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An Automated Cat Litter Box With DRM
HughPickens.com writes: Jorge Lopez had always wanted an automatic cat litter box, and finally found one called the CatGenie, a fully automated self-washing litter box connected to water, electricity and the sewer that cleans itself with water and soap. "It's the Rolls Royce of cat litter boxes, a hefty device that scoops, cleans, and disposes of the waste all on it's own. It's completely automated, even senses when a cat poops and cleans up afterwards." But there's trouble in paradise. "Life with the CatGenie was great, but not quite perfect," writes Lopez, after discovering that CatGenie uses a smart cartridge that is only available from the manufacturer. "I found that the "Smart" in SmartCartridge is that it has an RFID chip inside of it to keep track of how much solution it has, and once it runs out, well, you can't refill. I honestly did not believe this and tore one of the cartridges apart, and there it was, looking back at me, a tiny chip holding up it's little metal finger." Fortunately there are some amazing people helping the CatGenie community who have released products like the custom firmware CatGenious and CartridgeGenius, which allows you to use whatever solution you want. "The cost savings is great, but isn't the biggest driver for me, it's mainly the principle that I don't own the device I paid for, and I'm really tired of having cat litter everything in my home."
is this hackaday? I swore i typed in slashdot...
DRM-laden toilets?
v1.0: Uses proprietary toilet paper and won't allow you to flush any TP that doesn't have the manufacturer-specific RFID tag in it.
v2.0: You may only eat and drink foods specified by the manufacturer, which also contain microscopid RFID tags, which are biologically inert and pass harmlessly through your digestive tract and into your feces and urine. Detection of any other waste substances will result in Failure to Flush.
v3.0: All RoboToiliet users must have an RFID tag implanted in their ass; others may not use the toilet. RoboToilet must be connected to AC mains power and a broadband internet connection 24/7/365, or Failure to Flush will not occur because end-user authentication will not be possible. Naturally there is an annual subscription fee, with complimentary membership in the RoboToilet Owners Club.
I'll leave it up to you to decide what the 'owners club' is all about.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Lazy cat owners bitching about DRM in their robotic kitty box? This is a 1st world problem if there ever was one.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Would you take a real Rolls Royce to an unauthorized dealer for repairs?
Seems a bit silly to me to go this expense and suddenly get stingy on the cartridges.
And to think week ago I thought that both Keurig DRM defenders vs hackers were making petty efforts over petty territories.
I'm really tired of having cat litter everything in my home.
There's an obvious solution this... Assuming you don't want a cat or a home...
No? Can we assume this is the only product on the market (and before it was invented, cats littered homes with reckless abandon)...
If in the end, this is your only solution, then make your piece with the DRM, or with bypassing it. Don't forget, you always have a choice..
"The cost savings is great, but isn't the biggest driver for me, it's mainly the principle that I don't own the device I paid for, and I'm really tired of having cat litter everything in my home."
So exercise your rights as a consumer to research beforehand and not buy it. Or return it. Or modify it, as you have. Or, for god sakes, ask your vet or friends with cats or reddit for advice on having cat litter everywhere (I believe the most common solution is a covered box with fairly high side.) You can also teach your cat to pee/crap in the toilet, believe it or not. There are little "litter box" inserts that reportedly make it pretty easy; the cat goes "oh, another litter box" and uses it for a week or two, and then you remove the insert, and if the cat notices, they go *shrug* and still use it. No more litter, no more stink.
But for god sakes....I was around on Slashdot when the fist inkjet printer companies started chipping their cartridges. I also learned about Gillette in...either middle school or high school. That was a century ago, if not more. The "handle is free, the blades are disposable and we have a very healthy profit margin on them" model is quite, quite old. Why are people surprised? Especially if you read Slashdot, why didn't you do research on it?
Your robotic, do-everything catbox would've cost substantially more if the company were not figuring on a continuing revenue stream. In fact, it might have cost so much that nobody would've bought it.
Please help metamoderate.
yeah, the summary has the typo, not the project.
Your cat thinks your a moron, and is going to poop in your headphones.
...But I am tired of this shit!
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
I had 2 and they were always breaking. They warranted them for 2 years but they were always being sent back for repair. After the warranty was up I chucked them and went back to cat litter. I think they are a great idea poorly executed. I would rather scoop cat litter instead of cleaning up the mess those things leave behind when the fail.
There are other options in this market, not all of which require proprietary consumables. We've been using the LitterRobot which, while more expensive (~$300), requires no further financial commitment to the manufacturer. You just need to buy normal cat litter and periodically replace a normal garbage bag in the base.
...But turned away because not only was the machine expensive, but the hack was another $100. I highly recommend the Litter Robot (~$370). I've had one for a few years, and it works off of standard kitchen trash bags. I have two cats and I tend to it once every 7-10 days- I refill the litter and swap out the bags, and maybe do a thorough cleaning twice a year. No BS consumables.
Another model, Litter Maid (~$120), uses custom plastic trays. It's cheaper, but it doesn't work as well as the Litter Robot. After a few months you'll find yourself tending to it every other day. The cost of the plastic trays added up over the course of a year, but it's a non-DRM receptacle, so you can hack a cheaper 'solution' at home with a small amount of craftiness. If you do go with Litter Maid, go for the cheaper one- it actually works better than the 'Elite' model.
But really, go for the Litter Robot. I've had mine for two or three years and I love it.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
How hard is it for people to learn this ultra-simple rule. Sorry to be the grammar nazi, but every time I see this it drives my parser up the wall.
all on it's own.
Aaarrggh!!!!
It's completely automated
Correct. "it's" is a contraction of "it is".
a tiny chip holding up it's little metal finger
Aaaarrrgghh!!!! Doesn't make sense: "...holding up it is little metal finger".
And to address the article itself, who even needs cat litter and all that nastiness in a house? Just let your damn cat out! They will never, ever soil in the house given a choice.
I have been happy with the Litter Robot (for 3 years). The first unit I got was totally fried and non-functional. They sent a replacement base through overnight deliver. Once it was confirmed the replacement worked, I dropped the original in the box, slapped the included return sticker on the box and they had UPS stop by and pick up the package. I can't imagine they made any money on me, but they really are rock stars with customer service in my book.
And yea, the consumables are just ordinary materials. The machine works, it keeps itself clean. I do a little extra cleaning twice a year on the ball portion of the unit, 10 minutes of my time. It will jam if you don't empty it out at a reasonable frequency, but once you wipe off the mess it works fine. It holds quite a large amount of waste. Emptying it out once a week is sufficient for my medium sized cat, taking a quick look at it once a day to throw a little more fresh litter in when it seemed low was the 30 seconds.
The main thing to replace is the carbon filter, which the litter robot company will sell you for a reasonable price. But I already have a roll of the stuff for AC units and cut a square to size.
The standard size litter robot isn't usable by my largest cat. There is a bigger model that has a "bubble", but I'm not confident that 3" would make much difference to him.
Comprehension fail. The machine washes the granules itself, and in the process consumes sanitiser in the DRM laden cartridge.
Give it a couple of years and if the market is big enough somebody will come up with a refill method, just like printer cartridges. I just hope they don't confuse ink with sanitizer though.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
You're doing it the hard way: Toilet train your cat. Google for "toilet training cats" and you'll soon see that assuming a tech solution is not only not the only path, it's probably the wrong one entirely.
damn it
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
My 10 month old Irish setter does the same exact thing. The only downside is that her breath is not really kissably-sweet afterwards.
You are welcome on my lawn.
He bought it, he has an expectation that it won't come loaded with traps and catches. He's warning consumers that this product comes with traps and catches. Your teacher warned you that gillette blades come with traps and catches. So how is he any different than your teacher?
Why do you think he should be complaining about it on Slashdot?
It's a technical lock in on a new product and so this is Slashdot stuff. We want to know to avoid this crappy product,unless we're prepared to flash it.
"Your robotic, do-everything catbox would've cost substantially more if the company were not figuring on a continuing revenue stream."
Model A: He pays a price up front and is aware of the full price
Model B: He pays a lower price up front, and SURPRISE we're gonna sting you for the rest later
So don't try to tell me this is somehow in his interests! Either way he's paying.
It's a good thing you're reading slashdot and not dotslash then.
Not even your body... Just try to take your amputated leg home and mount it on the wall.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is all courtesy of US' DMCA law.
DRM Ink and toner cartridges
DRM Keurig 2.0 coffee makers
It's only going to get worse without push back.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
...what kind of coffee does it make?
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
About a decade ago, I purchased a software product, and nowhere in the literature was it mentioned that it came with a parallel port dongle. I sent it right back.
You could just get a dog. Our's cleans a regular, 5$ litter box regularly. Admittedly I'm not sure it's great for her digestion, but...
Spelling matters.
Unreadable websites AND failure to edit the summary.
As far as I can tell the "washing" of the granules is part of the automatic cycle.
I own a product called a Flash Powermop. Here in the UK, Flash is a manufacturer of cleaning products. It's just a mop with replacable heads and a squirter in the handle that can deposit cleaning fluid when a button is pressed.
It doesn't have DRM - it has old-fashioned mechanical limitations. The cleaning fluid comes in an official Flash powermop cartridge. Much old an ancient inkjet printer, the cartridge has only one port, and it's mechanically designed to only dock with the corresponding port on the mop. They really made it solid too, so you can't force it open to refill an empty cartridge. It's basically a rubbery window - the mop has two hollow needles that pierce it. One to let air in, one to get fluid out.
So I cut a hole in the top of the bottle and silicone-sealed the screwtop from a soft drink bottle over it. Now I have a refill board, and an everlasting cartridge. I enough people do this, I'll expect the Powermop 2 to come with a chip in the bottle that records how much has been dispensed.
And the Schrodinger's version?
Table-ized A.I.
Hi, I'm a moron who not only enjoys bumping into trees because I don't want to know that I'm in a forest, I like to brag about it on Slashdot, too.
TFTFY.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It took our cat 3 weeks to learn to use the normal toilet. Do a search for "toilet training cat" and you come up with training instructions. If you want to spend money you can buy some training kit.
If you take away one "n" and one "u" from that bolded word, what would you get ?
Are you, people, geeks or what? With all that Arduino and robotics stuff available on the market, and you are whining about a cat litter box having been DRM-ed!
On a related note, he notes that the cat litter sticks to his cats paws, and he really dislikes finding cat litter particles on his kitchen counters, tables, chopping boards, etc.
Ewww... Why don't people train their cats properly. It's not hard. My cats do not enter the kitchen, and all tables are also off limits. Teach them the rules when they are kittens. Afterwards, maybe once every year or two, you'll need to remind them that the rules haven't changed.
How to train? You just let them understand that there is a really odd law of nature: going in the kitchen or hopping on a table causes them to get wet. Squirt gun, pans of water set back from the table edge, whatever. Don't yell or anything - you don't want them to associate the water with you, but with the location they tried to go. Easy, and well worth it...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
That's it.
All on it is own?
I really wish that posts get automatically grammar checked. People who communicate with adults need to learn third grade English.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
It's coming. The company would crash, obviously, if you could let your cat shit in just any old brand of litter. They have to protect their market share against interlopers!
It's been out for a few years already. This is old dusty, crufty news.
It was news 2 or 3 years ago.
Stop buying DRM enabled devices, morons.
... to crowd source an alternative.
Honestly, I don't play a lot of Origin games (mostly steam, though they're similar in concept), but it's still a vast improvement over what I had previously in many cases. Multiple discs, serial keys, etc. My biggest complaint is the lack of multiplayer servers. At least with previous games of Battlefield etc you could host your own - on a Linux server even - but now you pretty much have to buy hosting and older games pretty much die out. That's more designed obsolescence than DRM though.
> This is all courtesy of US' DMCA law.
Remember it was the Clintons that signed it into the law when you vote in the next presidential election.
There used to be a similar product in Canada. At that time they named it 'Catch-It'. (Worth saying out loud...) As Jack Paar used to say, "I kid you not".