I own two cats, Wylie (who behaves as though he’s the Pharaoh of Egypt) and Hammy (given to me by a homeless person) who is a spaz.  I love cats.  I also like dogs and I have two of those as well. But one thing I hate is cleaning up after my cats.  I have indoor cats; I’m not one of these pet owners who let their cats out into the neighborhood to do what it is cats do in my neighbor’s yard.  For years, I’ve used clumping litter because it was easier to clean out than the clay stuff.  Then came Litter Maid. Litter Maid is an electronic, automatic litter box cleaning system that sweeps clumps after sensing that a cat has been there.   The problem with Litter Maid and automatic litter box cleaning systems like it is that they’re too noisy, bulky and even messy.   I ended up giving away my Litter Maid and was resigned to scooping up the messes of my felines.  I have researched other automatic litter cleaning systems but they had little more to offer than the original Litter Maid.

Now comes the Litter Robot Automatic Self Cleaning Cat Litter Box from Automated Pet Care Products Inc.

This device stands heads and shoulders above every other automatic litter box or any system that dares to call itself an automatic self cleaning litter box.  This device redefines the basic design of the litter box itself.  Dome shaped, the litter box sits on top of the waste drawer.

Top Dome and Waste Drawer Platform. The dome sits atop the waste drawer.

Once your cat enters the dome, does what it is supposed to do and then steps out, the dome rotates after seven minutes, sifts the waste out into the drawer beneath the dome and then returns the cleaned litter and rotates upright.   Absolutely no mess, seriously no fuss and next to no noise.  This device makes little or no noise and, unlike the Litter Maid and its counterparts, there is very little overspill of litter. The only litter you should see is what your cat tracks out.

In addition to the cleanliness and convenience of this device, for dog owners, there is an added bonus.  Anyone who has ever had cats and dogs together in the same home knows that dogs favor this thing I like to call “kitty roca”.  I think we all know what I mean by that.  With a traditional litter box, hooded or not, there’s really no  way to keep your pooch from sampling the kitty roca.  Up until now, we’ve had to use baby gates to gate off the “cat area”; the area where they eat, drink and have their litter box.  Since the holding area of Litter Robot sits up on top of the waste drawer platform and the opening is large enough for a cat, the angle to get at the litter is very difficult for all but the most determined dog.  We have Corgis and they’re not fond of Litter Robot.  Also by the time they can possibly figure out how to even poke their heads through the opening, the seven minutes are up and Litter Robot begins its cycle. The slight noise and movement should be enough to scare off any dog from wanting to stick their face in the area.  I love it.  My dogs hate Litter Robot.

Cats have reputations for being finicky animals and it’s never a smart undertaking to move or change their litter box.  My cats are creatures of habit and heartily dislike having their routine of eat, drink, groom, go to the litter box and 18 hours of beauty sleep interrupted.  They want what they want, when they want it.  Even if it means getting their paws underneath my bedroom door and rattling the door against the frame (I have a historical house with old wood floors) at the unseasonable hour of 5:25 am to wake me up so that I might nobly serve them their breakfast.  Messing around with their litter box prompts them to show their displeasure by using my bathtub for their nefarious schemes.  I think we all know what I am talking about.  Litter Robot is prepared with a handy instruction manual filled with tips for the event that your cat might sniff around the new Litter Robot but not necessarily accept it as their new “Place of Business”.

When it happened that my cats would sniff around Litter Robot but not venture forth, I read up on the handy tips, utilized their suggestions and my cats are now happy Litter Robot users…although Hammy bolted from the room when the Robot begans its rotation cycle.

One of my favorite features is the waste removal drawer.

Litter Robot platform and waste removal drawer

This drawer is easily removed and comes with special notches that you pull the edges of plastic trash bag liners through to hold it taut.  When it comes time to empty the box, you just pull up the plastic liner and toss.

Plastic bags/liners pulled through notches and held taut to catch falling waste. A benefit of Litter Robot is that you can use just about any type of plastic bag to line the waste drawer and it's easy to install.

Another added benefit of Litter Robot is that there are no “special exclusive liners” to purchase… you can use small bathroom trash bags; I use the plastic bags I get from the grocery store (make sure there are no holes).  Litter Robot also works with almost any clumping litter although the wheat based litters like Swheat Flushable Cat Litter and pellet type litters do not work well with Litter Robot.  The unit comes with a complimentary bag of clumping litter but the instruction manual encourages you not to use it if your cats are already familiar with a particular type of clumping litter.

The website (http://www.litter-robot.com/) details how Litter Robot (which we affectionately nicknamed Robo-Kitty) works including a very cool animated bit.  You can adjust the sensitivity based on your cat(s) weight or just manually cycle the Robot yourself.   Adjusting the sensitivity of your cat is one area that I have discovered is a little hit or miss with Litter Robot.   If the sensor does not register that a cat has entered and done its thing, the Robot will not cycle and you will be required to manually cycle the Robot yourself.  Owners of kittens and cats that are typically lighter weight or smaller framed are not candidates for Litter Robot.  Kittens and small sized adult cats are too light in weight to trip the sensor.  If you have a medium or larger cat and a kitten and the larger cat has recently used the Robot, you run the risk of the Litter Robot activating its rotation cycle with a kitten still in the dome as the kitten’s weight will not register.

As with everything pro there have to be some cons.  Litter Robot has some cons.  The first con is the Customer Service number of Automated Pet Care Products, Inc. which sells Litter Robot.  There is a toll free number on the instruction manual and on the website but no one actually answered the phone the two different times that I called.  I was prompted by an automated answering voice to leave my name and phone number with assurances that someone would get back to me.  In an economy where most people hit the “Forget It” button when presented with a situation where they have to rely on a customer service individual to get back to them, this is just bad business in my book.  Nine times out of ten, the CSR calls back at an inopportune time.  My Litter Robot unit did not cycle automatically despite my adjusting the sensor to the highest mode of sensitivity.  I have to manually cycle the unit each time I go into the room to feed my cats.  This is twice a day.  This is no real big deal to me.  It’s no extra effort to manually cycle the machine.  All I do is press a button and off it goes.  But the unit is advertised to be automatic and either our cats are under the 5lb weight mark needed to trip the sensors (not the case with Hammy) or the sensor isn’t tripping properly. Some individuals MIGHT have an issue with the sensor having a glitch, I didn’t.  I press a button, it does all my dirty work.  I’m not complaining.  But to give Litter Robot a fair shake, I plan to keep on contacting the Customer Service Department to work out the sensor glitch and will report on that in a follow up review.  They even provide an email addresses for various customer issues.

Another con could be the price. At $349.00 for the Expanded unit which I have and $329.00 for the Original unit           ( $289.00 and $269.00 for reconditioned units), Litter Robot is pricey compared to other automatic self cleaning litter boxes that are on the market.  But the company promises a 90 day money back guarantee if you just can’t get Mr. Kitty to use it and an 18 month warranty.

It's a very tall box that Litter Robot comes shipped in.

In my book, the benefits of Litter Robot far outweigh the high price.  Litter Robot eliminates the smell, the mess, the inconvenience and the trouble of a clumping litter box and the trouble of cleaning a cat box period.  You save money on litter, you save time by not having to scoop so often, the waste removal is a breeze, and you can recycle plastic grocery bags to use in the waste removal drawer. You can’t beat the stink elimination either.  No one coming to your house would ever guess that you have cats.  Compared to its noisy counterparts, Litter Robot does make a quiet noise when cycling but you’d have to be in the room to hear it.  It’s nowhere near as loud, raucous and obnoxious as the less expensive and clumsy self cleaning boxes on the market.  Sensor lights on the front panel also let you know when the Robot is full, cycling or ready to go.

My cat Hammy poses with Litter Robot. Actually we had to hide around the staircase for a good ten minutes to get this photograph.

I cannot say enough great things about Litter Robot.  I would like to criticize the price, but it’s more than worth it.  My only wish now is that the Litter Robot company would make a unit for dogs.  Then I’d be set!

Filed in categories: Pet Gadgets, Reviews

Tagged: Litter box, Pets

Litter Robot Automatic Self Cleaning Litter Box Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 5, 2010 at 8:22 am.

Cats make great pets because they don’t require a lot of attention like dogs do. Just give them a bowl of food and a pan of litter and they can pretty much take care of themselves. The only down side to having an indoor kitty is that we humans have to clean their ‘toilet’ for them. Not fun… Today Judie of Gear Diary and I are going to tell you all about the CatGenie. It’s an alternative to the traditional litter box. Will our cats love it? Will we love it?

My comments are in Black and Judie’s are in Blue italics.

I’ve had cats as pets since I was a kid. Back then they were always outside pets that would only come indoors to eat and play, but would go outside to use the bathroom. When I grew up and moved into my own house, I still had a cat, but we fixed a bed and litter box in the garage for them. That is until a few years ago when I was away on a business trip and came home to find that Jeanne had brought the litter box inside so that Max wouldn’t be alone. Of course he never went back into the garage after that and I ended up being the main cat box cleaner. Yay… not.

I’ve also had cats as pets since I was a kid, and they were always indoor – outdoor cats as well. Since mom or dad always took care of the litter box, I never thought about how much trouble it could be to keep up with one properly, until I was a young adult. That’s when I had to contend with my cat Groucho’s box, which as much as I loved her, was definitely a buzzkill. After finding out that the “summer colds” I had always suffered from were actually a massive allergic reaction to cats, I had to give her away.

Fast forward to two years ago, when I threw caution to the wind and allowed Sarah to bring home the charming Miss Avah. The conditions were that Sarah would give Avah weekly baths, and that she would maintain the litterbox. As if! The duty soon fell to me, but since Avah had completely stolen my heart, I didn’t mind too much.

As soon as I get home every day after work, my first task is to clean the cat box. We use clumping litter, which is messy and dusty. My 15lb cat Max (we think he might have some Maine Coon blood in him) is a real slob. Most days there is more litter on the floor than in the cat box. So I have to also sweep up the litter with a broom and a dust pan. I suppose this chore isn’t THAT horrible, but it can be time consuming and it’s just icky.

I had the opportunity to try the ScoopFree litter box several years ago and found it to be an improvement over traditional cat boxes. But it was still messy and required me to clean out the ummm…. nuggets every few days, so it really wasn’t THAT much different from a regular box. I know you’ve tried other cat boxes too, what did you think of them?

Avah was fairly young when I was able to ditch her basic litter box and replace it with a Litter-Robot I’d been sent to review. Not only did she take to it like a fish to water, I was thrilled with the fact that I no longer had to scoop! The one caveat was that once a week I would have to pull out the drawer and remove a bag full of “doody”, but compared to daily scooping, using the Litter-Robot was nothing short of easy street.

Jenn from Pocketables was the first person to tell me about the CatGenie after I had reviewed the Litter-Robot, but there were a couple of things which kept me from really considering one. The CatGenie has to have access to a water line for cleaning and disposal purposes and to an electrical outlet, but the way my bathroom and laundry room at the San Angelo house were set up, installing one simply wasn’t feasible.

After Kevin and I had begun renovations on our new house in Eldorado, it quickly became evident that there would be extra space in the utility room. About that time, both Julie and I were offered CatGenie review units. Coincidence? I think not.

Package Contents

CatGenie cat box and associated parts
2 Boxes of washable granules
2 SaniSolution cartridges
Installation instructions

The CatGenie can be installed one of two ways. Either in the location where you have your washer installed, or in a bathroom.

Space is a major deciding factor when setting up the CatGenie; the CatGenie is fairly large, as you can see in this diagram…

Neither of our new home’s bathroom’s were properly laid out for an unobtrusive installation, so the utility room was our only real choice. From reading information on the CatGenie site, I also knew that it would be my preferred location, because utility room installation offered true automation with no human interaction. You see, when the CatGenie is installed using a washing machine’s cold water supply line and drain pipe, there is nothing to manually remove after the device has worked its magic; the waste is automatically flushed into sewage, or in our case – the septic system.

As luck would have it, Kevin’s brother Mark is a plumber. All I had to do was hand him the boxes, and when I returned the setup was complete (like magic!).

Installation isn’t that difficult, however. The only tool that you need is a pair of pliers to attach the larger T-Adapter.

The only change from the installation shown in the photos and the paperwork that accompanied my CatGenie was that you should not attach the hook to the Genie Drain Hose anymore; instead, the CatGenie’s drain hose is to placed directly inside the laundry drain, next to the washing machine’s drain hose.

The black hose is my washing machine's drain; the ribbed off-white hose is the CatGenie's drain, and the smooth white hose is its water supply.

After attaching the water line and the drain hoses, all that’s left of the installation process is adding the supplies (which Julie will talk about in a moment) and then plugging in the CatGenie.

Since Max’s litter box has been located in the spare bathroom and my washer / dryer was in the basement, I went with the bathroom install. I was worried that he wouldn’t adjust to going to a different location very easily.

Installation in a bathroom requires the smaller T adapter. You have to add the fitting to the water line coming into your toilet. While it’s not difficult, I didn’t want any surprises, so I had Jeanne’s brother Dusty (who is a plumber) come over and do it for me.

Before installation of the T adapter

Hook up requires you to turn off the water to your toilet and install the smaller T adapter. It took Dusty less than 10 minutes.

After installation of the T adapter

The White hose is the water supply line. It connects to the CatGenie and provides water to fill the bowl where the washable granules are located.

The Beige hose is the drain hose. You attach the flexible drain hook to the end of the drain hose and place it over the edge of the toilet. This is where the waste water from the CatGenie will drain. It’s up to you to flush the toilet.

The only steps left to setup the CatGenie are to snap in a SaniSolution cartridge and pour the washable granules into the bowl.

A scented cartridge was included with our kits, but they are also available unscented. I think the scented version smells pretty good, especially since it only gets activated when the cleaning cycle is running, but it bothered Kevin.

The cartridge and granules are the only consumables for this product. Each cartridge should last for approximately 60 flushes of the CatGenie and the granules never need changing. You just need to add some to the bowl to always keep the level at the fill line.

In the month+ that we have been using our CatGenie, I have only had to top off the granules once.

I’ve not needed to add any yet.

Unlike conventional cat litter, the granules don’t have dust that you breath in (yuck). They look like tiny pieces of uncooked pasta. These granules are not absorbent and are cleaned during the washing process.

Allow me to digress for just a moment. That the granules are not absorbent is both good and bad: good because the granules are reusable; nothing gets wasted, poo doesn’t stick to them, and they are economical in their own way. But I also think that they are bad because they aren’t at all absorbent. This becomes especially noticeable if you have uncarpeted floors…you will see kitty paw prints leading away from the CatGenie, and that’s not mineral water allowing their creation.

I’ve not had this issue yet because for some reason Max doesn’t dig in this box. He just does what he needs to do and hops out.

The cartridge easily snaps into the top of the unit. The CatGenie alerts you when there are only 10 wash cycles left. Next to the cartridge slot is the control panel. There are just two buttons that you use to set the cleaning cycles.

The idea here is to watch your cat and see when he or she is usually asleep; once you’ve decided a certain time is safe, you need to be at the CatGenie to press the Auto Setup button. When you press it, successive Daily Cycle’s numbers will light up. If you want the CatGenie to only operate once a day, you’ll hit it once; for two times a day you tap it twice, and so on. I have only Avah, so once a day has been more than enough. If you have an extremely potty-prone kitty or more than one cat, you’ll want to set the box to clean more often.

The CatGenie site says that “one CatGenie works best with 2 to 3 cats of average size.” If you have more than three cats, then you might need to get another CatGenie. This device is also “best for kittens 6 months and older,” probably because it would be a bit of a climb for a small kitten.

I should mention that since there is no clock, just a timer, the cleaning cycles will run in either 24, 12, 8 or 6-hour intervals – all based on the original time that you set during the Auto Setup.

With that said, if you ever need to run the CatGenie an additional time on any particular day, you can hit the Start Cycle button and the CatGenie will get busy.

I wish that the CatGenie had an automatic mode that would start the cleaning process 5 minutes after the cat hops out of the box. After all, it does have the sensors to know when a cat is in the bowl. It uses them so that it won’t start the cleaning process while the cat is inside. It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to add that feature.

It probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal to add such a timer, but I think the reason that there isn’t one is because cats will go to the bathroom several times a day, and it takes so long to do a full cleaning cycle (never mind the cost of the SaniSolution). Since Avah is an indoors only cat (she’s declawed, after all), the litter robot would be going off ten times a day, if it were touch sensitive like the Litter-Robot was.

I have not been setting the CatGenie to run at different times during the day. I press the button to start the process manually. Especially now that it’s warm weather and Max is outside most of the day. I find that he isn’t using the box all that often, so I don’t want to waste any of the SaniSolution.

Yeah, that’s partly why I am running the CatGenie only once a day; I figure that way I can get two months out of the SaniSolution cartridge. See? I can be frugal!

The  cleaning process takes a little less than 30 minutes from start to finish. The bowl start spinning and the slotted scoop will extend down into the bowl to collect the cat poopies and drop them into the hopper. Liquids automatically drain into the slots in the bottom bowl.

This process is a bit startling and loud the first few times! Water will just start entering the basin, and it sounds similar to a washing machine starting. There are various stages of operation which all have their own crazy sounds…

The bowl spins both clockwise and counterclockwise.

It does this process three times and shakes the scoop to make sure that as few granules as possible are also flushed.

It makes these crazy clicking sounds when the scoop is shaking itself; the first time I heard it, I thought something was broken!

During this part of the cleaning operation, there is a lot going on that isn’t immediately evident. In case you were wondering, the cat poo isn’t sent through the tube into the sewer or septic intact; it is first ground up and liquefied – hairballs and all, so that nothing harmful can clog your drain line or mess with your septic system. The entire basin is also thoroughly washed and sanitized with the SaniSolution; when the cleaning process is over, it’s like you have a new CatGenie again!

Then the bowl will fill up with water and the slotted scoop will sift the granules around to clean them in the SaniSolution. Finally, hot air will blow the granules dry as the scoop aerates them.

It’s at this time that the scent from the SaniSolution becomes really evident. It doesn’t smell bad, but it smells more like a State Prison than a field of flowers Right!

This is another reason why I manually kick off the cleaning process… it is pretty loud. Max’s bathroom is not far from my bedroom. The cleaning cycle would definitely wake me up if it happened in the middle of the night. It’s as loud as a washer or an older dishwasher.

Exactly! This is definitely not a process that you would want running in the middle of the night; I made that mistake once, and the next day I made sure to reprogram.

I was worried that it would take Max a long time to become accustomed to the CatGenie and actually use it. I know that it took him forever to finally try the ScoopFree catbox. The instructions that came with the CatGenie suggested that you should leave the original cat litter box in the same room and not clean it. That the cat would finally go to the CatGenie instead because it was cleaner. I could only tolerate that for about 2 days before I just took the old box out of the house and told Max that he either had to hold it or use the new box I caught him at one point sitting on the toilet seat looking down at the CatGenie in either confusion or annoyance. He didn’t go to the bathroom at all for 24hrs, but he finally got a clue and used it. Yay!

When I first looked at the instructions, I nearly panicked. Avah was coming from using the Litter-Robot, and there was no way I was going to set that up in addition to the CatGenie. I thought about it for a minute, and realized that when she was a kitten, all I did to potty train her was put her in the box and help her scratch at the litter; she immediately got the concept, and has never had an accident. So when it came time to use the CatGennie, I didn’t even give Avah the opportunity to be finicky.

When we moved into this house, I put the Litter-Robot in storage (just in case she hated the CatGenie), put her in the CatGenie’s bowl, swished her paw in the “litter”, and walked away. She didn’t go immediately, but in a few hours Kevin nudged me so that I could catch Avah doing her business. YAY!

Besides not having to deal with cleaning litter clumps out of a box, the other great benefit that I’ve noticed is that there isn’t a ton of cat litter on the floor after he’s used this box. The granules do not stick to his feet as much as the other litter. I only find a few of them on the floor and they are easily swept up with a dustpan every day or two. Now we don’t feel disgusted when we need to use that spare bathroom because it feels so much cleaner without the old litter box in it. The initial cost for some folks might be a bit high, but for me, it’s totally worth it! Max likes it and I like it.

My experience with granules on the floor was a little bit different than Julie’s. I don’t know if Avah was just used to the dome on her Litter-Robot or what, but when she would get into the CatGenie she would swish granules everywhere! I am not sure if it’s because she is declawed and her pads are grabbing granules – or what, but every time she would exit, she brought a bunch of granules along with her. I was getting a bit frustrated because I absolutely loved the obvious benefits of the device, but my house was getting littered with litter!

Max doesn’t dig at all, so if he starts, I might end up with that same problem.

I solved that problem by buying the optional GenieDome and GeniePaws 3-Pack (I only needed two of them). Now, once again, Avah has a completely covered and contained litter box. An added benefit is that I do not have to see her exposed poo in the hours before or after a cleaning cycle. Any litter that gets trapped in the GeniePaws gets dumped right back into the CatGenie, and it seems like it might also be helping to wipe her paws a bit…although I still see the occasional cat paw print on our bamboo floors.

There’s no way to get around the fact that the CatGenie is pricey. Let’s break it down for a moment: You have the initial cost of the CatGenie itself ($297 for the “Tabby” package), you’ll have to buy supplies (granules and SaniSolution) throughout the year as needed, and for many people that be enough. But as mentioned, I decided that Avah needed the GenieDome ($34.99) and the GeniePads ($24.99).

One thing worth mentioning is that the GenieDome is actually a combination of two products – the dome and the Genie SideWalls. The SideWalls are the extra gray plastic shown above the bowl, and the separate dome pieces are white. I honestly think that the SideWalls would have been sufficient to keep the litter in the box on their own, but during installation I decided that covering the box with the dome would make the whole thing look much better; as I mentioned, we wouldn’t be able to see the poo laying there in between cleanings anymore.

So far I’m using mine as it came. I’m afraid that Max won’t fit in the box with the top on it And knowing how finicky he is, he might not even try to go in.

One of the big concerns that I had was whether or not the CatGenie would work properly and safely with our brand new septic. The last thing I wanted was to foul it up or back it up somehow, but I needn’t have worried. Because the granules aren’t absorbent, even if some of them do wind up passing through to the septic, they won’t harm anything.

FYI: Mark mentioned that the three things which can really harm the septic are egg shells – because they never break down, and potato skins or rice – because they swell up, take up space, and take forever to break down.

I was worried about the septic issue as well. The first time I ran the CatGenie after Max had gone #2, I thought I’d see a disgusting slurry in the toilet waiting to be flushed. Surprisingly, it was mainly just soapy looking water. The CatGenie really does a good job of breaking down the poo.

I didn’t think that it was possible, but I have found the CatGenie to be even more convenient than the Litter-Robot was, simply because there is absolutely nothing for me to do other than keep the supplies replenished. Julie has to flush her toilet after the CatGenie runs, but other than that? There is nothing else to do.

I’ll take flushing the toilet over stooping, scooping, dumping and sweeping any day!

The only caveat that I can immediately pinpoint, other than its price, is that extra thought that has to be put into where the CatGenie can be placed. There are just some homes where it will not work, and in a home like that, I would recommend the Litter-Robot without hesitation – simply because it only needs an electrical plug to run. But if you have a good spot to place one, the CatGenie takes litter box cleaning and convenience to a whole new level.

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Cats, Litter box, Pets

CatGenie Self-Flushing Self-Washing Cat Box Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 5, 2009 at 5:09 pm.