- This post contains affiliate links. Read more here.
Let’s face it—litter boxes are pretty much the only thing that’s not to like about having cats. They are messy and dusty, they get stinky, and they are generally a pain in the hiney to clean. Whether you have a covered box, a high-sided box, or a box to keep your box in, they all have their drawbacks. Enter Leo’s Loo Too, a smart self-cleaning litter box that aims to address many of these drawbacks—making litter boxes a little more pleasant for all.
Lew in the Loo Too.
Leo’s Loo Too claims to be “a massive step forward for cat families looking for a better alternative to traditional litter boxes.” It has a modern design, Google and Alexa voice controls, and an easy-to-use app for operations. It even takes advantage of anti-bacterial UV light technology.
All of this tech requires a significant investment. At $600+, Leo’s Loo Too is likely the biggest one-time investment (other than health care) that one could make for a cat or two or three. So is it worth it?
What Leo’s Loo Too Offers
Leo’s Loo Too claims to look pretty on the outside but offer all kinds of usefulness on the inside. The main benefit is that it’s self-cleaning; your only jobs are to 1) make sure there’s litter in it, 2) empty out the waste drawer when it’s full (which it will alert you to), and 3) give it a clean every month or so.
Another interesting feature is a UV light system within the waste drawer. Once the kitty exits the unit and it performs its self-cleaning turn, waste emptied into the drawer is treated with UV rays that eliminate 99.9% of bacteria.
Perhaps the funnest thing about Leo’s Loo Too is that its regular operation is pretty much hands-free. There is an easy-to-use app that allows you to operate the Loo Too with your phone. It is totally personalizable, so you can set it to clean right after kitty exits or schedule specific times during the day. You can also set it to manual mode and hit a button when you decide it needs to be cleaned—even if you’re halfway across the world.
The app provides you with a report so you know when someone’s been in there, which is pretty funny. The device can also be paired to Google or Amazon home devices.
Leo’s Loo Too can be operated with an app.
Lastly, Leo’s Loo Too has a bevy of protocols to make sure your kitty has a safe and comfortable experience. A radar system monitors the outside of the Loo Too, stopping it from rotating if your kitty gets near it. Weight sensors in the bottom of the unit know when your kitty enters and exits, so it will never start running with someone inside. There is also an anti-pinch sensor in the waste drawer, so if something that shouldn’t be in there gets in there (a toy, for example, or something that might clog the waste chute), the unit will reverse rotation to dump the foreign object out.
How Leo’s Loo Too Works
Even with all of these fun bells and whistles, Leo’s Loo Too actually works in a pretty simple manner. It’s basically a large, round drum surrounded by tracks, which rotate the drum to empty it. Inside the drum, there’s a soft bottom for litter to live. When the unit activates, the drum rotates, and all of the litter slides inside the drum, across the soft bottom, to a little “pocket” in the side. The pocket sifts out the debris and sends it down a small chute into the waste drawer at the bottom of the unit. The drum then rotates back to potty position with freshly sifted, debris-free litter at the ready.
What Kinds of Cats Is Leo’s Loo Too Best for?
As we all know, cats can be picky, so litter box preferences really vary from cat to cat. If you have a kitty you already know doesn’t like covered boxes or enclosed spaces, Leo’s Loo Too might not be for them. The same goes for very senior cats and small kittens, who might find the litter box’s slight elevation tricky. (The Leo’s Loo Too folks note that a cat should weigh at least two pounds to use the loo, meaning you’d likely want to wait until a kitten is three or four months of age before letting them have a try.)
For the rest of the feline world, Leo’s Loo Too has as good a chance of catching your cat’s fancy as any new litter system. We’d recommend taking it slow, per the advice from the Leo’s Loo Too folks about acclimating your cat to the box.
Lastly, while the entry to the Loo Too looks kind of small, it’s actually quite roomy inside, so space isn’t an issue for bigger cats.
Meet Our Leo’s Loo Too Reviewers
Meet Lewis, Beso, and Clark.
Our testers are three pretty easy-going adult male cats: Lewis, Clark, and Beso. Lewis is considered a normal-size cat, a bit small in stature and weighing in at about 7 pounds. Clark is a very large-framed cat, weighing in at 19 pounds. Beso is proportionally-challenged—okay fine, obese—with a small frame padded in 17 pounds of lushness. None of the cats have litter box issues other than being extremely messy.
Traditionally, the boys have a pretty average litter box setup. They prefer clay clumping litter, and their boxes are housed inside useful hide-y furniture. Even so, messes extend beyond the boxes, dust is a definite problem, and daily cleaning involves many sets of squats for this human.
Speaking of the human tester, I’m not exactly a luddite, but most smart-home stuff flummoxes me. I cannot get my Amazon Echo Dots to pair up. I have an Amazon Smart Plug in a drawer because I can’t figure out what I would use it for. Most of the apps on my phone are for entertainment—I have never used one to actively manage anything in my home. So the Leo’s Loo Too will be a new experience for human and cats alike.
Setting Up the Leo’s Loo Too
My Leo’s Loo Too arrived fully assembled in a large box. Instructions on the outside of the box were easy to follow: open the box at the bottom, flip it over, and pull the box off from the top. From there, manuals (complete with QR codes to videos) showed me how to get the unit working. This was all fairly easy.
Getting set up.
Because the Loo Too needs to be on a solid surface with room for the sensors to work, I had to do some reorganizing to find a place to put it. It is large at 22 x 24 x 27.6 inches, and it’s a bit unwieldy to move, though not heavy (a bit over 25 pounds). I ended up finding a good corner for it that had the required one inch of space around the unit for the sensors.
As the instructions noted, the drum can shift during shipping. This was the case with my unit, and it was easily fixed by removing the top of the unit and giving the drum a wiggle to set it properly in its tracks. I threw in some clay clumping litter (the only kind that should be used), plugged it in, hit the button, and watched it go to work.
Once I was sure it worked, I downloaded the app and easily personalized its settings.
Putting Leo’s Loo Too to the Test
The boys were immediately curious. Lewis and Beso took turns jumping in and out to explore it. Once they were out of the unit for a few seconds, it began its clean cycle. They found this very interesting and kept sticking their heads in, which would stop the cycle. Clark, on the other hand, was not impressed with the noise the Loo Too made as it did its business—he kept (and still keeps) his distance, actively hissing at the strange new loo.
Leo’s Loo Too lookie loos.
Because the Leo’s Loo Too could not finish its cycle with the kitties constantly sticking their heads in it, I set the app to manual so I could empty it when they weren’t around. Nevertheless, no one used it the first day—they just checked it out like it was a new toy of some sort.
The next day I hit the button for the clean cycle, and as the drum rolled around, I noticed someone had been brave and left a little wee in there. The day after that there were a few more. The app told me the kitty that had been in there was 5.5 pounds, so I know it was Lewis who was putting the Loo Too to use.
I had to leave town for a week, so I set the app to do an automatic clean of the Loo Too after each use. I told my sitter not to clean it so I could check out the results. While I was away, the app reported who was using it as well as clean cycles.
The day I returned home, the app alerted me that the waste drawer was full. I expected to open it to quite a smell after 11 days of litter collecting. I have to admit I was shocked that the UV function had really done its job—no smell at all! The litter liner bag easily lifted out, and there was no overspill into the drawer.
Easy empty!
Leo’s Loo Too does exactly what it claims to do. It is well-designed, easy to use, and most definitely cuts down on the amount of work it takes to keep a litter box clean. As previously mentioned, with one kitty using it, it only needed to be emptied once in about a week and a half. The UV sterilization kept the waste drawer surprisingly odor free. The design of Leo’s Loo Too keeps litter and dust inside the unit with very little “mess” made from kitties upon exit. The app was easy to use and actually kind of fun—who knew keeping track of your kitties’ potty habits could be so entertaining?
A couple of things to consider:
- It is a somewhat large appliance, so it’s a good idea to pick out a dedicated spot for it before you purchase.
- When the Loo Too runs, it makes enough noise to attract the attention of the cats. Because of the noise, one kitty refuses to use it (to this point) and continues to hiss at the Loo when it runs. You may need to keep a backup litter box in case you have a nervous or noise-sensitive kitty around.
Overall, Leo’s Loo Too definitely makes emptying the litter box a lot easier—and even, dare I say it, kind of fun! If it’s in your budget, we give it two paws up.