Others say...

"Works pretty well"
I also have the Sage Roomba that came with the recharge docking station, two virtual walls and the remote. I've never used the virutal walls... I find it easier to just block the Roomba using chairs, hampers, etc. The only time my Roomba has become stuck was on a floor rug on a vinyl floor. Now I just pick up the rug before letting the Roomba clean. I have a heavier area carpet over our wall-to-wall carpeting and it does fine with that. It doesn't do so well where the wall-to-wall carpeting meets the vinyl flooring or along the edges of the area rug. But I just zoom over those areas with my hand-held vacuum. Like the other reviewers I would recommend using a "real" vacuum every few weeks. But I have a short-haired dog (who sheds constantly) and a 2-year-old... so the Roomba is a life saver. I find the remote a bit hard to use... but I keep trying. Also, don't leave a balloon on the ground... the Roomba got all tangled up in the string yesterday. Oops.

"Much better than an upright, no good for stairs"
I got this little guy "Oscar" ("Oh I love trash!!!") in February. I have used it nearly every day since then and have figured out most of it's issues. It came with a remote, self-charging dock, virtual wall, and the other standard accessories.

Overall, it is fantastic. It is great to watch TV and let something vacuum your house. Because I have pets and rugs, I rarely let it go when I leave, because it gets full often. If I run it religiously every day, I can leave it no problem. I find the remote utterly useless- it's fine to start it from across the room, but you can't really control it with the remote very accurately, nor do you need it. Just let it go and it'll get everything. Chances are if it doesn't, then there's something in the way.

You do have to pick up first. Items that Roomba doesn't like include sales receipts, coins, ribbons, strings, fingernail clippers (got the whole thing stuck in the roller), nuts bolts screws etc, socks, paper, plastic bags. Once you do it a few times it's easy, and you can start the Roomba and clean as it goes.

Problems I've had include recently it couldn't find the home base. This was due to the front wheel being full of crud. You have to pull it off and clean it every once in a while so it can spin better. Works fine now, but I also cleaned the sensors at the same time. The flipper brush broke, as did the rubber scooper brush. I called customer service and am getting free replacements, as they are covered under warranty for no charge. Don't forget to clean out the filter! I was cleaning the brushes religiously and forgot about the filter- eww. Works better now.

I have three pets, all of whom watched the Roomba very carefully on the first run, and now completely ignore it, or even play with it. They let it bump into them with no problem. Chasing them out from under the couch with the remote doesn't work because #1 - they aren't afraid of it, and #2 - the remote doesn't respond fast enough, so that part of the purchase was a complete failure. I am considering upgrading to the pet brushes when I need new ones, but these work well enough that I'm not sure it's worth it.

Battery life is still great, even though I use it all the time. When not in use I leave it on the charger. I've never replaced the virtual wall batteries, but use it maybe once a week. Normally I just shut the door or block the way with a tub or something.

As for the stairs, I tried to stick it on a stair and do one at a time. It doesn't fit. So I leave a Dirt Devil on the stairs and vacuum one every time I go up or down when they're looking bad. Makes it less of a chore and doesn't require dragging around a real vacuum.

I cannot recommend this product highly enough. It has to save me 5 hours a week in vacuuming (3 pets remember). Plus it's a hassle to get a vacuum out and drag it up and down the stairs. This is easy to carry and from downstairs it's loud enough that I can hear when it stops but it's not disruptive. I would recommend the upgrade to the faster charging battery, and probably the home base, but can't see what else is necessary. If mine ever dies, I'll get a new one the next day.

"Worth every cent to join the 21st century of housekeeping!"
This is the best value for money item i've purchased in years, possibly ever!
Mine gets stuck on the base of my speaker stands, but nothing else - it even glides over speaker wire without getting tangled up. A wireless environment would be ideal, but not necessary! This device cleans my carpet & tiles better than my upright ever did. Emptying it is a breeze, but be prepared to clean the brushes (i'm not complaining, i got off vacuuming!); there's a very helpful comb/blade device included to remove hair from the brushes.

"the romance is fading"
I loved my roomba initially, and still think it does a fairly decent job. Customer service has been very sketchy ( not returning phone calls and more or less telling me that there's nothing they can do). Something important they don't tell you initially is that it doesn't work on dark carpets or tile. The stair sensors make it stop or get stuck on these surfaces. The remedy from the company was unhelpful.

"Sage for Pets - Best thing since sliced bread."
Well I must stay I love this thing. We've had the Sage Pet for about three weeks and with four Siberian huskies it's getting a work out. We run it once or twice a day, usually when we go to bed and again when we leave in the morning. It's always picking up more fur but as long as you give the carpet a good going over with a regular vacuum cleaner before letting it go for the first time it can keep up with the fur it seems. That is to say we have not had to vacuum with the upright since we got the Sage Pet. I imagine its a good idea to give carpet a good going over once in a while but so far we have not had to bother after three weeks.

The easy clean brushes are just that, easy to get out and clean. The cleaning tool is pretty ingenious as well, a few swipes with that an the main brush is mostly cleared. It finds it's home base almost always, even when running on max, but the key to that is to put the homebase in a location that is fairly central to the area it is cleaning. It does need good regular PM cleaning, however: We live on a horse farm so there's plenty of dust and dirt coming in all the time, so we have a can of air to blow the bin and filter out after each cleaning. The only thing I've noticed that is negative is that fur and such gets into the area above the yellow brush holding area. It's easy enough to pull out with your fingers and blow out with the air but seems to be somewhat of a design flaw, however, since the main electronics are all encased and only a motor is exposed in that one area it has not caused any problems. When I've run it upstairs the dust/dirt does not seem to be such and issue as it is downstairs, mostly just fur.

One thing I've noticed since using it is the fur all over is much lower. It is not unusually when you have as many huskies as we do that fur tends drift and end up ontop of things like the TV and other dust prone areas...since we've had the Sage the overall dust seems to have gone down as well.

Have not had any real problems with it getting stuck. It's gotten stuck perhaps once or twice, hanging on a Persian rug that is across a carpet/floor tile boundary but that was the only real time I can think of...the other a collapsable footstool had falling over and pinned it down, not it's fault..ours for not cleaning things up in that area. It's quite adept at getting itself going when it runs into problems, shifting the wheels, turning and wriggling until it gets free.

You do have to keep things picked up in the area you want it to clean, which is not really a bad thing as it keeps things tidy in general, but after a few times you get a pattern down and it only takes a minute or two to clean up things that would get in the way or get caught in the brushes etc.

Final Thoughts: Awesome product, so much so that I plan to get a second unit to use upstairs and probably get a scooba to keep our kitchen floor clean as well.

Pros: Does a good job of keeping the pet hair down, floors always have a clean just vacuumed look. Special brushes are easy to clean and get pet hair off of.

Cons: Not many since we've had it such a short time, however I suspect the we will see general ware and tare on it since we use it so much, also suspect the battery will only last a year or so as rechargeables don't have a the best longevity regardless of what type they are. Also the habit of fur and such getting up above the brush housing. Well worth the 200 bucks, however.