I have had my robot friend, Simon, for a week. First impressions upon opening the box was an “Oooo Aahhh”. The directions said to let your new robot friend charge overnight before first use, but of course, I ran him around immediately to just see how he works! He worked for about ten minutes. I couldn’t figure out how to get him to his home (charging station), but it turns out, he can find his own way home just fine. I recommend that you do take a few minutes to read the directions and familiarize yourself with the remote. It took about 4 hours or so for Simon to fully charge, then I turned him loose. Let me just say, I thought my floors were clean, or, at least, pretty clean. As it turns out, they were not. They were not clean at all. Simon has picked up so much fur, dirt, dust, it’s unbelievable. My floors have literally never looked better! They are CLEAN. For real clean. I’ve always had a hard time cleaning under the bed, but now I don’t have to worry about it at all, because my robot friend takes care of it.I have all hardwood floors and tile. I also have a few throw rugs, some thick, some thin. Simon does a perfect job on the floors, and has no problems navigating over the throw rugs (though he might turn up a corner, but he will run back over it and still get it clean). I don’t think your robot friend would work very well if you have a lot of or mostly carpet. If you have hardwood or mostly hardwood, you will love your new robot friend.Simon mostly gets from room to room okay – the “up” entry points he cannot do on his own. For example, he cannot get over the hump into my kitchen, but he can get down the hump. He also cannot get over the hump to get in the bathrooms. This is actually fine for me, because I prefer to control when he goes into the kitchen anyway so that I can shake off the rugs and/or pick up the cat food and water bowls and any shoes or other things that might be on the floor. I just put a bar stool in his way to keep him from exiting the kitchen when it’s time for him to clean in the kitchen.Simon will clean for about 3 or 3.5 hours. He does not have a “plan” so to speak, not like a person would say go from corner to the center of the room, but he is still very thorough, and obviously, his plan is way better than mine since my floors are so much cleaner than they ever were when I was in charge. My advice is to just trust the process and let your robot friend find his way around on his own! Just make sure that you pick up any cords, especially small cords like phone charging cords, and shoe laces or the like, so that he doesn’t accidentally grab onto something he shouldn’t. Simon also has sensors so that when he comes to a piece of furniture or a wall, he will slow down so as to gently bump it before he turns off into a new direction. I have also noticed that if he comes into contact with a chair or table leg, he will often go in a circle all the way around the leg to clean around it.Once your robot friend is done doing your dirty work for you, he will go back home on his own. If your robot friend cannot find his way home, you may not have provided him enough space. Is that any way to treat your new best friend?? Make sure that he has several feet of clear space in front of his charging station, and that there are a few feet of clear space on the sides of the charging station as well. Also, make sure to empty out his dust bin after every use.One of the fortunate side effects of having my new robot friend, is the “give a mouse a cookie” effect it seems to have had. Give a person a clean floor, and the person may say oh, it looks so clean in here, let me pick up this shirt and put it away. The person then notices that the bathroom trash can is full; since the floors look so nice, the bathroom should be clean, too *cleans bathroom*, and so on.The only thing about my new robot friend, which isn’t enough to bother me at all, is that he is, well, he’s not super loud, but he’s not very quiet either. So, if you are watching tv, you may need to turn it up just a bit if you are running your robot friend while you’re at home. Well worth it for the service he provides, though.Overall, I do recommend this little robot. I am very pleased with this purchase. If you’re in the market for a robot floor cleaning wizard, don’t hesitate to click that Buy Now button.
