Pet Zone Smart Scoop Automatic Cat Litter Box,

After seeing all the “horrible” photos, I was hesitant but still made the purchase thinking worse case I’ll just return it.This litter box actually works pretty great! I use the World’s Best litter and by the time the rake starts working, the pee has already clumped pretty well to scoop up. I only need to manually sift the chunks this litter box left there once 3-4 days. My cat isn’t picky so I’m sure if I do it once a week, she’ll be fine too. I also don’t really throw away the plastic bag that often either. I just pick it up and dump the waste out. Also when you notice the rake isn’t picking up waste as great as before, it means you need to change into new litter so it can clump better for the rake to pick things up.There’re only two tricky things about this litter box. One is that my cat likes to pee and poop on the same side of the litter box, which means the bin can get a bit of an overflow on one side and the other side would be quite empty. Once 2-3 days, I’ll need to shift it a bit so the bin can keep catching more waste. Another thing is that when you have a power outage and when the power comes back, the box needs to be manually turned back on again. Just keep that in mind when you go on longer trips to make sure someone’s going to be there to check their water, food and this litter box.But overall, really happy with this purchase! Better than I expected and glad that I can go on short trips again!

UPDATE #2:Owner for 6 years. Went through one under warranty, then had to replace the motor unit out of warranty for $35 with improved design. Not too bad, comes to about $26/year of fairly dependable operation. I’ve decided to try another brand since the motor unit just broke again, and it is going to take too much effort to even remove it from the pan. I never really liked how dirty the components got, the shallow amount of litter the pan accepted, and the noise.UPDATE:I had an earlier version of this unit which had known issues with broken plastic gears. They sent me a new motor unit with metal gears. I think this happened after about a year or maybe 2. It worked with my low maintenance cat ever since.Then I took in a crazy stray cat that is totally available for adoption in Socal as of this review (Jan 2019). I estimate he generates 1/2 his body weight in poo every day. I’ve had him a few months and the extra strain has broken my spirit, but not this litter box.I see reviews about bad motors, but not experienced this, perhaps I was sent a new motor unit at the right time before they cheapened it? Maybe there is too much load on the motor with too much litter? At any rate, the competition does not seem any better with people regularly changing motors or just buying replacements every year or so. This product has exceeded my expectations while service from the manufacturer was good and prompt. It must have been out of warranty when it broke. Although the plastic gears were a flawed design that should have been taken care of.’d expect about 5 years of operation out of something like this and it looks like it will get there. I also expect improvements but it looks exactly the same in the photo as my older box, which is disappointing: The rake is still not great (difficult to clean, too large to scoop everything, doesn’t reach bottom, doesn’t groom the litter), it could use more litter depth, motor seems weak noisy and slow, and it could use a larger bin with a better lid to seal the waste. It needs to be emptied too often.4.5 stars, which rounds up to 5_________________________________________________Owner for 12 months. I have four issues so far:The photosensor (I assume) doesn’t seem to be able to detect my cat 100% of the time. I put my hand in front of it and trigger it. My cat uses the box and nothing happens. My cat is black as the night.The rake has 1/2 inch wide openings, way larger than any hand scoop. It also doesn’t quite reach the bottom. It tends to miss a lot of little things.You can only put in about 2-3 inches of litter according to the instructions. That’s not enough. Any litter brand will tell you on the packaging that you want at least 3″, but they are telling you to only put in enough for one use of the box. After that it will essentially be running low on litter. This seems to be the root of many other reviewers problems as clumps stick to the bottom and cause failure. If they just designed for deeper litter it seems like a lot of issues would go away.The unit doesn’t groom the litter in any meaningful way after scooping. So, the rake could be a lot better. So could the pathetic motors that all of these automatic litter boxes seem to use. It pushes the litter to the end of the box and strains the motor.The rake recently started getting caught on the end where a there is a raised plastic feature.The waste bin can get full on one side in just a couple days depending on your cats habits, which blocks any new waste from entering and creating a mess. I have a skittish kitty, and the unit is quiet enough that he just seems curious rather than afraid (bit noisy for a bedroom though). After many months he continued to be fascinated by it. I was sure to be around the first time he used it.It does mostly work, but it’s only marginally better than an old fashioned litter box at ten times the price.I have bumped it up from 3 to 4 stars. I was expecting it to break just looking at the other review, but it’s still working after over a year of daily use. It’s good to have if you are busy/lazy/out of town.

I have been using this unit for nearly a year now. There are a few things that I have learned.I’ve tried multiple litters; light-weight, clumping litter seems to work best. I’m currently using the Tidy Cat with Fabreze. I’ve tried the “all natural crushed walnut” litter; once. It molded like crazy.Don’t over-fill it! About an inch of litter in the unit is all you need. If you over-fill it, it will have a hard time pushing through the litter.Don’t think that you won’t ever have to clean it. The rake doesn’t always get to the very bottom of the pan, so if urine has clumped down on the bottom of the pan, it’s time for a cleaning. The great part is, cleaning it is pretty simple. The rake / collector unit lifts off by simply pulling the black lever under the lid. The motor comes off by unlocking it and sliding it. Everything except the motor itself can be washed, hosed off, whatever. I think I end up completely changing the litter and giving it a thorough cleaning about every 2 months; and this is with THREE CATS.I mean, let’s face it. There will never be a completely automated cat litter box that doesn’t need occasional maintenance; but I have to say that this one is about as close as you can get. I empty the tray every few days (mainly when I see that the lid isn’t closing completely because it’s full), and give it a hose down every couple of months.The only down side about this box that I have found is that while it does appear to have a sensor for when the cat is IN the box, it doesn’t appear to have one if the cat is behind the mechanism. This did result in one of our cats getting briefly trapped in the unit; needless to say he never did it again. He wasn’t injured, and the motor-release was right there, but it did cause me some worry about how he may have been injured if we weren’t right there. I suppose that would be my biggest request for this unit; put a motion sensor on the back side of the mechanism, so cats who are a little short in the brains department (like one of mine) doesn’t get trapped by the returning mechanism.Pros:Works quite well, even in a multi-cat environment.Isn’t super noisyEasy to disassemble and cleanMotor seems well built and ruggedCons:Overfilling it can cause it to stop workingPower failure will turn the unit off; it won’t clean until you turn it back on.No sensor to avoid entrapment on the return cycle of the unitOverall, this is a good purchase for the money.

I am so over scooping! I only have one cat. I really question how it would do with more. But, I love it! It is easy to dispose of the litter. I do so twice a week, unless I go out of town. Then the whole litter box is quite full. It is one of the least expensive automatic litter boxes. It does not have all the bells and whistles of others. It is very basic, yet easy. It is not too hard to put together. It had an electric cord.

Pet background – I have 4 cats, 2 adults, 2 kittens.I have several automatic cat litters. Because of medical issues, daily cleaning of cat litters isn’t possible for me, and so I had to find a solution. I originally (and still have) PetSafe’s automatic litters, but the upkeep is expensive with the crystals, and the crystals get everywhere! It can also smell after a while as it stores the stool and there’s no way to really get rid of it without tumping the whole litter box.So I decided to try a different type of auto litter box, and decided on this one. It’s reasonably priced and uses regular clumping litter.Pros:- My cats prefer it over the crystal litter- Good Price- Uses clumping litter vs special litter- Easy cleanup- Good customer service- Modular, which makes it easy to dissemble for deep cleaning and replace parts- Will send you replacement partsNeutrals (Not a pro, but not a con either)- Works best with sand litter, I use Arm & Hammer Platinum Slide- No louder then my PetSafe litters, but I wouldn’t put it in a bedroom if you’re a light sleeper- You will have to scoop on occasion – usually from urine that’s settled to the bottom and the rake just can’t access. No biggy – I just scrape it off the bottom and re-run it and it cleans itselfCons:- No hood- ‘On’ light is BRIGHT – it lights up the whole room- If there’s too much waste, it can fall out of the rake during the ‘raising’ period when it’s dumping.On the subject of good customer service. One of the bigger complaints about this unit is that the motor goes out. Mine did. I troubleshooted it (made sure I hadn’t over filled the litter and cleaned the motor to insure litter dust wasn’t clogging it up) but it didn’t work. I could hear the motor going clear across the house. So I contacted the company directly and just asked for a replacement motor. I didn’t need a whole new unit, and the thing is easy to take apart so it wouldn’t be a hassle to replace.Customer service got back to me well withing 24 hrs and had no problem sending me a replacement. They continue to followup until I received my replacement, and made sure I was satisfied. I got my replacement very quickly at no cost, and am very satisfied.Over all, I really like this cat litter and plan to eventually completely phase out the PetSafe ones and switch to this typeSpecial shout out to Katie in customer service!