Whisker、AI搭載トイレ「Litter-Robot 5 Pro」の誤作動を認める

The $899 Litter-Robot 5 Pro is a great pooper-scooper wrapped in AI that just doesn’t work.

by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Aug 17, 2026, 8:00 PM GMT+9

Image: The Verge, Getty Images

Whisker’s AI-powered litter robot thinks my cats swapped bodies

The $899 Litter-Robot 5 Pro is a great pooper-scooper wrapped in AI that just doesn’t work.

by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Aug 17, 2026, 8:00 PM GMT+9

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for *Wirecutter*, *Wired*, *Dwell*, *BBC*, and *US News*.

The greatest invention in pet tech in recent years is the litter robot. A machine that scoops your kitties’ poop so you don’t have to — what else could a cat owner possibly want? How about insights into your kitty’s litter box usage that could flag health issues? Sign me up. But I have two feline friends… No worries, kitty facial recognition can handle that.

At least, that is the idea behind the Litter-Robot 5 Pro, the highest-end model from the OG robotic pooper scooper company Whisker. Boasting a dual camera system and an array of sensors to literally sniff out your cat’s deposits, all wrapped up with AI algorithms and machine learning, the 5 Pro promises to not only deal with my boys’ bathroom habits but also accurately monitor and track them. It failed.

*Who could get these two precious faces mixed up? Smokey, left, and Boone, right, are indoor/outdoor kitties who love their Litter Robot, even if it can’t tell them apart.*

I spent six months testing the $899 Litter-Robot 5 Pro, alongside its budget counterpart, the $599 Litter-Robot Evo, both of which launched late last year. These ingenious devices work using sensors and motors. The cat goes into the large globe lined with litter; the sensors register him while he does his thing, and once he’s left, the robot rotates the drum to filter and sift the waste into the sealed bin below.

This takes away a yucky daily chore; you only have to empty the drawer about once a week, and it hides the gross litter box itself from view, while containing most of the smell.

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6 laptops for every kind of hustle

With brag-worthy battery life and on-device AI, these Snapdragon PCs are built to go from class to whatever comes after.

by Brandon Russell

Aug 10, 2026, 10:00 PM GMT+9

Photo-Illustration: Drew Spalding and Brittany Le

Photo-Illustration: Drew Spalding and Brittany Le

A good laptop should keep up with you, whether you’re on campus, at the office, or working from your favorite coffee shop. That’s exactly what the latest Snapdragon-powered PCs are built for. They pack dedicated AI processing into thin, light builds, with battery life that gets through a full workday and then some.

What sets these apart is the Snapdragon X Series processor inside. It keeps two dozen browser tabs, Zoom calls, and photo edits running at once without slowing down, and it powers the latest Copilot+ features, from summarizing a long article to captioning and translating a lecture video in real time. That’s the kind of freedom that makes a laptop worth the upgrade, giving you one less thing to think about so you can focus on the work itself.

The six models below all run on Snapdragon X Series processors, but each one is built for a different kind of person. We break down which laptop fits your life best.

$1700

The laptop for the power user who wants big performance without the weight. ASUS calls the Zenbook A16 the fastest and most powerful Snapdragon laptop. It handles intensive photo editing, gaming, and Windows’ most demanding AI features without breaking a sweat. What’s surprising is how light it stays despite the big screen. A 16-inch laptop this capable is usually something you leave on a desk, but this one weighs just over 2.5 pounds, so you can tote it around all day with ease. That lightness comes from Ceraluminum, a ceramic-and-metal blend that stays sturdy without the bulk. You also get a big, sharp OLED screen, more than 21 hours of battery, and a full set of ports, so the extra room to work never costs you the freedom to move.

$1100

The laptop for the person who’s always forgetting their charger. The HP OmniBook X runs up to 33 hours on a charge, enough to get most people through a day or two before they need an outlet. When it’s time to plug in, HP Fast Charge refills half the battery in about 30 minutes. The 14-inch 2K OLED display gives movies and spreadsheets plenty of room to breathe, and the built-in HP AI Companion can summarize your own documents in seconds. Meanwhile, the aluminum body is made partly from recycled metals and ocean-bound plastics, so it’s a bit kinder to the planet.

$1300

The laptop for the creator who wants a sharp screen in a slim package. At just 13.9 millimeters thin and a little over 2.5 pounds, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x slips into any bag, but the real draw is the 14-inch OLED screen. It has a resolution of up to 2.8K, so photos, video, and design work look crisp and true to color. A Snapdragon X2 Plus processor keeps everything moving while staying quiet, and the battery lasts up to 29 hours, so you can create wherever you are without worrying about scrambling for an outlet.