BISSELL expands into feline pet care with smart litter, fountain

BISSELL is moving beyond cleaning appliances and into day-to-day feline care, launching a new Pet Care line built around two connected products for cat households: the CleanWell automatic litter box and the HydrateWell automatic water fountain. The company announced the launch as part of its 150th anniversary push, and said the litter box includes OdorVault odor-sealing technology plus multiple safety features, while the fountain uses what BISSELL calls SlimeShield antimicrobial technology. The rollout is also tied to a consumer-facing partnership with reality TV personality Austen Kroll, who appears in launch materials alongside his cats. BISSELL’s site now lists the new Pet Care category as “coming soon,” signaling this is more than a one-off licensed promotion and instead a formal category expansion for the brand. (prnewswire.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the relevance is less about celebrity marketing and more about where consumer pet tech is heading: products are increasingly being positioned around hydration, litter box hygiene, odor control, and app-based monitoring, all of which intersect with feline urinary health and preventive care conversations in practice. Current feline guidance and consensus documents emphasize clean litter box access, appropriate litter tray management, and encouraging water intake, including fountains for some cats, as supportive measures for cats with lower urinary tract disease risk. BISSELL’s user materials also reference app-based “health monitoring insights,” which could further normalize home monitoring expectations among pet parents, though clinicians will still need to set expectations about what consumer devices can and can’t detect. (manuals.plus)

What to watch: Watch for pricing, retail availability, any published validation behind the monitoring claims, and whether veterinarians begin seeing more pet parents bring app-generated litter box or hydration data into feline urinary and wellness visits. (prnewswire.com)