iRobot Roomba 880 Robotic Vacuum Cleaner

I bought this Roomba to help me maintain a clean living space for my adventurous daughter and minimize dust for my husband and I. My home is a mix of thick carpet, hardwood floor, and tile and offers a variety of fun and interesting obstacles for the Roomba to navigate around (kid toys, chair legs, a telescope, etc). I was so excited when the box arrived, that I opened it up immediately and started to play with my new best friend. Maid Marian (my Roomba) was very easy to set up, does an impressive job cleaning and navigating, and (so far) is easy to maintain. I think she's going to inspire me to get some more robotic friends for my home. Setup There is a set of word-free instructions with a series of simple pictures, and a more in-depth manual with reasonably thorough descriptions of each of the components. The Roomba itself is pretty straightforward and easy to figure out, and you can always augment your knowledge with Google or YouTube if you need to. The only thing that I was confused by was the Virtual Wall Lighthouse beacon. Apparently there are three kinds of beacons, all included in the instructions, and I didn't realize this until my second time reading through information for the wrong one. Once I turned the page and figured out there was more than one, it was pretty easy to figure out that the Virtual Wall Lighthouses (it comes with 2) were the ones I was looking for. The Virtual Wall Lighthouse beacons are meant as a guide to teach your Roomba where the barriers between rooms are. Lighthouse mode tells it where an edge between two spaces are, and it will finish cleaning the room it's in before moving to the next room. Wall mode tells your Roomba not to go past the beacon. The best placement for these is on the far side of a threshold, behind, but level with the wall/door frame so that they do not interfere with each other and so that your Roomba can find it and clean as much as possible around it. Note that the charger for the Roomba needs to be against a wall since the Roomba drives up on it to charge its battery. It's not in the picture I included, but I ended up taking a twist tie and cinching up the cable to keep it in one place better and minimize the chance for entanglement. Cleaning I was very impressed to see what my Roomba picked up when it was done. I have long blonde hair and my husband has a pretty thick beard, and between the two of us we get lots of hair everywhere. The Roomba had no problems with any of it. It even ate all the Cheerios my daughter had sprinkled around the dining room. It had an unbelievable amount of dust in the bin considering it hadn't really been that long since I had swiffered and swept my home. I included a picture of the first pile of dust that I emptied out of it, and that was just for the hardwood and tile rooms! The carpet cleaning was amazing, and she even cleaned up all the horrible things that have been lurking under my bed for years! I must advise cleaning out the bin multiple times during her first clean of your rugs since there will be a LOT. This little girl can clean! Pathing The instructions indicate that it does a combination of 3 things - dirt pile seeking, spiraling, and wall-following. I'll freely admit that I followed my Roomba about my house for her first adventure, and I could distinctly see these traits plus a few others. She deftly navigated around table legs and chairs, under my couch, around my treadmill and its pad, and even found a path around and behind my couch to clean up around my telescope! The only thing the had a little trouble with was my daughter's Splat Mat under her high chair, but I taped down the corners to keep it from rolling up as easily and she had no problems with it for the second cleaning. Update: Roomba is very good at slowing down when she approaches the walls so she won't bump and scratch them, but she can sometimes have trouble with things like table chairs. She's never scratched my furniture but it would be a simple thing to add a padded strip of foam or something around the rim if needed. Roomba room prep: I highly recommend picking up small things for your Roomba's first day and following it around to understand more about how it works so that you know what state you can leave your home in if you plan to let it clean while you're away. Otherwise you may find a few mat corners folded over and some toys pushed into strange places. I picked up things I wanted her to clean under and set them on top of furniture she could get under, but I didn't bother with things like chairs. I taped down the corners of the Splat Mat that sits underneath my daughter's high chair to minimize the risk of entanglement (she struggled a little the first time but never actually got stuck, I just wouldn't have left her alone with it like that). I also recommend picking up electrical cables that your Roomba may run over. Heavy duty ones aren't an issue but I can see the thinner ones (like USB) being a tasty snack. Maintenance It's very easy to empty the bin. You just pop it off, open up where the little yellow arrows tell you to, and dump it. You can even take out the HEPA filter if you want to and give it a good shake or dust bust it to prolong its use. There is a blue starfish light that will appear on top of your Roomba when the side brush is slowing down. It may be friction from your rug, or it may be that your little side brush is tangled and you need to clean it off. Noise The Roomba is impressively quiet for a vacuum cleaner. I followed her around with a decibel meter (yes I'm a nerd) and found her to tick between about 70-72 on hardwood floors. For reference, my home is between 40 and 50 decibels normally. A typical vacuum is about 80, and conversation is about 60-65. I was able to listen to my audio book on my phone's speakers and do dishes while the Roomba was cleaning right behind me. Misc: Batteries can last for 2-3 hours no problem - I haven't hit the limit yet. It takes a lot longer for the first cleaning, but I separated out places so I could watch her do each new area. The Virtual Wall Lighthouse can survive a brutal beating from an 8-month-old baby. You need to sign for delivery. I'm still learning about my Roomba and I will update this as I learn more.