iRobot Roomba 780 Vacuum Cleaning Robot for Pets and Allergies

I have about 8000 sq. ft. to keep clean and these 780 robots. (I brought two) makes the place cleaner that it has ever been since I built it. I have a combination of hardwood floors, carpet and many oriental rugs (with fringe). It goes over extension cords with no problem if they are left out. It has changed the way I arrange furniture. I try to leave space at the walls and area so it can pass around. Every once in awhile I will tip the couches that it can not go under on their back so it can clean under them. I no longer put so many things on the floor. The closet floors have nothing on them and I leave the closet doors open. I will shut it in the bathroom and it knows not to run for two hours like it might in a larger room. I purchased extra virtual walls and confine Roomba to one room at a time (about 300 sq ft) as I think it does a better job. I move it to a new room each day so after a week they are all done and I restart the cycle. Fresh vacuumed rooms make my house much more enjoyable and it saves me a day of vacuuming every week to keep it this clean.I used it in the basement and it went behind the stairs and came out with bits of drywall and screws that had been there for 6 years. I experimented by comparing with my Dyson and both will find more dirt after I used the other. I think there is an accumulation over the years of too infrequent vacuuming and it will take a number of cycles. More recently it seems like I get more shedding from the carpets that anything. My carpets are dense and it seems to lend itself to this, I don't know how frieze or shag would work. I could not live with out these creatures now. Also I have no pets.After every room, every day I clean out the dirt bin and remove the brushes and clean them with my Dyson brush attachment. I remove and vacuum of the filters, then slap them on a granite counter top and finally blow through it from the back catching the airborne dust with the Dyson. This way I get maximum life from the filters. I also have a way of spinning the floor brush so it will set against the wheel and bend it back so they do not become distorted so fast. Then I put it in the next room and they are set to run at 9A every day then after they are done, I clean them sometime during the day. It is actually fun to see what they find and my carpets show everywhere it has been and it seems to go everywhere about 3 times.Sometimes the virtual walls do not turn on properly and it will get caught in another room. Occasionally it will run out of power before it finds the base in a large room or get stuck under a couch. It was talking to me in Russian for awhile until I found out how to change it back to English. It can speak dozens of languages to tell you what it needs. I have not been able to determine that it will run low on a charge, then dock and go back to cleaning as some have said in reviews.It will run up to a wall and sense that it is there and slow down to barely touch it and usually will go along the wall with the little brush sweeping dirt from the crack. The very corners will have to be vacuumed though.I would like to know more about how it works such as: does it really know the size of the room? If you pick it up and turn it will it forget and have to start what it know all over again. How much information does it really retain and for how long? so maybe I can create a more effective cleaning program.I am looking forward to a model that will clean the stairs, clear the table, prepare dinner, put the dishes away, got to work, enter the bills, type contracts, invest in the stock market and make money...this is just the beginning. !!!

Just a quick review as you can read countless long ones elsewhere. To say I was skeptical is an understatement when I ordered this, even 2 days into ownership I was a little. After doing some reading online and fixing *my* problems ie my perception of what it did and how it did it I'm very happy with it. For someone looking for buy one of these for the first time here are a couple of pointers or FYI's.1) It does not build a map of your floor plan in it's brain and remember it, so moving furniture and stuff is no big deal. Thus it is completely normal for it to seemingly wander aimlessly in the room it's in. Again this is normal it's trying to make sure it gets every nook and cranny.2) This is an important one and the one I think that causes many people to dislike and or return it. You *must* properly setup rooms and sections via the lighthouses and or virtual walls. If the area is to big your Roomba will not be able to effectively hit everything and may not find the next room because of number 1 above. My downstairs is about 1600 sq feet and my Roomba cleans about 1200 of that. To properly section off the rooms the 2 included lighthouses were not enough. I needed 1 more lighthouse and a 2 pack of virtual walls. This effectively cut part of the house off from the Roomba and controlled the direction of his travel. I didn't do this at first and the Roomba would finish and try to return to the base long before being really done because the Roomba never finds the next lighthouse and after 25 min (see #3) never moves on. The placement of these lighthouses is VERY important as they emit IR beams out the front of them that the Roomba uses to move to the next room and then back to home base. The lighthouse effectively stops the Roomba from moving to the next room until the timer in #3 has passed. This it unlocks the invisible wall and lets the Roomba pass. When he passes it turns the wall back on so that he doesn't go back to far. So DON'T move the lighthouses or virtual walls or toggle their settings or power while Roomba is running.3) The Roomba has a timer for each room of in my case 25 min so just leave him alone and let him clean and stop worrying about if he'll get the rest of the house :). If he doesn't move on to the next room then see point 2 above... cause you didn't set it up right.4) Be sure to empty the waste bin and bang out the 2 yellow HEPA filters after each time you have him run. I run mine daily to keep up with my boys and 2 dogs.5) Just accept it that the first couple of times the Roomba runs you (and your family) will probably follow him around wondering what and where he'll go next. It's especially funny to watch him bump into old stubborn dogs who don't feel like getting up to move cause their to lazy. When the Roomba detects an object in front it slows down right before bumping it to gently tap it. So give him a name, it'll make you feel better :). Without to much originality but appropriately we named ours M-O (Moe) the little clean freak robot from Wall-e.All in all I really like Moe and it's exceeded my expectations and after several months I'm very pleased and feel I'm getting my moneys worth out of it for sure. Just be sure to educate yourself on how the lighthouses and virtual walls work because they are truly the key to getting it running as smoothly as it should.