Unknown: Hey guys, it's Mallory
here with All About Cats. In this week's video, we're going
to be taking a look at the top five best self cleaning
automatic litter boxes on the market. If you've been watching
our videos for a while, you'll know that we've tried out a
number of automatic litter boxes and done in-depth reviews on
them. So over the last few months, I've been testing out
litter boxes, researching them, and figuring out what
differentiates a good litter box from a not-so-good litter box.
And what that experience has shown me is that there really is
no perfect automatic litter box. As you might imagine, an
automatic litter box is going to be significantly more prone to
flaws and malfunctions when compared to a traditional litter
box. And even after testing out most of the most popular
automatic litter boxes on the market, I've yet to find one
that ticks all the boxes for every person and every cat. So
in this video, I'm going to be telling you about my thoughts on
each of these litter boxes and which type of person I think is
going to get the most out of each of them. So our first
recommendation is going to be the Litter-Robot III with
Connect. Again, I've tried out a number of different automatic
litter boxes over the last year. And the Litter-Robot is the one
that I keep coming back to. It's the one that I'm actually using
currently with my two cats, and it's the one that I found to be
the most consistent. So in contrast to the majority of
automatic litter boxes that use a raking mechanism to kind of
scoop up waste and then put it into a waste receptacle, the
Litter-Robot uses this rotating motion in order to sift out
waste. So you use a clumping litter and then clumps as well
as solid waste will be moved into the waste drawer, while
clean litter is stashed and then returned to the litter box at
the end of the cycle. The Litter-Robot's design allows it
to avoid a lot of the problems that I'm seeing in other
automatic litter boxes. I think the most obvious area where it's
set apart from the competition is in its lack of sticking. So
when I was using other automatic litter boxes, very often litter
would clump to the rake or other nooks and crannies around the
litter box. But because the Litter-Robot uses this rotating
sifting mechanism, it doesn't have a rake, and it has a rubber
liner that kind of pops out, with no real crevices where
waste could get stuck, it really doesn't have a lot of that
sticking. While I was using it with my cats, I found that the
Litter-Robot did a good job of keeping everything clean and
controlling odors. Additionally, the Litter-Robot pairs with the
Litter-Robot Connect app, which allows you to monitor the status
of your Litter-Robot, trigger manual cleanings, and make
certain adjustments in the way that the Litter-Robot works. It
also allows you to monitor your cat's usage of the Litter-Robot,
which is really beneficial since some other automatic litter
boxes leave you in the dark on what your cat is doing in there.
The Litter-Robot can also be paired with various smart home
appliances, like a Roomba. So for example, you can program
your Roomba to go into the room and do a cleanup every time that
the Litter-Robot cycles. So overall, between its clean
cycling, reliable performance and the advantages of the
Connect app, I've been pretty happy with the Litter-Robot. Now
I've had some issues over the years using the Litter-Robot.
For example, my larger cat, Wessie, finds it a bit too
cramped, and my lighter cat, Forest, doesn't always activate
the Litter-Robot. So sometimes it won't detect her in the box
and it won't run a cycle after she uses it. Overall, I would
say that if you can stomach the $499 price tag, the Litter-Robot
III is a worthwhile investment. Now our next recommendation is
the Petsafe ScoopFree Ultra. The Petsafe ScoopFree Ultra works
with silica gel crystals, which are already a really
low-maintenance alternative to traditional cat litter. So the
Petsafe ScoopFree really only needs to scrape across and
remove any solid waste and store it in a little waste pocket at
the end of the litter box. The urine can just remain in the
tray for anywhere between a week and a month, depending on how
many cats you have. After up to a month if you're using it with
one cat, you're just going to discard the contents of the tray
and replace it with a new tray full of silica gel crystals. In
my experience with the Petsafe ScoopFree, I found that this a
pretty consistent automatic litter box. I haven't noticed a
lot of malfunctions or jamming or issues that I've seen with
other self cleaning boxes on the market. Now, it's not the most
thorough cleaner. There are definitely some particles
remaining after it runs through, and I found that the trays
tended to fill up a little bit more quickly than was promised
on the package. So with two cats, I was probably changing it
out about once a week. I'd say that the PetSafe ScoopFree has
two big drawbacks. One is that it works best with crystal
litter, which is one of the least popular options. Cats tend
to feel a little uncomfortable with silica gel crystals under
their paws. And then the second concern is that it can get kind
of expensive over time, especially if you're using those
disposable trays. Now there is one way to reduce your recurring
costs which is using a reusable tray and that can get your price
down significantly. If you already know that your cats are
comfortable using a crystal litter, then the PetSafe
ScoopFree could be an excellent choice. It costs $139.95, making
it a moderately-priced automatic litter box. I tried the original
ScoopFree Ultra, but there's now a second generation available,
which has a nice little health monitoring system so you can see
how many times your cat has used the litter box, and it costs the
same amount as the original PetSafe ScoopFree Ultra. So if
you're interested in getting some more insights into your
cat's usage of the litter box and trying something that looks
a little bit more sleek and modern, then I would recommend
going for the second generation of the PetSafe ScoopFree Ultra.
Now, our next recommendation is labeled as the best
self-flushing litter box, but it's really the only
self-flushing litter box you can buy. So while all of the other
automatic litter boxes shown here do require that you dispose
of the waste once it's accumulated in their waste
receptacles, the Cat Genie flushes itself. When I was using
the Cat Genie, I found that it had some good qualities and some
bad qualities. One issue with the Cat Genie is that it needs
to be installed near a cold water line, which means that it
can only be installed in either a laundry room or a bathroom
with my cats not going into the laundry room and scared to enter
the bathroom. This was kind of a tricky situation, you're going
to want to keep that placement issue in mind when considering
whether or not you want to purchase the Cat Genie. Once the
Cat Genie is installed, it's going to cycle automatically
either every time that your cat uses it or according to a
schedule of your choosing. Each Cat Genie cycle involves four
stages. So first, it's going to scoop out any waste, then it's
going to wash the proprietary plastic granules that go into
the bowl. Then it's going to flush the waste into your toilet
or your drain, and then it's going to dry those granules in
the bowl. Overall, this process takes over 30 minutes, I found
that it worked consistently. But cleaning wasn't entirely
thorough and any particles remaining in the litter box
could cause some odor during the drying cycle. At the same time,
once the drying cycle was complete, there wasn't any odor
in the litter box. And at the end of the day, you have a
self-flushing litter box that's capable of taking your cat's
waste and flushing it away down your toilet. Between difficulty
and finding a location that my cats would accept and which was
also close enough to an outlet and also close enough to a cold
water line, as well as those concerns about some odor during
the drying process, I found that the Cat Genie wasn't really the
best fit for my household. But I know that this is an automatic
litter box with kind of a cult following. A lot of people
really really like the convenience of a self-flushing
litter box. And the Cat Genie offers that. So if you have an
appropriate location that you know your cats are going to use,
you're willing to do a little bit of extra setup to get
started, and your top priority is really stepping back from
having to clean the litter box then I think the Cat Genie could
be a good option. Now the next recommendation is labeled as the
best automatic litter box for small cats. But really, it's
just kind of a an honorable mention. It's the PetSafe Simply
Clean. The PetSafe Simply Clean uses a slightly different
cleaning mechanism than the typical automatic litter box. So
it has a circular pan that slowly rotates and eventually
moves any waste of this conveyor and into a waste receptacle at
the back of the unit. By using this very slow rotation, the
PetSafe Simply Clean is able to operate a bit more quietly than
your typical automatic litter box. And it's relatively
unobtrusive with its small size. That being said, its small size
can also be an issue. So its litter bed is quite small and
probably isn't going to be the best choice for multiple-cat
homes or larger cats. In my experience, the PetSafe Simply
Clean did a pretty good job of cleaning out the litter box when
it was working. But unfortunately, I ran into a
number of malfunctions. Starting on the day that I set it up and
started using it, the first error light indicated that the
PetSafe Simply Clean hadn't been assembled just right, something
was loose, something wasn't set into place correctly. So I had
to make a few adjustments and the error light went off. But I
found that over the period of time that I was using, it the
error light would just come back on for what seemed to me no
apparent reason. And then after that I started seeing an error
light that indicated that something was wrong with the
motor. And this is a really common complaint in customer
reviews. A lot of people are saying that something went wrong
with either one or both of the PetSafe Simply Clean's motors
within a week of purchase. So it seems that these issues are
really, unfortunately, quite common with the PetSafe Simply
Clean. Again, the reason why I'm including this on this list, in
spite of this history of repeated malfunctions, is the
fact that some people really do seem to like the PetSafe Simply
Clean. Some people are happy to do some tinkering with it and
have been able to get it to work consistently. And when it does
work, it seems to work pretty well. So I was eventually able
to get it running for several days at a time, and it did a
pretty thorough job of keeping everything clean. At $89.95, the
PetSafe Simply Automatic Clean is a smidge cheaper than your
typical automatic litter box. And our last recommendation is
our budget pick, which is the Litter Maid. The Litter Maid,
like the PetSafe ScoopFree, is an old classic. It has a
standard raking mechanism that moves across the litter bed and
then picks up waste and drops it into a waste receptacle. The
Litter Maid is perhaps what most people think of when they think
about an automatic litter box. Again, it's really an old
classic. But when I use the Litter Maid, my experience was
pretty disappointing. It failed to pick up waste in three
different ways. One was that there were kind of areas on the
litter tray that the rake just didn't touch, and so waste would
just accumulate there. Secondly, the rake would often pick up a
clump and then just kind of carry it along and never deposit
it into the waste receptacle. So it would just be deposited back
into the litter tray. And thirdly, the rake would just
miss some smaller crumbs. And so those would remain in the litter
tray after a cycle was done. I also noticed there were a few
different areas on the sides of the Litter Maid where waste
would tend to get clumped up and stuck. And of course, the rake
couldn't make it there. Personally, I feel that I was
spending more time cleaning up after the Litter Maid than I was
enjoying that convenience. But I know that there are some people
who would disagree with me who would say that the Litter Maid
has made their life easier. So again, at $79.99, the Litter
Maid is one of the cheapest automatic litter boxes on the
market. So that's about it for a few of the best automatic litter
boxes you can buy. Again, the Litter-Robot and the PetSafe
ScoopFree are the only ones that I would really actively
recommend. The Cat Genie could be a good option if you're
really interested in not handling any more cat waste, and
the PetSafe Simply Clean and Litter Maid are options to
consider if you're looking for something a little bit cheaper
and are willing to take a gamble in terms of performance. If
you're curious about learning more about any of the automatic
litter boxes mentioned here, there will be links to the
in-depth video reviews of each of them in the description. And
you'll also see links to all of them listed so that you can
purchase them if you're interested. And while you're in
the description, you'll see a link to sign up for our free
recall alert program. So this is an entirely free program that
sends you alerts every time there's another recall in the
United States. It's an effortless and again completely
free way to stay informed and help to keep your cat safe.
Again, I hope you found this video helpful, and if there ar
any other automatic litter boxe that you would like us to cover
please let us know about it i the comments. Thank
