We have a Roomba, and love it. The first month we had it we vaccuumed a different room every night just to get them *really* clean, and then vaccuumed once a month or so after that. Vaccuums under the beds, gets into corners, etc. Lovely thing.

It is a little loud, so we close the doors to those rooms being "roombaed", and it does have a couple of issues: has trouble going over electrical cords, has problems with the fringes of our area rugs, sometimes gets stuck under edges of furniture. But once you learn where it has those problems, you can spend maybe five minutes getting a room ready to be cleaned and you're set.

And my parents and I got Roombas at the same time. (When they had friends over they would show theirs off, to many "oohs" and "ahs".) After a couple of years our battery pack wore out (about $35 to replace), but their Roomba wore out (just stopped working); so they gave us the battery pack and ours works great now.

BTW - we have the kind that automatically goes back to its "home base" to recharge. Don't know if having this "return" feature cost more, but hearing it give it's little victory trill when it is back and base and therefore done with the room is always cute.

A friend of mine (Lance Parkin) swears by his.  In a good way.

Simon BJ

Interested on your feedback on the device. I never seen one in action or talked to someone who has one.

I was recently in a conversation (with one of our site Housekeeping Managers) about them and if there were heavy duty commercial models available (we have over 500k sq ft to clean). I got the feeling he was not impressed with them but his concern may have been protecting staff positions and my concern is more with keeping costs down.

QUOTE: Just curious.... Who'll empty it? Eventually it will need to be emptied.

Don't worry--I'm sure they make a robot for that too!