The maintenance soak is required
The maintenance soak is required quarterly maintenance, which is about how frequently I need to insert a new solution cartridge. It helps with descaling and cleaning the CatGenie. I recommend cleaning the hopper after soaking and BEFORE running the cleaning cycle following the soak. The machine wouldn’t drain and dry after soaking because the hopper was dirty and I got an error message, so I had to disassemble the entire unit and dump the dirty soaking water, which was tricky to avoid spilling. The instructions could be a little better, but the machine was clean like new after the soak, hopper cleaning and then cleaning the entire unit and inserting a new cartridge. There is absolutely no litter box odor in my home. After the initial learning curve, cleaning the unit quarterly after it has soaked with sanitizing and descaling solution is far less gross than cleaning a regular litter box or one that collects and stores excrement.