Cats are notoriously private even in the face of health concerns. One of my previous pets, Talia, had kidney issues which are fairly common for cats. Had we known it was serious, or that there was even a problem, we would have taken her to the vet immediately. By the time we did, there wasn’t much else to do and she passed. It breaks my heart to know she may have been suffering for some time. Since then, I’ve made a habit of being proactive, which, yes, I should have been doing all along.

The SiiPet LitterLens is something of an answer to that problem. It’s a smart camera that you mount facing and near your cat’s litter box. It records when they visit, what kind of waste they leave behind and helps you identify anomalies. If they’re going too frequently, or not enough, for example, you’ll know early on so you can get them checked out.

Before I got my hands on one, I was curious about two things. The first was how to mount and install it. That process is super easy and convenient and you can read a previous guide where I covered this in more detail. The second question, if you will, was how it would work with multiple cats and, more specifically, if they have multiple litter boxes. We have one litter box in our garage, one in a bathroom and another in a concealed box in my office and the cats use all of them. We have two cats, a male and female, and also two dogs, also male and female. I’ll explain why I mentioned the dogs later.

Grab a drink and a snack, if you don’t have something already, and let’s get the scoop on this camera.

A smart security camera, designed for cats

Despite its cute and friendly design, the SiiPet LitterLens reminds me of my security cameras. Of course, it’s looking down at a litter box and cats doing their business not would-be thieves — unless you count the dogs who like to sneak in and grab some delicious chocolate morsels. The camera detects motion in the box, turns on a light, and begins recording the visitor’s duties. In the app, you get a notification each time this happens. You can receive push notifications, as well, but I opted to disable those. I don’t need to know every single time there’s movement in the cat’s toilet.

The app will track and tell you how many times per day your cat, or cats, are going potty. It will also track the average duration for each visit. Since cats obviously don’t always go potty when they visit — if you didn’t know, sometimes they scope things out and leave without doing their business — the app and camera are also trained to detect this, as well. All things considered, it’s pretty accurate. I had to spend some time training the app to spot each cat separately and to tell when dogs are poking their heads in and digging around. This is simple to do. You tap on a video in the app and there’s a small information button that allows you to select which pet it was — you create a profile for your cats beforehand.

That’s really all there is to it, unless the LitterLens needs a firmware update. You can set that up to work automatically late at night as long as you’re connected to Wi-Fi.

The trouble with cats…

I don’t need to tell you how independent and stubborn cats can be. One of my cats quite enjoys the LitterLens light. My other cat hates it. The LitterLens does a great job of picking out which cat is which, but it doesn’t really matter if one of them is not using the box it’s watching. Honestly, veterinarians recommend having a separate box for each cat and a plus one. That makes it somewhat difficult to keep an eye on their potty habits. According to the app, we’ve had multiple days where there were anomalies, either the cats didn’t go at all or didn’t go enough. It happens. In reality, my cats were going in a different box.

The LitterLens would work great if you have one cat and one box. If you have one box for multiple cats it would also work well. If you follow the vet recommended litter method with a plus one, not so much, at least not with a single camera. You can buy multiple SiiPet LitterLens cameras and connect them all through the same account.

It’s important to note that I don’t hold this against the SiiPet LitterLens at all. The product works well and the smart camera does an excellent job of detecting and labeling the right cats. But even so, it’s good to mention in case you have a similar setup in your home. You can also move the cameras between boxes — it still accurately detects what’s going on even with an environmental change.

Charging the camera

Charging the device is pretty straightforward. You charge it via USB-C before you mount it and when the battery is low you take it down, charge it up, and put it back. It’s really that simple. The battery life is damn good too. I’ve had it mounted and working for nearly two months straight and it’s just under 50%. If you make a habit of charging your devices before they get too low you should get a couple months out of it at least and that’s with quick recordings almost every day.

Checking the poop for changes

You can learn a lot about an animal by their stool. That’s the idea behind the LitterLens. It’s not just about how often your cats go to the bathroom, or how infrequently, but also what they’re doing when they visit. The camera accurately detects when they poop and prompts you to “check poop,” by reviewing it for major changes. If it’s solid, great. If it’s not solid, has changed in color or consistency, or has other signs — god forbid blood — this is something you would note in the app.

Now, there’s another element to this, which requires a premium subscription. That adds more advanced analysis of the stool, mainly automated with AI, and better long-term storage for detections the camera makes. The data itself that’s collected over time stays in the app whether you’re a paid or free user. It’s the video content and the advanced analysis that you lose access to if you don’t opt for the subscription. In my experience, the AI and analysis seems to work well at picking out strange occurrences and anomalies, as long as you’re training it regularly.

To premium or not to premium

SiiPet Care+ is a premium subscription you can add with two tiers, Basic and Premium. Basic is $6 per month and Premium is $10 per month. They allow you to store cloud records of litter box use, abnormalities, stool monitoring, utilize smarter AI detection, receive long-term data analysis, get abnormal stool alerts, and get alerts for irregular visits. Basic offers one month of litter box records and three months of abnormal records. Premium offers one month of litter box records and increases the capacity of abnormal records to twelve months.

You do not need the premium subscription, but if you don’t keep it active you’ll have to check on your own, manually stay up to date on your cat’s habits, and you’ll have to do your own poop and potty assessments. I used the SiiPet LitterLens both with the premium — a trial comes with the device — and without. I do think some of those premium features will be useful for some folks, especially if they want expert analysis and support. You can also share the data collected through the app directly with your vet. You can also share access to the SiiPet LitterLens with up to five family members or friends.

If you decide paying the $72 per year for Basic or $120 per year for Premium is too much, you can absolutely still use the device. If you don’t rely on the cloud services the device stores video locally for up to 72 hours at a time. Older clips are overwritten to make more room for the new videos. This also means, in the app when you look back at older dates the videos are unavailable. With a cloud plan, those videos are preserved for up to a month. Free users can only access the most recent 72 hours of video and detection history but the information is still collated by the app’s analytics. So, those box visits or anomalies still influence the rolling results.

Quick Breakdown

• Free: Litter box visit timeline, stool snapshots, multi-cat recognition, 24/7 live views (real-time feed), detection and status alerts, 72 hours or 3-days of video playback.
• Premium: All of the above, plus 30 days of video playback, abnormal stool analysis, abnormal trend analysis, alerts for both and 90-days or 360-days of abnormal event storage.

What’s the verdict, and the price?

Because cats are so notoriously private, I think the SiiPet LitterLens is an invaluable tool for monitoring and keeping up-to-date with their health. Even just the manual monitoring and detection is better than nothing at all. But if you spring for premium you get access to more advanced analytics plus AI tools to ensure your cat’s potty habits are healthy. Ultimately, it could help you detect long-term health problems that don’t always exhibit early warning signs like chronic kidney disease, diabetes, gastrointestinal infections, parasites, inflammatory diseases and even dietary issues.

If you really want to be sure you can share all the information you have with your local vet and defer to their advice. That’s one hell of a way to keep your cat’s health information in check.

The downside if you have dogs, of course, is that you’ll get to see them picking through the litter boxes looking for tasty treats, or rather you’ll get a real-time close-up. It’s only comedic for a short while, let me assure you.

What about the price?

A single LitterLens is $99, but I’ve seen them go on sale quite often. They come with everything you need and the mobile app is free, and free to use. The premium subscription — SiiPet Care+ — is optional. I do recommend getting the subscription if you’re using this device long-term and/or suspect your cat may have concerning health issues. The long-term storage, better analysis and anomaly support will definitely help you figure out what’s going on and if not exactly the what, then certainly will give your vet clues.

If you have multiple litter boxes in your home like I do, I would recommend getting a LitterLens per box. As to whether or not that’s expensive, I really can’t answer that question for you. That’s largely going to depend on you and your bond with your pets. I feel it’s reasonable and could be a lot worse, especially for those subscriptions. However, I wholeheartedly understand why people wouldn’t want yet another subscription to worry about. It’s going to come down to whether or not that peace of mind about your pet’s health and safety is worth it to you.

Most people look at me and think I’m a dog person, but my cat — Topanga — is my true emotional support animal. And Talia was before her. I really don’t want to see the same thing happen again. More than likely, I will get another LitterLens and opt for the basic subscription.