I am an owner of both the original Cat Genie and the newer version. I purchased a CG 120 3 years ago upon the failure of the original (due to poor instructions from customer service.) I had 3 cats, 2 with very long fur. The smallest one weighs over 13 lbs. The sani solution does its job and the machine does its job. I did not run the maintenance cartridge AT ALL during that time. The only problems were when I would forget to order more cartridges and the machine would run out before the new ones arrived. Then I did have to bring in the emergency box. (The old kind which requires bags and bags of litter and time to clean it regularly. Neither the cats nor I liked that part, but I felt I had to keep that box around for emergencies. When the CG finally sent out an alert last month, I cleaned it and it worked like new. That is practically miraculous, to me. I love this thing. No more driving to a store to buy huge bags of the old litter, then getting them out of the car and dragging them into the house.

Another customer evaluated the amortized cost of the CG, t add in not having to ad gas & oin and oveerall maintenance in the expense and wear-&-tear of driving a car to buy litter & cleaning supplies. One other item. I don't have a lot of company, but on several occasions guests came to my house and commented strongly about the fact that there was no "cat" smell anywhere in the house. They were very impressed. I highly recommend the CG and its solutions.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE this litter box! Yes you are spending quite a bit of money up front for a little box but it's soooooo worth it! I use to be the "buy the cheap litter" cat mom. Then I described that I was so tired of cleaning the stinky litter box, or begging my daughters to. It was always "but I did it last time.....". Then I did the City Kitty option. You know you train your cats to use your real toilet. Well that worked well with our first cat but when we adopted another kitten our older cat got jealous and started 💩 pooping in the bathtub 😡. So we went back to a littler box. So 1 year goes by (nd LOTS of nasty litter). So a month ago my mom mentioned that she saw a commercial about this Catgenie. I googled it and watched the YouTube videos. But I couldn't stomach spending that much money on a litter box. So my mom bought us one. From the first day I've been sold! Sure it makes noise that started the cats at first, and it takes 30 minutes to clean. But I seriously have to use 1 finger to push 1 button for about 1/2 second. THAT'S IT !!!!! We've had it for a month and I just clean it once a day. Lol in fact one of my cats is so fascinated with watching it clean that she will run up to me meowing loudly for me to follow her into the laundry room with her nose wrinkled up so that I will turn the darn thing on. So she can watch it clean ! Also our older cat use to have almost an anxiety problem with the old litter box. She would seriously spend 5 minutes trying to cover up her poop with the old litter and would scrape and scrape and scrape the sides of the litter box. Now with the Catgenie she's in and out because the reusable litter is WASHED with fresh scented cleaner every day. I'm a believer!

This appears to be the real product and works with litter genie as expected. Feel this item is over priced, but don't have a choice.

Just what you're looking for

As an owner of both the original Cat Genie and the new version, Cat Genie 120, I felt compelled on the one (1) year anniversary of receiving the 120 to post this review.
Before addressing the new version, let me go over a few points on the original Cat Genie.

As any original Cat Genie owner will remember, that while although overall a very good product, there were some annoying design defects.

The pin on the genie arm broke after anywhere from a few months to a year after activation. This was due to corrosion usually.

Hair would wrap around the impeller shaft and cause various malfunctions.

The tip of the water sensor could cloud over with waste and shut down the system.

Quality control on the cartridges was sometimes spotty and led to cartridges that leaked, bad, or would not empty, annoying.

Granules would build up under the bowl or inside of the hopper, leading to failure to cycle.

Sticky cat waste due to diet or illness caused the drying action to lead to an occasional baked waste odor.

While annoying, these issues did not prevent most original Cat Genie owners from liking the product. Indeed, a lot of us would vow never to go back to any other type of litter box.
The only way to stop us from using our original was the failure of the Processing Unit. That and Cat Genie's decision to no longer provide repair parts, eventually led a large number of us to buy the new Cat Genie 120.

SO, HOW GOOD IS THE NEW CAT GENIE 120?

Simply put, the Cat Genie 120 is a wonderful product. After one (1) year of daily use by 2 cats it is still malfunction free. I deliberately did not disassemble & clean the unit at all. Not once, until today, the one year mark. Although the unit was dirty, as expected, there was surprisingly little crud buildup either under the bowl, or within the hopper itself. While there was hair wrapped around the impeller shaft, it had never led to a single malfunction. It took me a total of one (1) hour to completely disassemble, clean, dry and reassemble the unit. Not bad for an entire year of never touching cat waste once.

The design improvements over the original are various.

The improved pin on the genie arm, which prevents breakage.

The hopper cutter ring cuts down on hair build up.

The flat side of the impeller shaft helps to keep the hair from causing malfunctions.

The Maintenance Cleaning Cartridge keeps the water sensor clear of buildup.

The new Sani-Solution cartridges are less likely to fail.

The Genie Scrubber virtually eliminates granule build up under the bowl.

The Super Ball prevents granule build up in the hopper and limits crud build up as well.

Even though they were unable to come up with any way to prevent the occasional baked waste smell, I find it less objectionable than the daily miasma associated with any other litter box on the market today.

COST OF OPERATION

How much did this cost over an entire year? Without counting the purchase of the Cat Genie 120 itself, just amortizing the required granules and Sani-Solution cartridges, I reached an actual out of pocket cost of 30 cents per day. That's on top of not touching cat waste for an entire year. If one assumes a lifespan of 3 years on the Cat Genie 120 itself, a conservative estimate, we arrive at a daily cost of less than 40 cents total, based on the most expensive Tuxedo package.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Cat Genie 120 is pretty close to a 10 in my opinion. Except for the occasional baked waste odor, the Cat genie 120 never intrudes on our daily life. It makes having cats in the house almost effortless. If you hate cat waste & litter mess then you can't go wrong purchasing this product.