Dave Enjoys » petnovations

CatGenie 120 – Looks Revolutionary.

davemackey — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:39:51 +0000

I’ve written several times in the past about my CatGenie from Petnovations. CatGenie is a self-cleaning litter box and while I’ve loved it, I’ve also experienced more than my fair share of problems. I’ve replaced most of the components (for free since the CatGenie includes a nice two year warranty) at least once and have spent numerous hours troubleshooting and cleaning the device. Still, I’m a fan of the concept and love the device (and recommend it).

There have been rumors for some time of the impending release of the next-generation CatGenie and today I finally received an email from PetNovations indicating the release was at hand (units become available August 1st). I’m pretty excited about this new release and hoping to get my hands on one sooner than later (::cough:: if PetNovations is reading this, they could send one ::cough::). Anyways, I figured I’d just let everyone know what has me so psyched up about this new CatGenie:

Auto-Sense Cleaning! Numerous self-cleaning litter boxes have had a sensor that allows them to detect when a cat has utilized the litter box and automatically launch a cleaning cycle a few minutes thereafter. This was one of the most significant features missing from the CatGenie and it has now been rectified. Further, Petnovations did a great job remembering to add a sleep cycle so that the CatGenie doesn’t run in the middle of the night.
Double-Life Cleaning Cartridges. Previously the cleaning cartridges were fairly expensive and lasted only 30 days in my multi-cat household (around sixty cleanings). With the new CatGenie, cartridges will last 120 cleanings – quite the improvement!
Better Software/Displays. They rewrote the software from the ground up, and being a techie this excites me just from the get-go. I love new software. But add to that better error handling (less annoying beeps reporting errors) and the display of actual error codes rather than using beep codes (beep beep beep = error 1, beep, beep, beep beep = error 2, etc.) – this is a significant upgrade.

I could go on, but instead I’ll let those who really have more interest read the original email from PetNovations:

“Dear Cat Lovers and Loyal CatGenie Owners,
Over the years, thousands of you have offered suggestions, insights, and feedback about your CatGenie.

You asked and we listened, evaluated, and acted. Thanks to you, we now introduce the CatGenie 120.
It has everything, and more, that you wished for. And while the CatGenie 120 may look the same on the
outside, on the inside it is a very different CatGenie. Here are some of the 120 benefits and features.

•   Greener, More Economical Cartridges
•   Economical, Eco Friendly Cat Activation
•   SaniSolution Level Indicator
•   Brand New, Smarter, Better Software
•   Save the Washable Granules
•   Easier Maintenance

Greener, More Economical 120 SaniSolution Cartridge
You asked and the Cartridge is now made with Biodegradable and Recyclable translucent material. And you’ll
now use 1/2 as many Cartridges. Because, with the reformulated, more concentrated SaniSolution, instead of 60
SaniSolution doses, the 120 Cartridge dispenses 120 washes. And when set on Cat Activation, it smartly adjusts
to 240 washing doses. Note: The 120 SaniSolution Cartridge won’t work in the original CatGenie and the 60
Cartridge can’t work in the CatGenie 120.

Economical, Eco Friendly Cat Activation
Your Wish: After the cat goes, have the CatGenie clean. Our Challenge: To make it economical and earth
friendly. We designed new software that adjusts the SaniSolution dosage from 120 to 240 washes because in
Cat Activation your CatGenie could clean more often. Cat Activation has two modes, 14 hours on ready-to-
clean, and 10 in sleep, when it doesn’t clean. However, if it’s used while sleeping, it immediately cleans when it
wakes up. During its 14-hour work time, CatGenie is cat and earth friendly and also cost effective. After your
cat does his business, your CatGenie waits 10 minutes before cleaning. In a multi cat household, that gives the
next cat time to come in. It then resets and waits another 10 minutes, to allow another cat to use it. CatGenie
does this until every cat has done its business. And you still have Auto Start and Manual Start options.

SaniSolution Level Indicator
In the new Control Panel, LEDs show you how much SaniSolution remains in the Cartridge, so you’ll always
know when to order more. The LEDs also show the error number, so you don’t have to just count the beeps.
And the beeps are softer and have shorter warning times to keep cats calm and happy.

Brand New, Smarter, Better Software
Based on your feedback, we started with a clean slate and created all brand-new software. This more robust
software is designed to stop false errors and to self-correct an error before bothering you with beeps and blinks.
The smart software can learn your CatGenie habits, its usage, and then adjusts to your home environment. I.E.
water pressure and water flow variables.

Save the Washable Granules
CatGenie 120 has a new Brim & Base. Both have been reengineered to greatly reduce Granule loss. No more
Granules in the gears. Smoother operation. Some other improvements include direct access to the Water Sensor
so no need to remove Brim for cleaning. The GenieScrubber is now in all units. Keeps the Base bottom clean
and germ free.

Easier Maintenance
No more taking CatGenie apart for a deep cleaning. Instead slip in the Machine Maintenance Cartridge
(available 9- 09) and run it 4 times a year. Other specialty programmed Cartridges are in the works.

Genie Arm & Hand now have an unbreakable connection. The weak link has been eliminated. So the
GenieHand can do its job without a break. And the Hand has teeth to grab and hold the solids. A stronger motor
now powers the Turbo Hopper, which helps it perform even better; a sharper Hair Cutter eliminates hairballs
fast and easy; and the Impeller Shaft was modified to split hairs finer.

There are about 120 reasons to upgrade. These are just a sample.

On August 1, 2009, our first large shipment of CatGenie 120 models arrives to accommodate anyone who
wishes to upgrade to the 120. This gives you a chance to use up some SaniSolution 60-wash Cartridges and to
decide if you’d like to upgrade. See column at left for upgrade directions.

Since December 08, hundreds of CatGenie owners like you have tested the CatGenie 120. The consensus is
universal. The CatGenie 120 provides an even better experience. Comments include… “It’s always clean… My
cats are happier… A cat that didn’t use the genie before, now is a convert… Love the 120 Cartridges… I would
pay full price for the 120… Now I don’t mind tossing an empty cartridge… set it and forget it… My 3 cats have
naturally learned to go one after each other so it runs less but is always clean…120 is the magic number, it’s
greater than great…”

With all these great improvements and new features, our Customer Service Experts could be like the Maytag
repairman. Thanks to you, our loyal customers, for your interest in and suggestions for the CatGenie. Hope that
you will all soon be 120 owners.

Gigi Reynolds,
VP, Customer Services and Operations PetNovations, Inc, USA.”

CatGenie – Automatic Litterbox?

davemackey — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:31:13 +0000

UPDATE: Gave up on it.

UPDATE: I’m fairly satisfied with my CatGenie now and can recommend it. Nora from CatGenie contacted me and sent out a new hopper and a new robotic arm. Another CSR sent me a replacement processing unit. With these new items in place, and after having corrected the issue that my plumber had hooked up the CatGenie to hot water instead of cold, and after switching to non-scented cleaning solution – everything is working amazingly. I spend around two minutes a day paying attention to the CatGenie – just enough to press the start cycle button. Here are my revised requests for a future CatGenie:

Larger – Small/Medium cats have no problems…My “gentle giant” Barclay finds her behind sometimes hanging over the edge…Resulting in a mini-mess to cleanup.
Automatic Cycles – After a cat uses the bathroom it would be nice if it ran through at least a minimal clean cycle. Perhaps just scoop and flush the poor and rinse/dry with water.
Different Litter – Not sure what can be done about this but my cats track this litter all over. It seems to stick to their little paws.

Charity and I have three cats (Hermione, Barclay, and Piper) – and they are very precious to us. Unfortunately, they do not know how to use proper waste facilities (e.g. our bathrooms) and so we have the litter box issue. We’d love to let them go outside, but our house is surrounded by busy streets – so not such a great idea.

We started with traditional litter boxes – and that was okay. The poop scooping isn’t bad, the problem is the pee – eventually it saturates the litter and you have to change the entire box. Uck. We tried one of those automatic litterboxes that uses a robotic arm to move the poop into a small waste can – but this still didn’t solve the main issue – the urine!

Finally, it was time to pull out the big guns. We purchased a CatGenie from PetNovations. With taglines like, “Never touch, smell, or buy cat litter again” and “The only automatic cat box that flushes away waste and, like a cat, washes itself.” Wow. Now, I should note that I’m really the sucker for these automated toys – I was the one who bought the automatic shower cleaner (which didn’t work) and wants a Roomba (even though people tell me they are far from perfect) and who dreams of self-driving automobiles. Charity is not so easily drawn in – so the blame mainly rests on me for these new-fangled purchass.

Anyways, the CatGenie is a nifty idea. It hooks into your water and into your waste. You can have it dump directly into your toilet or into a laundry drain. We initially started with the toilet – but when we had our bathroom remodeled (it was a very cramped half bath, we expanded into a master bath) I had the designs include a small cubby hole with separate water and drainage that we could place the CatGenie into. Woohoo!

The CatGenie has a bowl and you fill it with these washable, litter-like granules. Your cat jumps into the bowl and does her business. Any urine moves down through the bowl (which has holes in it) into a holding tank (essentially a septic tank) while poop remains on the top. Occasionally you run the device and a robotic arm pops up, scooping out the poop and liquidating it with some heavy duty cleaner they have. It also sucks all the urine into the drain as well. It uses water to rinse the litter and basin so that there is no residual smell. Wow, amazing!

It is a great concept – and we’ve actually chucked our old litter boxes, but that isn’t to say it doesn’t have some major problems. Namely:

Size – The bowl is smaller than most single cat litter boxes. While Hermione and Piper have no difficulties, Barclay who is our “gentle giant” finds it a bit more difficult to utilize. The litter area could use about twice its current size.
Robotic Arm – The robotic arm is supposed to grab all the poop and scoop it up and then dump it down this shoot where the poop is liquidized. Unfortunately, it has this violent shaking process it utilizes to ensure the reusable litter doesn’t get disposed of as well and generally looks 25-50% of the poop it scoops.
Smell – And thus begins the smell issue.
Smell #1 – You essentially create a small sewer in the bottom of your CatGenie. This does not smell friendly – so don’t forget to run it regularly!
Smell #2 – I don’t know about you, but the heavy-duty cleaning agent they utilize drives me out of the entire upstairs of the house[1. I just ordered unscented cleaning agents.]
Smell #3 – Oohh…Poop stew. This is what you get when the robotic arm fails to grab all the poop and the CatGenie then begins washing the granules (and all the poop that was missed). The smell is not pleasant!
Smell #4 – Stir up poop! This is essentially what happens in the wash cycle…and the smell can be absolutely horrid!

In spite of its seemingly magical self-cleaning state (I was hoping for something like a human toilet’s self-maintenance) it has a tendency to clog (if you have long haired cats) and my processing unit just died, so until Monday or Tuesday it is back to the manual processes.

That said, it hasn’t gone onto the trash heap like the automatic shower cleaner. Instead, we’ll be getting a new processing unit (here’s hoping they’ve improved their routine a bit for cleaning), and I’ll probably start scooping the poop and dumping it down the toilet rather than letting it run through (the horrid smell you get is pooh, not urine generally). Finally, we use some Baking Soda-esque powder to occasionally dump onto the waste in-between cycles. It replaces the wretched smells with something rosy and beautiful.

If I didn’t have a CatGenie, would I buy one? Nahh…But since I have one I’m gonna use it. It’s good enough to use, but not good enough to buy.