Looking to pick up a self cleaning litterbox but there are a lot of options. The coolest one I've seen by far is the CatGenie Automatic Cat Box, but it's nearly $500 and seems a little overkill.
I've also seen that the PetSafe Litterbox is a very popular choice, but it uses proprietary litter refills and crystal litter when I'd prefer clay litter.
I've been getting away with a $15 do-it-yourself litterbox just fine for a while, but I think I (and my cat) would appreciate something that doesn't require daily maintenance. Something as simple as an automatic rake would be interesting.
My main goals are:
- Requires as little maintenance as possible while keeping my cat happy and the smell under control
- No proprietary lock-in (I can use my own litter)
- Doesn't break the bank
- Built well, won't break / easy to fix / good warranty / cheap enough that I can just buy a new one if it breaks
While I am looking for budget friendly options, I'm also curious on the more expensive options. I can't imagine what justifies spending $700 on a Litter-Robot when emptying a litterbox manually isn't that bad and the CatGenie is $500 and promises zero-maintenance. Have you had good luck with premium options like that?
I have two Litter Robots (3rd gen) and I love them. They aren’t perfect but they are really good. My cat box maintenance is weekly and it takes 5 minutes to do both of them.
Cleaning them is a pain but you don’t have to do it super often.
No proprietary consumables. I’ve used four or five types of clumping litter, no issues. I use standard kitchen garbage bags in the catch pan.
They are expensive but after I bought the first and my cats got used to it I had to buy another. My cats walk on (comparatively) clean litter every time, which is a great benefit. And the time savings is huge.
Exact same situation here, two 3rd gens.
We did the same type of research you did OP, and honestly you have three options:
get a low cost 'automatic rake' box, which will break in a month if your pet has a bad day on the potty. Or worse, everything will get stuck to the rake and it'll be worse to clean than scooping the box.
you go with something proprietary like the crystal litter solutions.
or you get an expensive box like the litter machine.
Its certainly unfortunate that there aren't better options for cheaper, but I do think that it's the right choice in most cases. I have 4 cats and 2 litter boxes, and I empty them about once a week with a deep clean every 3 months or so. We do have one non automated box because sometimes they prefer that, but overwhelmingly they prefer the litter machines.
Yeah that's rough, especially when you start factoring in multiple litterboxes. $1k+ on litterboxes is a hard pill to swallow.
I also have the litter robot, latest gen. Very quiet and my cat loves having a clean litterbox all the time.
I recently did much of the same research and ended up just buying a LitterBot 4. Not perfect and the cat begrudgingly uses it, but it does mean I don't have to scoop the litter tray twice a day (or more) which is worth the outlay. The cheaper ones just seem to come with even more down sides.
I wish our cats would use our Litter Robot again. It was great for around a year, then they just stopped using it. I think I'll try cleaning it thoroughly and see if that helps.