Robot Vacuum Cleaners

My experience is similar to others'. I had one and used it for about 4 months before it died. My mother bought me a new "extended" battery for it as a gift. It still wouldn't hold a charge as long as it should have to really do the job, so I think the base must be defunct. Wish I'd figured that out earlier, so I could have gotten a new one thru the company.

As to the ones that "find" their base, ours never did find it and mount itself without help from us. A friend whose parents had one said the same: Theirs found the base once or twice, but that was pretty much it. I LOVED that I could walk away and let it go to do it's thing. As a vacuum it worked ok, but like anything else, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is....

I don't know how picky you are about getting your floors clean, but if you want it to get EVERYTHING off the floor and out of the corners each time you use it, you'll have to do quite a bit of prep work:
-move all chairs up off the floor or out of the room (it "bumps" into things and changes direction until it navigates around it, which = time = reduced battery for the rest of the area)
-pick up all rugs (it sometimes gets stuck on the corners)
-make sure there is nothing against the walls near the corners that will prevent its width from getting in there (it's a little over a foot wide)
-if you have other rooms you don't want it to go to, you have to set up the "virtual walls" to stop it from leaving the area you want it to clean.

A little while back I bought what is my "Can't Live Without" item now: The Ergo-Rapido from Electrolux. It's a 2-in-1 CORDLESS stick vac and hand vac (like a dustbuster). I have the 12V version, which is important 'cause the previous version was a 9V (I think) and it got significantly lower reviews on most websites I read. This one has great suction, handles wonderfully, is easy to clean/empty, and the filters are washable. You can find it online for about $110 w/ shipping. I'd initially bought a cheaper one at a local store, but was NOT happy with the suction or handling of it and ended up returning it within a week to buy the Ergo-Rapido.

We have 3 kids (5 1/2, 3 1/2, and 2 y/o) and 2 cats (one is med hair and sheds all the time). Because of this, it gets used several times a day by either my husband or I; every day one or both of us says something like, "I am so glad we bought this; this is the best thing we've bought in years." LOL

I was at a clients home about 3 weeks ago preparing food for a party. She was doing some last minute cleaning and one of the things she was doing was vacuuming - with a Roomba! The entire first floor of her home was hard wood floors and she had this thing vacuuming the dining room and the living room. It was amazing and I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it! It took about an hour to do both rooms - it goes pretty slow but it just moves back and forth around furniture and it really picks up dust, hair, whatever! She said it was pricey but it was worth it. She just sets it to vacuum different zones every day and she can do other things - she even leaves the house and when she comes home the thing has put itself away by going back to the docking station. She did say it can go for about an hour or so (maybe it was 2 hours) at a time and then it needs to be charged. I would love one - but not until my kiddos learn how to pick up their toys!

Has anyone tried the one at Cost Co?

We had one and totally loved it. The problem was that it died. Good friends of ours have been thru 2 of them. So although I have been tempted to buy another one I won't because they don't seem to last too long.

We have 2 Roombas and absolutely LOVE them! One we've had for about 3 years now and have had to buy 1 replacement battery. The other we've had for about 2 years and have had absolutely NO problems with it. We've found that if you set them to come on every day the battery lasts MUCH longer than if you don't run them every day. And as far as them going back to their docking station, ours occasionally do not, but I'd much rather pick it up and put it away than have to vaccuum my whole house every day. :) In regards to where to get them, we bought our first one at Kohl's and got a pretty good deal on it, but when we bought our second one we wanted an "upgraded" model, so we went to www.irobot.com and bought it directly from the company. To our surprise it wasn't as expensive as we thought it would be. Both were definitely worth EVERY penny!

My parents have one that they use on their hardwood floor and they love it. It runs for about 2 hours but it's pretty quiet, they actually turn it on right before they go to bed for the night.

The only suggestion I have is that if you get one you should consider getting the one that returns itself to the base when it's done. They area little more expensive than the regular models but that's the only thing my mother ever complains about because she never knows where she's going to find the thing the next morning.