Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

*updated after 3rd week of use* We bought Ruby after several weeks of debating, researching and reading reviews. I'm cheap. I hate spending money. For a little background, we are two working adults living in a wooded area, with a German Shepherd and a Pitbull. The German Shepherd sheds as if his skin is constantly on fire and his fur is running for its collective lives. I'm talking some serious shedding here. The pitbull loves dirt and mud and anything gross and will gladly collect as much as she can possibly manage to bring back inside with her. My husband and I both enjoy the outdoors and bring in our own dirt on top of all this. Typically, once the floors started showing signs of needing a good sweep/mop, it took about 2.5 hours to complete the job start to finish. This does not include the time we both spent trying to trick/bribe the other into doing the floors for us. After all the slaving, inevitably a doggie hair tumbleweed or two would sneak its way out from under a sofa just to make sure we knew we were not in control here. Enter Ruby. Oh Ruby... how I love thee. I ordered Ruby on a Sunday, coincidentally the same day I talked my husband into sweeping and mopping the floors without my assistance. By Thursday when Ruby arrived, the Doggie Hair tumbleweeds and dirt were beginning to take over the house again. Ruby was easy to set up, and while she was charging for her maiden voyage, my husband and I set out to reconfigure some areas in our home where we had things stored on the floor, under beds, or cords were left in the way,etc. While we were at it, we went ahead and swept dirt out of the awkward corners into the main floor area to see how she'd do. Our home is one level, 2400sq ft mostly hardwood and tile with carpet in just the bedrooms. We do not have rugs with the exception of a bath mat in 2 of the bathrooms. Our house is older, and has been remodeled so there are a couple of awkward corners. On Day one, Ruby struggled. Oh bless her poor little drunken soul. She bobbed and weaved and missed areas and spit things back out and eventually died lost in a back bedroom. We re-charged her and ran her again. She did ok the second time, but again got stuck somewhere with a dead battery. (I emptied her dust bin a total of 5 times that day and it was incredibly full each time. For shame!!) We went ahead and set up a schedule for her, and thought If we weren't happy after a week, we'd return her and go back to fighting and slaving over the floors and finding excuses for people to not come over. After 6 days, I can honestly say I'm in love with Ruby. Six whole days of us not touching a broom (aside from sweeping the dirt from an awkward corner into her path the first day), there is not a single doggie hair tumbleweed on our floors. My feet are pretty clean when I run around barefooted all day. I'm no longer embarrassed or panicked when someone says they're going to stop by the house. It's even clean under the beds and couches!!! $324.73 and WORTH EVERY PENNY!! Here are the questions I really wanted answered before I purchased, so I'll try to answer them for you. 1. No, she doesn't go in a direct grid pattern. Run her everyday, and she'll get what she missed yesterday today. Give her time, she really does get better each day! *After the first week I watched her work and I've noticed she now follows a more grid like pattern. It's not a perfect grid, but it's obvious there's a method to her madness* 2. Wifi function is great for setting a schedule, and for locating her when she occasionally can't find her way home when her battery dies, and for starting her away from home if you need to. I think we probably could have lived without this function, but I'm not sorry we have it. 3. My white baseboards and all furniture legs are perfectly fine 4. The same dogs that are petrified of my upright Kirby and upright Bissel Shampooer don't pay any attention to Ruby unless she runs into them. 5. Watching TV or going about regular life while she's running is no problem. Working from home means she needs to be in a other part of the house due to the noise 6. Yea, she can't always find her way home when her battery dies. My husband and I decided we're perfectly willing to go chase her down and put her on her base in exchange for not having to manually clean our floors. *Ruby has now docked herself everyday except for 1. I guess she just needed to learn the floor layout that first week* *Week 3 she now always docks herself* 7. She has not scratched our original hardwood floors. 8. She transitions easily from one flooring to the next, even over the little connector strip thingies (All of my flooring is light colored) 9. Give her a week. While moving things off the floors and out from under beds the first day, I left her a couple of treasures (dog hair that was embedded around the bed posts and other tight areas). I checked today,(6 days later) and she has gotten all the hair that's wrapped itself around furniture legs in the whole house 10. Mopping: Originally I had planned to purchase a robotic mop shortly after getting Ruby. As the weeks went by, I noticed it was 3 weeks before the floors needed to be mopped again and frankly , I could have gotten away with a spot mop then. What we had normally spent about 20 minutes on once a week, has turned into 20 minutes every 3 weeks. So overall, we've traded in an average of 2.5 hours a week of our time cleaning floors each week for a new average of roughly 10-15 minutes per week between dumping ruby and occassionally mopping. Thank you Ruby!