I found the app’s interface straightforward and easy to use (though some users online have found it to be slow and occasionally confusing). It provides a calendar-style log (almost like your Apple health app) to indicate what your cat has (or has not) done in the litter box, alongside a graph that tracks weight. At a glance, it offers significant insight that helps me talk to my vet about my cat’s health. It is the most data I’ve had in 15 years.
The app can generate reports to share with your vet. But, given the margin of error I’ve experienced, I think these reports should not be treated as a definitive analysis. While I believe that major health concerns will probably shine through the device’s relative inaccuracy, treating the reports as a basis for treatment is not necessarily in the best interest of your cat.
The scale also comes with a few handy features, like daily reminders to clean out the litter box. Additionally, it can track multiple cats (up to five), but for that to happen, users must spend some time in the app marking which cat is which so that the scale can learn to distinguish among them.
This feature makes the scale particularly useful for multi-cat homes, when monitoring general litter-box behavior isn’t always as simple as peeking inside the box. “If one of [my cats] were constipated, it would be hard for me to catch quickly without this monitor … with this scale, I’m able to tell with far greater accuracy if someone hasn’t pooped,” Mackenzie said.
And then there’s my favorite feature: the option to get a ping on my phone every time she visits the litter box. There’s something so oddly delightful about being out of the house and suddenly getting a status update, however minor, about what your cat is doing when they’re home alone and how they’re spending your time apart.
I don’t think a healthy pet categorically, definitively needs to be monitored with Apple Watch–like accuracy, but I certainly needed a way to more accurately track my cat’s weight and bathroom habits, and the irregular weighings and my attempts at counting pee clumps in a litter box weren’t cutting it. Also, with cats in particular, the distinction between healthy behavior and sick behavior can be hard to differentiate.
While $150 may seem like a lot to spend up-front, I can quickly surpass that amount in the blink of an eye at the vet (the medication alone for my cat’s bladder infection dwarfed that figure). For me, the price is well worth the peace of mind I get from knowing my cat weighs roughly the same day to day, or that I am not the only line of defense in tracking her behavior.
When you’ve got a sick old cat, it’s easy to spin out, especially when you’re away from home. But the litter-box scale’s phone alerts offer a strange sense of comfort. When I was away on a recent overnight trip, any concern I had about my cat’s health was temporarily snuffed out with a 3:37 p.m. alert that she’d taken a pee break from her usual routine of chasing fruit flies and napping.
This article was edited by Hannah Rimm and Maxine Builder.
