Absolutely incredible! And to think I bought a metal litter-box scooper for $5.99! How much of a loser am I?

I've never seen automated litter boxes or food dispensers for cats in a real life situation, but I expect cats to be scared of it and avoid it.

I guess it's not the case, since the reviewer is happy with it, though, but I would make sure I can return the item after a period of trial use, before spending money on it.

[sigh...] You just... don't get it, do ya?

How about, new rule: Cool Tools under $200... I mean c'mon, this is for the super/stupid rich, especially with this whole recession thing I've been hearing so much about. Use a scooper! ...or get a dog :)

Well, this is a tool and is, according to the reviewer very good at its job. That makes it pretty cool. The use might be very specific, but I can imagine a busy person, or perhaps someone who can't stand the idea of using their hands to do it (irrational fears are still genuine fears) opting to buy this item to make their life easier.

You might not need it, or perhaps can't afford it, but if it's a good tool, it's fine with me. That's what the blog is for. I don't need advice on welding gear, but I don't complain about it.

Strike 4.

I hate to say it, but if I wanted to read about this stuff, I'd go to BoingBoing Gadgets. What happened to useful things, like razor blades, clock alarms, tape, things for the car, etc.? I will be honest in saying I bounced over when you became editor, but I came here with previous expectations, as KK reviews have helped influence my purchase decisions as a college student and as a handyman. Almost everything you've reviewed has absolutely no relevance to my life, or anyone I can imagine that would consist of your readership.

Try to keep your target audience in mind. This isn't a design and ascetics site. This is a useful stuff site.

I have friends who have sworn by this Kittie-Krap Death Star.... and then I have at least one friend who swears /at/ this device. Myself, the metal scoop and a Booda Dome serve my 4 cats just fine, but that's just me.

I keep the disposable cartridge in my LitterMaid by using a BAG-it, a laser-cut piece of acrylic that sits on the inside lip of the cartridge to keep a plastic shopping bag in place as a liner. If you already have a LitterMaid, it's a $13 hack.

We've had three cats use our LitterMaid since we bought it. None of them acted frightened around it. Our current cat will run back in the room after the sensor timer trips to watch the rake clear the box. (He also likes to watch the sewing machine and other mechanical items in use.)

This is a fantastic product. I had my doubts, but they send it to you packaged in a way that you keep the box and can easily send it back for a refund if the cats or you don't like it. The box got thrown away a couple days later. This is a definite win in the automatic department. And skeptics like me might actually benefit from a reputable blog saying it works. So no need to get all pissy, this is a good product and a definite cool tool for those of us who enjoy doing something else than constantly scooping.

The howls of outrage were predictable, but unlike some recent items (you know who you are), this seems like it qualifies as a real tool, And it is cool and may solve a problem for those benighted souls who just have to have cats around.

If I had a bigger entertainment budget I'd be tempted get one of these, and some cats, just to see what would happen.

Don't worry about those whiners. The G.F.T. of the internet would promise whiners no matter how cool or tool-ish the articles get. I find these items just as interesting as a strap-tool or tips on building an earthen house!

I own one. We call it S.H.I.T.B.O.T. 3000 and it is hard to express how much better this is than having a regular litter tray.

Smells are reduced, the sight of poop is reduced, the emptying the tray happens rarely and quickly. This greatly reduces the impact cat owning has on my life.

Automating away these parts of your life is good.

I dunno...

I have a $30 no-scoop box that does almost the same thing, you just have to roll it over once a day. Litter goes through a sieve, clumps don't, and when you roll it back, the clumps fall into a bin.

Pull the bin, dump it in the trash, and you're done. The only maintenance you have to do is occasionally remove the top to add litter, but not very often as it is very good at not wasting clean litter.

Now, personally, I don't see it working, because my cat wouldn't be caught dead crawling into something like that unless it's the size of a small car (he had issues with the litter box cover). And I'm sure the motor would cause him to pee on it, just to emphasize the point.

(I also imagine that the pressed-pine litter I use would clog the thing, too.)

However, those people who are nay-saying clearly don't have guests who are sensitive to animal smells. Sealing the remnants before they get a chance to stink up the place IS probably worth...not three hundred bucks, but I might go for half that.

Aw, come on!

This looks pretty awesome. The wife and I have a Cat Genie, and that works pretty well. If we ever decide to replace it this might be the next option. I mean, it looks like a robot! It is hard to go wrong with things that look like a robot.

Where do you put the cat in?

Yeah, cool tools is done.

I've been reading for years, and this just isn't working for me.

here is a "cooltool" addition to the litterbox that will achieve the same increase in hygiene at a fraction of the cost:
http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/products/page1028.html

A Robot Catbox is, I admit, silly and very Engadget, but an *eco-green* Robot Catbox? That's way into cognitive dissonance territory. Plus, the owners love them. They work. Sorta. No kidding.

I'm about to review a cool item that has no economic cost whatsoever. The bargain-hunters here are gonna pull a 180; they've gonna be even more freaked out about scroungeware than they are about a common domestic robot.

And what about the hippie who glues his 30-year-old denims together with an eight-dollar tube of glue? There's something miraculous about that gentleman, and his lifestyle has my full approval, yet somebody here wanted to *underprice him on the glue.* Use Barge Cement!

The guy DOES use Barge Cement, actually. He uses Barge Cement to glue his Birkenstocks together. Seriously. I had to cut that remarkable assertion because it seemed kinda peripheral to his argument.

Science fiction writers really like to mess with people's heads. I'm having way too much fun at the expense of your community here. This junket is super-educational for me, it's just great, but I shouldn't be all greedy. You guys deserve your solemn, deep-rooted librarian-like community; there's a ton of gaudy WIRED-style blogs, and I hear one of 'em calling my name right now.

I'll finish this one month out as my Cool Tools guest run; if you like this sorta stuff, there's another few days of it coming. But really, the Eco Robot Catbox is the last straw -- because an Eco Robot Catbox *truly deserves* to the last straw! I'm gonna give the thing a cameo in one of my sci-fi stories.

So sorry a few trolls made your stay here so unpleasant. I was just reading the comments on the lotus and was wondering how long you would tolerate it.

I'm more than a little curious as to how well a list of the complainers would match up to a list of people who applied for the editor job.

I'm just saying...

Perhaps we're inches away from the Singularity. All is chaos! Maybe all of the Cheap Cool Tools have already been reviewed. Perhaps society has become so specialized that there no longer exists a cool tool that is universal enough to satisfy the majority of the audience.

As a society we have grown accustomed to a high level of technology. Suppose Cool Tools would review a word processing program of some kind. How mundane! One one side you'd have people saying X program does this so much better and it has such and such additional features. On the other side there would be people screaming "What about they typewriter! Pens and cheap paper can do the same thing! Look what I did with a stick and some mud!"

This entry had me checking my calendar to see if April 1st had somehow rolled around again early.

With respect, Bruce Sterling, in my opinion, you're missing the mark in your stewardship of Cool Tools. Your choices are entertaining and whimsical, which is nice, but that's not what we'd been coming here for. I ask that you (perhaps with Kevin Kelly) make a new venue for the kinds of silly, useless, Hammacher-Schlemmer things that you favor, and that you reserve Cool Tools for high-quality "things [that] really work," per the masthead.

What an incredible bunch of whiners. There's no doubt that Bruce brings a different flavor to the site, but the "blue jeans glue" is a perfectly valid Cooltools entry circa 2008.

I'm quite sure that the people who *hate* the expensive items reviewed recently have the ability to skim/skip over them and see that they are not of interest to them personally. I'm sure that none of you take the time to write to the New York Times complaining that their coverage of modern art just *isn't* your cup of tea, and you don't picket ABC because you don't like Dancing with the Stars. You just skip those articles, or watch a different TV show. In fact, we all appreciate publications/media that offer a variety of information types from which we pick and choose those that interest us.

Are we really complaining about TOO MUCH interesting variety to go with our cheap, handy, stick-it-in-your-toolbox items?

I can see this useful to those who are concerned with the bacteria that can be transmitted from cat poop to people--this is especially worrisome to pregnant women.

I think Bruce is doing fine--most of the tools I have seen on this website over the year or two I have been reading it have been no use to me; however, most of the reviews have been interesting to read.

The price for this product may be a bit high, but the thing that is holding me back from getting it is that I am pretty sure our cat would run in abject terror from it and make deposits around the house instead of in his litter box.

Bruce--I think you should stick around for while longer.

@ Bruce: "You guys deserve your solemn, deep-rooted librarian-like community [...]"

See, you say that in jest, but I think you just nailed it. Your editing picks, while amusing and fantastical, are just that- interesting and whimsical, which are not inherently bad things; however, if you look through the archives here, you'll notice most things have a pattern. They are easy to find, simple in nature, and more or less cost-effective.

You won't find a dragon sword made out of diamond-studded resinous frogskin. Why? Because it does not fit the criteria. So the majority of your picks have been met with dismay not because you are just a "new guy," but because they fall so far outside the realm of what is considered par for the course.

I fear that your upcoming pick will be wildly off the mark again with the title "scroungeware," and you will have just as many critics because a cool tool is usually not acquired through dumpster diving. It's just a simple, plain product that performs admirably well.

It's been an interesting time with you at the helm. Fair winds and following seas.

Bruce, what's with the snotty line about librarians?

"The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality."
-- Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE

I agree completely with Eric. The vitriol against Bruce is mainly because his choices are so inappropriate to the site.

The 'librarian' remark is just childish and petty. If you want to start a 'flashy but not very useful tools' web-site why not do this somewhere else?

I had a Scoop Free automatic litter box, and we used it sort-of successfully for about a year before one of our cats just gave up on the thing and refused to use it. I think he was just tired of the never-quite-clean scent of the Scoop Free. I didn't really mind this, because I was tired of the always-expensive cartridge refills.

We are using an ultra-large litter box right now, and it is meeting our needs adequately. The Litter Robot is by far the best-reviewed automatic cat box online. I suspect that we will switch to one once we have a child and time becomes more precious.

Is it expensive? Certainly. Would I happily spend that money to nearly eliminate the smell and effort of a cat box? Definitely.

It's a Cool Tool.

Plus it gives one the opportunity to imagine that it might spirit the damn cat off to another dimension where you don't live. Priceless.

$350? Hmmm....I buy about a bag or two of cat litter a week because I DO NOT LIKE SCOOPING CRAP.

Seems a little expensive until I realize I was looking at buying a Kindle DX (expensive even before I buy my textbooks) or the new iPhone supposedly coming out in July. It might be worth it to delay the time in cleaning cat crap...

Looks like a reconditioned model is about $100 cheaper from the site...

My only concern...why the 'Eco' title being bandied around? I comes in three colors...I don't see how boring grey is 'eco' and it didn't explain it on the site.

I'm slowly warming up to this one; I hate scooping cat litter. One question, it DOES have a fail-safe so that it won't run when the cat's in there, right? If it ever moved when my cat was using it he'd run under the bed, stay there for days, and never go near the thing again!

I definitely think this is a Cool Tool. I was already thinking about getting one before I saw this post here. Almost everything I've read online about the Litter Robot says the same thing. It works as advertised and owners love it. Sure, $350 up front is a little costly, but I've calculated that I already spend about $80 a month on my cats, is a buck a day for a year really such a hurdle to never have to touch a litter scoop with my hands? Is it such an onerous burden despite the economy to have a marked reduction in "cat" smell in my house? To reduce twice daily "fishing" expeditions into the catbox with a scoop into once every three day empty-the-hopper chores? I say no! I will be purchasing one of these posthaste.

As an owner of four cats I, like Matthew, want to eliminate the smell and effort of a cat box and will do some research on the Litter Robot. Expensive, yes. But, it will be worth the money if it saves on litter and eliminates the stress on my back.

What is great about this site are posts like Melissa's with additional ideas I'll look into.

Keep up the good work Bruce!

best relationship saver ever. had one of these for years while living with a gf and it was worth every penny. also great if you take long vacations.

I had a couple other "automatic" litter machines and now have the Litter-Robot.

It is by far the best constructed machine out there for its purpose, although it takes up a fair amount of room. It saves a LOT of litter and has a superb warranty AND money back guarantee.

IF your cat(s) will get in the thing (one of mine will, the other one still won't after over a month) it is WELL WORTH THE COST.

Also, you can get the refurb and it comes with the same exact money back guarantee and warranty, so there really is no reason to buy a new one.

For those who are looking for an easy, no scoop, litter box without the price tag here, check this out...

Omega Paw Self-Cleaning Litter Box

We bought it a month ago and I will never go back! It is amazing! GREATLY reduces smells, easy to use and clean, no mechanics to break.

lisa - how does it do at covering/containing odors? what kind of litter does it use? ive been using the ScoopFree box and so far so good regarding odor concealment... it uses crystal litter (which my cats took to quite well). Ive quite enjoyed how easy my ScoopFree box is (and how NOT stinky it is, compared to the standard clay litter boxes that I had used before). What is your experience in this regard with the Omega Paw?

This is a cool tool. I been reading for a long time. If people are turned off by the price that's just silly. I mean there are things on 'Cool Tools' that are way more expensive. I think price plays a role in determining cool tools, but certainly not the defining criteria. (If you say this robo-little box costs $1000, it had better compost the litter, feed, water and bathe the cat on its own.)

This has several advantages:
1) You save on cost of littler. Perhaps you make back your money over time. I can't say how long, but hey why not.
2) It's more hygienic.
3) It's easy to return if you are cat freaks out about it. (I have a different type of less efficient auto-scooper, and I seen people with this one. This work so much better I regret getting the other type)
4) It saves time, and time is more valuable then any of the above. How much is your time worth to you? People have different prices on the value of their own time. Perhaps you like washing clothe by hand and taking the time to do so, I don't. I like my washing machine. Same for scooping and cleaning shit.