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Reviews & Guides · Appliances

Neakasa M1: 18-month liner and magnet wear, with M1 Plus buying context

I used the first-generation Neakasa M1 for 18 months and found a fragile liner, difficult cleaning, litter leaks and increasingly frequent errors.

A Neakasa automatic cat litter box filled with litter, viewed from the front, with bold Chinese text overlaid across the center.

I was initially attracted by the appearance. Compared with other automatic cat litter boxes, it really does look much better. Second, it is semi-open, so I feel the cat’s experience should be better and less confined.

But after using it for one and a half years, here are my complaints.

❌ Soft litter-chamber liner: this has caused the most problems. I like to keep things clean, so I regularly wash it every two to three weeks.

  1. It breaks easily. My cats are not exceptionally aggressive, but it was damaged directly after a few months of use.
  2. Every wash requires removing screws. The screws are small and easy to lose. Couldn’t it have been designed for convenient removal?
  3. Aligning the soft liner with the machine’s filter screen is difficult. Every time, I have to reach in and lift the filter screen, which makes my hand hurt.
  4. After the silicone liner and the machine have been used for a long time, the gap becomes larger and litter leaks out.
  5. Most absurdly, there are two magnets on the soft liner, stuck on the outside with white glue. I estimate they are used by the sensor to identify the liner’s position. One fell out during cleaning, and I thought it was useless and threw it away. As a result, the machine reported an error after I put it back together. One magnet cost 20 yuan. I really have to ask: why couldn’t the magnets have been enclosed inside the liner during design? Why leave them exposed and create this trouble?

I do not know what the product designers were thinking, but if the strategy is to make users replace accessories frequently, this path will not last. Other brands are improving odor control or providing better consumables such as cat litter, continually strengthening the product itself.

There are a few more complaints.

  1. Serious litter scatter: the semi-open design itself makes this easy to understand, and I can accept that. But I need two litter-collection mats plus a robot vacuum to clean it up properly.
  2. Waste bin: the silicone at the back of the waste bin is not firm enough and sags, so feces can easily fall out.
  3. Frequent errors: after more than a year of use, various strange error messages became increasingly common. Customer service could resolve them, but it took several rounds of back-and-forth communication, which was quite troublesome.

Honestly, after using so many of these, only the Youpei automatic cat litter box was the best. Unfortunately, the company shut down.

Neakasa, please take a look at the suggestions above.

Source: 泥欧有俩猫 · Xiaohongshu · 2025-11-01 · 宜宝自动猫砂盆 1年多真实体验. Search this Chinese title in Xiaohongshu to find the original post.

Before You Buy

Models in your region

The owner identifies the tested product as the first-generation Neakasa M1, while the supplied US and EU official listings identify the current regional product as the Neakasa M1 Plus. The official pages do not establish identical components between these products, so the owner’s failures should not be treated as tests of the Plus upgrades.

Model in this review Related regional model What to know
Neakasa M1 first-generation automatic cat litter box Neakasa M1 Plus (US) The owner uses the first-generation M1. The US official reference is the newer M1 Plus, so its listed features and upgrades do not confirm the performance or internal construction of the owner’s Chinese-market unit.
Neakasa M1 first-generation automatic cat litter box Neakasa M1 Plus (EU store; individual shipping country to be checked) The EU official reference is also the M1 Plus, a same-brand regional purchase reference rather than a confirmed match for the owner’s older M1. Check the destination country’s mains standard and support coverage before buying.
Model in this review
Neakasa M1 first-generation automatic cat litter box
Related regional model
Neakasa M1 Plus (US)
What to know
The owner uses the first-generation M1. The US official reference is the newer M1 Plus, so its listed features and upgrades do not confirm the performance or internal construction of the owner’s Chinese-market unit.
Model in this review
Neakasa M1 first-generation automatic cat litter box
Related regional model
Neakasa M1 Plus (EU store; individual shipping country to be checked)
What to know
The EU official reference is also the M1 Plus, a same-brand regional purchase reference rather than a confirmed match for the owner’s older M1. Check the destination country’s mains standard and support coverage before buying.

What the owner’s experience can and cannot establish

The owner used a first-generation Neakasa M1 for about 18 months and reports damage to the soft liner, difficult removal and alignment during cleaning, widening gaps that leaked litter, and increasingly frequent errors. These are reported observations from that unit, not a controlled test of the current M1 Plus.

The owner suspects that the exposed magnets help the machine identify the liner’s position, but this remains the owner’s speculation. The reported error followed the loss of one magnet during cleaning; the component’s function and whether the newer Plus uses the same arrangement remain unconfirmed.

Cleaning and litter-management trade-offs

The owner washes the liner every two to three weeks and found that doing so requires removing small screws, then manually lifting the filter screen to align the liner. Buyers who expect frequent deep cleaning should verify how the regional model’s liner and filter components are removed and secured.

The owner accepts that a semi-open design can scatter litter, but says two collection mats and a robot vacuum are needed for a clean floor. The current US M1 Plus listing describes an open-top rotating chamber and requires clumping litter; it does not establish the owner’s observed scatter level for that model.

The owner also reports that the rear silicone section of the waste bin became too soft and allowed feces to fall out. The M1 Plus also has a waste drawer, but identical silicone construction and the same long-term wear have not been confirmed for that newer model.

Regional M1 Plus buying checks

The US listing identifies the current product as the Neakasa M1 Plus, with app monitoring, Pull & Wrap waste disposal, an 11.23 L waste capacity and a 7.17 L litter capacity. It also lists six sets of infrared sensors, a sealing strip and a leak-prevention layer, while noting that the current listing is sold out.

The EU listing identifies the M1 Plus as an open-top rotating-chamber model with a waste drawer, app monitoring and an added seal. It advises checking the correct mains standard and destination-country support. Neither official listing establishes that the Chinese first-generation M1 and regional M1 Plus share the same internal parts or warranty terms.

The US FAQ says cats below 2.2 lb should use Kitten Mode, which disables automatic cleaning. The listing also requires clumping litter and specifies a filter that accepts particles up to 3 mm in diameter and 10 mm in length. These regional specifications should be checked against the cat’s size and litter before purchase.

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