Indiegogo staffers are putting crowdfunded products to the test in our new series of honest reviews. In this edition, our very own email marketing and lifecycle strategist Karisa Hunt tried out LALAHOME RealScooper, the new automatic litterbox that our crowdfunding community is talking about. Does it live up to the hype? Read on as we put it to the test!

At this point, it’s not a secret that I have three cats.They all have their own unique quirks, which makes it a lot more fun than if they were basically clones of each other. Tater Tot is inquisitive and loves to explore; Bacon Bits is a cuddler who prefers laying around to anything else.

Mozzarella String Cheese… is afraid of enclosed spaces.

This has made it tough to find a good litterbox for her. She outright refuses to enter the closed-in litterbox that I have, so I’ve been stuck with an old-fashioned litterbox with her… until I saw the LALAHOME RealScooper. It has a nice, wide opening for cats to climb in and out of, so I figured it was worth a try!

Unboxing

The LALAHOME RealScooper comes in a big box. There aren’t any handles, so it’s a little difficult to move around, but thankfully it’s not too heavy. I was able to scoot it up the two stairs from the driveway into my house without too much of an issue.

The packaging is some of the best I’ve seen for a larger product. The LALAHOME team uses the flexible foam packaging instead of the super-sturdy styrofoam, so even if it gets jostled in transit, the product will arrive safely. It was very easy to lift the litterbox up by the bag it’s wrapped in, and I could then easily carry it through my house to its new home.

Setup

Once it was in place, setting the RealScooper up was super simple. All you have to do is snap in the stair cover and plug it in, and you’re pretty much set! (It comes with a trash bag pre-installed, so you don’t even have to take that step.)

Here’s where I ran into an issue: the RealScooper’s display has a child/cat safety lock on it… and nowhere in the manual does it tell you how to switch it off. While I eventually figured it out (tip: hold down the center button until the icon switches from locked to unlocked), it would have been nice to have that in the documentation somewhere.

From there, I simply opened up the lid on the top and poured litter into the litter-loading mechanism, closed it up, hit the fill button, and watched it go!

Use

Of course, the ever-adventurous Tater Tot was the first to climb inside. (He actually tried to take a nap in the empty box while I was figuring out the lock, and was very disgruntled when I took him out of it.) Bacon Bits was next, and the RealScooper had no issues accommodating the largest of my cats.

Then Mozzarella approached, and I held my breath. One sniff… a paw on the step… another sniff…

I’ll spare you the rest of the play-by-play and let you know that she went inside and used the litterbox.

App

The LALAHOME app can connect to the RealScooper and their other product, a cat drinking fountain. Installing the app is as easy as downloading it from the included QR code, hitting the connection button on the device, and choosing it in the app. It takes a moment to set up, but once it’s in there, you can monitor and control the litterbox from your phone. I can tell it to scoop, deodorize, sterilize, and refill the litter with the touch of my screen. I can even unlock the buttons on the unit itself through the app (hooray!).

The app also gives information on how much litter is left in the top refilling area (it can hold up to 5 refills at once) and how many times it’s been used. It also keeps track of how full the litter tray is, so I’ll be able to tell when it needs to be emptied.

Conclusion

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get my finicky cat to use an automatic scooping litterbox for ages, and I’ve finally found the perfect solution! What’s more, the LALAHOME RealScooper operates quietly and keeps things smelling fresh. This is worlds better than the old “scoop it yourself” model that I was using in this space before. Personal thanks from me to the LALAHOME team for designing a litterbox that works well, even for the one cat in the world who’s afraid of boxes!

To learn more, check out the campaign for LALAHOME RealScooper!