We had an Automatic box years ago. With 3 cats, it was running alot. Our cats like to dig, so the amount of litter in one was too shallow.

It would do its "self-cleaning", and not do a good job. Sometimes it would get stuck in cleaning mode and run and run and run. We gave the automatic box to a friend. It does well for her having only one cat. We now have 4 cats, and we have 3 litter boxes in our "cat room" (a spare bedroom for the cats).