Neato Botvac 80 Robot Vacuum

Cleaning area: - Currently only set to run upstairs. 3-bedrooms and one large Loft area, all carpeted. 2 bathrooms, tiled floor. Concerns: - HVAC Floor vents may, over time, prematurely wear the brush out. We will see. Pros: - In one cleaning session, picks up about 70% of what our upright vac currently does. So running it 2 or more times a week equates to, or out performs what our current once-a-week upright vac cleaning does. - Quieter than I expected. I work from home, and it's not so loud that I can't get work done, or have phone conversations (except if it's at my feet while I'm on the phone.) - mapping logic is pretty good overall - seems to map out the area very well. - Dust bin holds a lot! So far I have not received the "Clean my dust bin." alert in the middle of a cleaning cycle. I clean it out right before I start each session. Cons: - You do need to 'baby-proof' the rooms (and make sure bathroom floors are dry) before you start a cleaning session. I don't have our Bot on a schedule, but manually kick it off about twice a week. I do a quick room-check before that. Not a major issue - would rather do that (takes 2-minutes) than spend MY time doing the actual vacuuming! Overall observations: - Unit arrived on time and in great condition. Looked like a new, never used unit to me! - As recommended by the Manual, I initially charged the unit overnight, then I ran 3-4 concurrent cleaning sessions to 'condition' the battery. First few sessions the bot was bumping into everything, but by the 3rd session, it was able to find it's way back to the charging station and was doing a lot less bumping into things. Did very well near the stairs - never fell down. Did seem like with each session, it got more 'confident' working near the steps and it's cleaning approach was increasingly more aggressive. A few times I thought for sure it was going to do a rocket launch off the top step - but it stopped short and turned around! - Our Loft area is partially marked off by a wood stair railing, so it looks at each gap in the railing as an opportunity to enter a new space. Not really a problem - helps with cleaning in-between each rail but does slow down the progress a bit as it tries to slip between each rail. (I'm sure a 6" high cardboard strip along the bottom would fix that right up!). - My Bot runs for about 1.25 hours before needing to return to it's station to re-charge. This initial pass cleans about 95% of the upstairs area. The 1.25 hours of battery run-time seems to be within the 1 to 1.5 hours most folks are reporting with their Bots. Once re-charged (takes about 2-hours), the Bot returns to where it left off to complete the cleaning cycle. - The mapping logic doesn't always make sense. It can break up rooms into 'virtual' rooms - it does this for the space under my desk in the Loft, cleaning 95% of the loft, then running off to clean one of the bedrooms, them coming back to the loft to clean this section under the desk. (PS - it did this on one cleaning session, but not on the next one. I'm hoping it's learning to be more efficient as the layout mapping/navigation is improved upon with each subsequent cleaning session. On it's last cleaning session (#8), it completed a full cleaning session on the initial Battery Charge without the need to re-charge and return where it left off.) Summary: - Very happy and impressed with this unit! Thinking about picking up another one for downstairs (Kitchen, Dining Room, Living Room). Wife is amazed by the navigation technology and it's cleaning ability. Suggestions: - Don't run your Bot an hour before bedtime unless it's able to clean 100% of the area without re-charging. Otherwise it's likely to scare the $%^& out of you when it wakes up and returns to where it left off just as you start to doze off!! (Our Docking Unit is right next to the bed, so learned that lesson the hard way!) [Update - 06/01/18]: - It's 6+ months later, and we still love the BotVac. Have run into some quirks with it. About 2 months ago, it would not charge when it returned to it's base. I tried cleaning the contact bars on the base and the Unit - that didn't help. Sometimes the unit would start charging if I just opened and closed the dust bin lid. Several times I had to resort to running the 'New battery' menu option. As of the last 2 weeks, it seems to be doing better with charging - not sure why. Had one cleaning session where it seemed 'angry' - normally if it bumps into an object, it will back up a few inches, turn slightly left or right, then move forward - repeat until it bypassed the obstacle. During this session, when it encountered an obstacle, it would just dig it's heels in and try to push it out of the way. If unsuccessful, it would backup about 6-inches, and make a wide sweeping turn around it. It took another 'New Battery' reset process to return it back to normal. It did fall down the stairs once on us so far (10 carpeted steps) - amazingly it survived intact and without a scratch - even though it put a nice dent in the drywall at the bottom of the stairs. I make sure to clean the sensors before every other cleaning session now. The latest quirk - going on for 3 weeks now - it no longer drives off and away from the charging station before it starts cleaning, but starts cleaning while ON the station. Once it figures how to get off the station, it does the rest of the house fine. A 'new Battery' reset process hasn't fixed this one, so we're just living with it for now.