Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This item has worked out very well for me. I keep the litter box in the bedroom. With my old clay litter in a conventional box, I was cleaning the litter every day and still had to put up with smell. The difference has been dramatic. Now the box needs only occasional attention, and best of all No Smell. Like other reviewers have mentioned, bits of waste will occasionally get on the wrong side of the rake. This has been a minor issue for me. With my one cat, the tray lasts at least three weeks. I may not need to do this, but have been manually cleaning out the trap in front about once a week. I also keep a bag of crystal litter handy, and lightly top off the box if it looks a little low. My cat manages to track a fair amount of litter out of the box. My cat can be pretty aggressive when "digging" in the litter. A couple of times he built up a hill of litter on the side of the box high enough to keep the unit from cycling, (fast blinking light). Manually smoothing out the hill of litter will correct this, or, the cat will likely correct it next time he digs in the box. Except for the rake shift in mid cycle, I have found the mechanism pretty quiet. This type of litter is much "louder" than clay litter when the cat uses it. The cat using the litter is more likely to wake me, than the sound of the machine cycling. I am glad I got the deluxe version with the cover. I am using the delay control at the 10 minute setting. I don't pay much attention to the counter. The cat frequently comes running to watch it when the unit cycles, then he gets back inside to check it out. So, the count isn't too accurate on his legitimate visits. The one control that should be included, and isn't, would be an on/off switch. This would be more useful than any of the present controls. Ironically, the picture shows the unit with an on/off switch. This must be a picture of an early version. Too bad they cut this corner and removed the switch. This is my reason for 4 instead of 5 stars. Having to unplug the machine to shut it down for maintenance or to manually cycle is not convenient. 09/18/12 Update: After using this item for a couple of months, I am still very happy with it. The trays were lasting me about three weeks. However, I have recently adopted a second cat. She is about half the size of her 12 pound brother, and took to Scoop Free box immediately. I will probably be switching out the trays every two weeks now. My main complaint with the box was that it did not have an On/Off Switch or Cycle Button. Periodically, I like to cycle the rake and manually stir the litter, while it is cycling. This allows me to get to the "fresh" litter trapped behind the rake mixed into the rest of the litter. I feel this stirring will keep the litter fresher longer. I was so annoyed by the lack of this feature, I wired in my own Cycle Button. The only parts needed were a Normally Closed Momentary Switch, a few inches of Wire, A bit of Solder, and Electrical Tape. Total cost of parts was about $1.00! If you are at all mechanically inclined, this is a pretty easy modification. It is really convenient to just push the button to initiate a cycle. With my modification, this is a Five Star item. See pictures in "Customer Images."