the consumers overseas can hołd them accountable 😢
The sites that are allowing these companies to sell to the US (Amazon and walmart) are who needs to be held responsible. This is probably legal in China and there's nothing we can do as Americans to stop a chinese company from doing what it wants, but Amazon and Walmart should be held accountable to American regulations.
@@prettyevil6662000 We should just blanket ban all Chinese brands that have no physical presence in the US.
That video of the woman talking about her poor cat genuinely made me cry
Jesus Christ. I was already sick enough, but the test with the plush cat brought tears to my eyes. What a horrifically harrowing ten seconds. I genuinely don’t think I can watch the rest of this video, but I wanted to comment for the algorithm and leave it to play in full with my earbuds out. Thank you - this video could save lives.
As a cat owner and lover i need to comment on this for the algorithm also the fact this is captioned in basically every language is amazing
DO NOT trust generic drop-shipped things from Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, Temu, etc. like this. Just because it's from Amazon or another website that seems legit, doesn't mean it's held to any safety standards in your country. These sellers do NOT care about quality or safety of their products, because there is no recourse should a customer be unhappy, or even injured, due to the item.
I bought the litter robot 4 after watching your review and a bunch of other research. I was deep in the clutches of depression and anxiety and wasn’t even taking care of myself. The Litter Robot 4 was amazingly helpful as it told me what it needed and all I had to do was respond. My cats had clean litter and were much happier. It was one less thing I was “failing” at.
While I was privileged to have the ability to afford it, I could not imagine what would have happened if i purchased this brand due to budget and one of my fur babies had passed. I actually cannot contemplate it, especially considering the head space I was trapped in.
We need the John Wick of cats to go out there and resolve this issue.
Thank you for the video and the warning. We need more people like you getting the word out!
I'm very happy you were able to get a safe version
As a cat owner who suffers depression, sending you lots of love! ❤️❤️❤️
That’s what truly angers me the most, is that the most vulnerable but well-intentioned people are the ones that will suffer the most from trusting these deceptive products. So glad you were able to acquire the genuine Litter Robot! my heart hurts for those that saw this merely as a budget friendly option, not realizing that it’s a poorly engineered death-trap 🥲😭
This is a pretty universal problem with "no-name" brands on Amazon, they're all full of design flaws, often design flaws which lead to safety issues. That's kind of why they're cheap. You need to go with "proper" brands if you care about the thing you are purchasing or the thing you are purchasing for.