Last updated: 27 August 2026
By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance
This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author's own and do not constitute professional advice.
This article contains affiliate links. If you click through and buy, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It does not affect my editorial view. I bought this litter tray myself at full price.
I have been using PETKIT self-cleaning litter trays for over two years, so this Purobot Max 3 review is not another launch write-up from someone who unboxed one last week. I ran a PuraMax 2 for more than two years with two cats, wore out a cylinder mat, learned exactly where these things leak, and then bought the Purobot Max 3 when it landed in August 2026. This is what actually changed.
Two years on a PETKIT PuraMax 2 with two cats, and two weeks on the Purobot Max 3 as of late August 2026. The long-term durability notes below come from the PuraMax 2, because two weeks cannot tell you anything about wear. I have said which is which throughout.
Cool Factor: 4/5
What the Purobot Max 3 actually is
PETKIT launched the Purobot Max 3 on 5 August 2026 and calls it its third-generation automated litter box. It is a rotating drum: the cat goes in, walks out, and a few minutes later the drum turns, sifts the clumps and drops them into a sealed bin. You empty the bin instead of scooping the tray.
The headline changes over my old PuraMax 2 are a 43 per cent larger entry, a side-mounted 7 litre waste bin rather than an underslung one, a three-part system PETKIT calls OdorVoid, and a patented 360 degree ShieldBase leak guard. It runs at 35 dB, has 12 anti-pinch sensors, and identifies cats by weight. PETKIT quotes up to 15 days hands-free, which I will come back to, because that figure is for one cat.
It is the newest model and it still has no camera
This is the thing to get straight before you spend anything. The Purobot Max 3 is the newest tray in the range and it has no AI camera. Multi-cat recognition is done purely by weight. If camera-based monitoring is the reason you are looking at PETKIT, the cheapest model that has one is the Purobot Max Pro 2, and the Purobot Ultra adds a 180 degree camera and two-way audio.
Watch the real prices here rather than the RRPs, because they change the argument. Buying direct from PETKIT the Max Pro 2 is £699.99 against the Max 3 at £599.99, a £100 gap. On Amazon UK the Max 3 is £469.98 and the Max Pro 2 is £539.98, so the camera costs about £70 rather than £100. At that difference the camera-free Max 3 is a much harder sell, and I would think carefully before choosing it.
PETKIT's own marketing does not exactly shout about this, and "third generation" naturally reads as "most advanced". It is not. It is the most refined version of the camera-free design.
Setting it up
Setup was genuinely easy, which surprised me given the size of the thing. It arrives mostly assembled, you seat the drum, drop in the litter pad, add litter and plug it in. Pairing to the PETKIT app took a couple of minutes on a 2.4 GHz network and I have not had it drop off wifi since.
One nice touch: the setup flow asks what litter you use. That is not cosmetic, it changes how the cycle times itself and how the litter-saving function behaves. I run the litter-saving mode on, and with the plant-based litter I use it works well.
The app, and a tray called Martin Clumps
You name the device during setup. Mine is called Martin Clumps, so I now get push notifications reading "The waste collection bin of Martin Clumps full." It is a small thing and it makes me laugh every time.
Behind the daftness the app is genuinely useful. The home screen shows usage for the day, average duration per visit, and a comparison against yesterday. Mine currently reads four visits and an average of one minute thirty-two seconds. There is a 24-hour chart of when the tray was used, and a working record listing each visit by cat.
The controls that matter sit along the bottom: Clean Now, Maint Mode, Empty Litter and Smart Settings. Empty Litter is the one you use for a full clean out, and it is covered below.
The weighing is the underrated feature
Every time a cat uses the tray it records their weight. My records show entries like "spent 52 seconds in the litter box, weighing record 4.3kg" and, a couple of hours earlier, 4.4kg. So it is approximate rather than laboratory-grade, and it will bounce around by a hundred grams or so depending on how the cat stands.
Even so, it is the feature I did not expect to value and now would not give up. Cats are very good at hiding illness, and a slow change in body weight is one of the earliest signals something is wrong. Having a passive log of it, without wrestling anyone onto a scale, is genuinely handy, and it makes the annual vet visit a much more useful conversation because you turn up with a trend rather than a guess.
To be clear, it is not a medical device and it should not be treated as one. If the number moves, that is a reason to ring your vet, not a diagnosis.
Does the seal actually work?
Mostly, and this is the biggest practical win. Between empties the waste bin seals well and the house does not smell of cat, which was the single reason I bought into this category in the first place. The Max 3 does it better than the PuraMax 2 did.
It is not magic, though, and I want to be straight about that. You absolutely smell it when a cat is actually using the tray, and you smell it when the bin is open and you are emptying it. What the seal buys you is the twenty-three and a half hours in between, which turns out to be the part that was ruining the room.
The other caveat is that it only works properly with an N50 odour cartridge in place. Without one, the seal alone is good but not remarkable. With one, the tray is close to unnoticeable between visits. That makes the cartridges less of an accessory and more of a running cost, which I will come to.
The litter I use, and why it matters
I use KatKin Scoop Planet, a plant-based clumping litter made from pea and millet. It suits these trays well: it clumps fast, which is exactly what a sifting drum needs, and it does not track everywhere.
The money tip is that I buy it on Amazon Subscribe and Save, which takes about 15 per cent off the monthly delivery. Litter is the recurring cost that quietly matters far more than the tray price once you are a year in.
Worth saying plainly: these drums need clumping clay, tofu or mixed litter within PETKIT's granule size limits. Crystal and non-clumping litters will not sift properly.
The liner problem PETKIT has not solved
PETKIT does not sell an official biodegradable liner for the waste bin, which is an odd gap for a brand leaning this hard on a clean, considered image. I use Toraphene caddy liners instead. They fit the bin properly, and in two years across two trays I have never had one leak.
They have split on me twice. On both occasions I simply used another bag and moved on, which is a minor annoyance rather than a failure. I would rather say that than pretend they are flawless.
There is a logic to this that I think gets missed. I use a plant-based, fully biodegradable litter, and it always struck me as slightly ridiculous to then seal it inside a single-use plastic bag. These liners are the only way I have found to marry the two up. Every bag is one less piece of plastic made, used once and then buried.
Be clear-eyed about the certification, though. Toraphene liners are certified to EN 13432 and OK Compost Industrial, which is industrial composting rather than your garden heap, and used cat litter cannot go into UK food waste collections anyway. So in practice they end up in general waste and they will not fully break down there. Even so, a compostable bag that does not fully compost still beats a plastic one that never will, and on that basis I count it a win.
What two years on the PuraMax 2 taught me
Two weeks with the Max 3 tells you nothing about durability, so here is what the previous generation taught me instead.
The cylinder mat is a consumable. Depending on how enthusiastic a scratcher your cat is, expect roughly twelve months before the seal starts to go and urine finds its way underneath. Ours reliably managed about a year. The replacement mat is £39.99 and, usefully, the current part covers the PuraMax 2, the Purobot Max 3 and the Max Pro models.
The other lesson was about the entrance. Our male cat started peeing over the edge of the PuraMax 2, which is not a small problem when the puddle lands on your floor rather than in the tray. An entrance fence solved it completely.
PETKIT's headline upgrade on the Max 3 is a 43 per cent larger entry, and I am not convinced that helps here. A bigger opening is a bigger hole to aim over. My instinct is that it could make the problem worse rather than better, and two weeks is nowhere near long enough for me to tell you either way. What I would actually like PETKIT to look at is the default angle of the tray itself, because that is what decides where a standing cat's aim ends up, and no amount of extra doorway fixes it.
If you have a cat that does this, budget for a fence. Note that the one PETKIT sells is listed for the PuraMax and Purobot Max Pro, not the Max 3, so check compatibility before you buy.
Honest criticisms
Cleaning it properly is a big job, and bigger than cleaning a normal tray. There is simply far more surface area, and streaks get onto surfaces a plain tray does not have. To do it you fit a removal part and run Empty Litter from the app. That works reliably but it is slow, and you stand there waiting.
It does at least come apart sensibly. The side where the bin sits lifts off, then the tray comes out, then the main turning cylinder. Reassembly is fine. Getting the bottom tray out, though, is fiddly every single time.
Then there is the running cost. The N50 cartridges last about a month and the tray nags you when they expire, which mine is doing as I write this. They are a real ongoing expense on top of litter and liners. They have also started shipping in plastic casings when they did not used to, which for a product sold on cleanliness and considered design is a small step backwards.
Finally, a polish complaint. The app carries a promotional tile pushing other PETKIT hardware, and on my screen it currently reads "ON SLAE". A typo in a promo on a device costing the better part of £500 is a small thing, but it is the sort of small thing that tells you where the attention went.
How the cats took to it
Very well, and very fast, which is the question most people actually want answered. Neither cat needed coaxing and neither has refused it. If anything, the appeal is obvious from their side: cats like a clean tray, and this one is always clean. That single fact quietly solves the standoff you get in a two-cat house where nobody wants to use the tray after the other one.
That said, my two had already lived with a PuraMax 2 for two years, so they were not learning the concept from scratch. If you are coming from an open tray, budget for a transition period and do not assume it will be this smooth.
What it costs, and where to buy it
PETKIT sells the Purobot Max 3 for £599.99 direct, with a discount code on their own product page. On Amazon UK it is £469.98 from the PETKIT store, which is £130 less for the identical product.
That is the same pattern I found on the PuraMax 2, which is £379.97 on Amazon against £499.99 direct. Check both before you buy, because the gap is large and it moves.
Check the Purobot Max 3 on Amazon UK
Affiliate link. Prices checked 27 August 2026.
Budget for the extras too. Litter is monthly, N50 cartridges are roughly monthly, liners are ongoing and the mat is about annual. The tray is the start of the spending, not the end of it. For a cheaper way into the range, our PuraMax 2 page covers the model I used for two years.
Who it suits
It suits multi-cat households where daily scooping has become the worst job in the house, people who are out for long stretches, and anyone who wants a passive record of their cats' habits and weight. If you already own a PuraMax and it is still working, the Max 3 is a refinement rather than a transformation, and I would wait until your mat and seal give up.
It suits you less if you want camera monitoring, in which case skip to the Pro 2. It also suits you less if you have a kitten, a very nervous cat, or you use crystal litter.
One honest wrinkle on the standard advice. International Cat Care advises one tray per cat plus a spare, spaced around the home, which for two cats means three trays. We have one, and both cats are perfectly happy.
I suspect that is precisely because it cleans itself. Much of the reason cats want a second tray is that the first one is dirty, and this one never stays dirty for long. I am not going to pretend that overrides the guidance, and if your cats show any sign of competing over it you should add a second. But I am also not going to pretend I own three of these. At close to £500 each nobody is, and our flat has nowhere to put them anyway.
The verdict
Cool Factor
★★★★☆
4 out of 5
Overall, a solid 4/5 Stone cold. Not having to deal with a litter tray every day, and not worrying whether the house smells, has been life-changing, and the weight logging turned out to be worth more than the feature list suggested. The seal is excellent and the cats took to it immediately.
It does not reach Ice cold for three reasons. Cleaning it is a proper job rather than a quick one, the running costs are real and continuous once you add up cartridges, liners, litter and an annual mat, and PETKIT has made the newest tray in its range the one without a camera, when on Amazon the model that does have one costs only about £70 more. Buy it on Amazon, buy it with your eyes open about the consumables, and it will change your week.
FAQs
Is the PETKIT Purobot Max 3 worth it?
For a multi-cat home where scooping daily has become a chore, yes, in my experience. The odour control between empties and the end of daily scooping are the real wins. If you already own a working PuraMax, it is a refinement rather than a reason to spend again.
How much does the Purobot Max 3 cost in the UK?
£599.99 direct from PETKIT and £469.98 on Amazon UK as at 27 August 2026, so £130 cheaper on Amazon. Both prices move, so check each before buying.
Does the Purobot Max 3 have a camera?
No. Despite being the newest model it identifies cats by weight only. The Purobot Max Pro 2 is the cheapest PETKIT tray with an AI camera, and on Amazon UK it is only about £70 more than the Max 3 rather than the £100 the direct prices suggest.
Does it really last 15 days without emptying?
That figure is for a single cat. With two cats I empty it far more often than that. Treat 15 days as a best case, not a plan.
What litter works best in it?
A fast-clumping litter within PETKIT's granule size limits. I use KatKin Scoop Planet, a plant-based pea and millet litter, and it suits the drum well. Crystal and non-clumping litters will not sift correctly.
Are there biodegradable liners for the waste bin?
Not from PETKIT. I use Toraphene compostable caddy liners, which fit well and have never leaked, though they have split twice. They are certified for industrial composting rather than home composting.
Will my cats actually use it?
Mine took to it immediately, but they had already used a PuraMax 2 for two years. Coming from an open tray, expect a transition period and introduce it gradually.
More from CoolCuration
- KatKin Scoop Planet litter: the plant-based litter I use in it, and the Subscribe and Save trick that cuts the monthly cost.
- Toraphene caddy liners: the compostable liners that fill the gap PETKIT left.
- The new cat toolkit: everything worth buying before a cat arrives, so you are not panic-ordering on day two.
- Gifts for cat lovers: our full cat gift guide, for presents that are not litter trays.
- SureFeed microchip feeder review: the feeder that stops one cat eating the other one's dinner.
- KatKin fresh food: the fresh cat food side of the same brand, with a discount on the first box.
Disclaimer: This is an opinion piece based on my own use and is not veterinary advice. The weight logging is a convenience feature, not a medical device; if you are worried about your cat's health, speak to a vet. Prices, specifications and offers were accurate on 27 August 2026 and can change at any time. This post contains affiliate links, and CoolCuration may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It does not affect our editorial view.
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