Neato XV-21 Pet & Allergy Robotic Vac

I don't post many reviews with superlatives, but will make an exception here. This thing is just cool! Our house is about 2100 square feet, with about 2/3 of that laminate with some area rugs, the remainder carpet. We also have 5 dogs (including one Husky mix that sheds a enough to make a couple little dogs every day) and some cats. Needless to say, pet hair is an issue. Given that both of us work and we have a bunch of other activities, our vacuuming schedule wasn't (pre-Neato) as frequent as needed, maybe twice a week. Given the animals, that really wasn't enough, hair was a constant battle. We received the Neato about 2 weeks ago. It really has transformed the house. At first, I ran it while I was there, and dumped the dust bin every time it returned to the charging station. Yes, it was full every time. After a few days we started getting caught up; it still is "stuffed" but at least makes it through the entire house on one bin. It does take a few charges to do so. When I got him, I of course wanted to try it out right away...only to discover that it needed a charge. Plugged it in, gave it a few minutes and hit the magic button. It wanted a little more charging to do anything...after about 1/2 hour it was off and running. Very entertaining to watch it work. It starts by motoring off the base and "looking" around, I assume scanning the area. We have a large, connected "great room", it seems to parse it into several areas about 15' x 15' each. It motors around the perimeter, working into corners, around furniture and obstacles. When the perimeter is done, it moves on to a nice, back and forth pattern about the middle of the room. The very first time it only ran about 20 minutes...but has increased steadily to about an hour or a bit more on a charge now. That seems to be the norm, it takes a week or so to get to "full capacity" on the batteries. The programming and sensing of this thing is pretty amazing. It isn't consistent, one day it will come off the charger and start working to the left, another time to the right. Which is probably a good thing, if it hasn't finished the entire house on the last cycle. It's pretty amazing to watch it motor back to the charger, back up to it and recharge...then motor back out to where it left off and keep going. Is it absolutely perfect? No, not quite...but very close. It will get hung up on rugs/carpets that are worn and have loose threads. No big deal, after a couple days we had found and trimmed all of them. We have one odd transition from our laminate floor to a slate pad around the wood stove. It hung up once on that transition. One or two times it ran out of juice before it made it back to the charging station. I suspect that this was when it was in the "far" end of the house, on carpet. It sounds as if it works a lot harder moving on carpet than hard surfaces. No surprise there. I just close off that section and let it do the rest of the house while we're out, then run it in that area with the door closed. I have ordered more of the magnetic strip to keep it contained, rather than needing to close the door. It's a bit of an over-achiever-it motored outside and started cleaning our deck when we left the back door open. Will be adding more of the magnetic strip at the doorway too. The cleaning job is very adequate, at least as good as with "conventional" vacuuming. It gets LOTS of pet hair and dirt/dust. It's really nice to come home to a freshly vacuumed house. It's pretty amazing to watch it work around furniture, and especially chair legs or tables. If it can fit, it will find a way. Every few days I pull out the couch so it can get behind it (too low to go under). It seems to do a better job of sucking deeply embedded hair and dirt out of carpet than a conventional vacuum. I think it's due to it's fairly slow speed; it spends long enough to work the dirt up and out. The dogs and cats don't seem much bothered. Our bigger dogs are kind of lazy...and will just sit there while "Mr. Roboto" looks at them and tries to go around. Usually works...unless the dogs are laying in the hallway; in which case it gives up and leaves that area. Can't blame him for that. We have an open stairway and the "drop sensor" has worked perfectly. The noise level is very reasonable. It is a vacuum and is quite noticeable, especially if watching TV. But less so than a regular vacuum. You can program it to run at any time desired. I don't use that feature, I just push the button before heading to work. This ensures that I don't forget to dump the dust bin. We'd look for very few changes. A bit more battery capacity and faster charge would be nice. But...a higher end (Lithium Ion) battery would undoubtedly add cost. The other change I'd like to see...a bigger dust bin. With our herd, it's stuffed full even with daily cleaning. Like I said at the start, I usually don't make really strong recommendations, but do so here. This is a pretty amazing and effective product. I'm not really sure what those with negative comments (with the exception of failed units) would really expect. I figured this would be, at best, a "toy". But it has exceeded my expectations. Sure would like to see Neato come out with a robot lawn mower! If only I could teach it to cook dinner and put the dishes away...