I decided to write my initial review and update at a later time. I feel that would give a fair overview of this product & I also want to be very thorough; $200 is a lot of money to my family, it may be to yours also. I want to make sure you know all the pros & cons before making a purchase. So far - holy moly! It does just what it says it will. Vacuums over my laminate wood floors, area rugs & bathroom/kitchen tile. It does a great job, too! One less thing for me to take care of! I can't make any sense of the pattern it uses on auto clean, but it covers everywhere! There are 2 long haired ladies in my house, plus a shedding dog. I check the dirt container often & empty as needed. Our hair has gotten wrapped around the roller but a seam ripper got it out easy enough. It doesn't like dark corners, so make sure your rooms are well lit. Its not silent, though not loud either. Quieter than a hair dryer on low. All in all, thus far, definitely worth the money! Cons: rolls up thin/small area rugs & the spinning brushes probably will need replacing often (just my opinion). *** 1 week update *** Still going strong! This thing has paid for itself already in my opinion. I run it twice a day & have used the spot clean function a couple of times for spills. The max function drains the battery considerably faster. If it's too far away from the base when it dies, it has a hard time finding it's way "home" but I just guide it if it's taking a while to get there with the remote. It doesn't get into sharp corners well sometimes, I've been sweeping them out to the open floor and letting the robot get it. (Lazy, but that's what I bought this thing for, right?) I'll update again in a month with final thoughts. So far, so good! ***close enough to 1 month*** So I'm still pretty darn impressed. I've blocked it into specific rooms to make sure it sweeps the entire room at once. It has a crazy pattern & left to do it's thing WILL get the entire room...eventually. I find it easier to block it in each room, then let it go however long it wants in our main living areas. I've left the door open to my bedroom which has 2 steps down & this little guy did fall. He flipped over onto the next step. It seems to still be working just fine, but I don't chance it anymore. I did figure out that to remove hair from the roller brush, you can just pop off the cover & pull it out. That's way easier than a seam ripper! All-in-all y'all, I'd recommend this to anyone & I already have, actually. We're planning on giving one to our parents for Christmas. I have barely touched my broom for almost a month. One less thing for a stay at home mom of 2 young kids & a housewife. It's money well spent! **** 8 months later **** I’ve uploaded a picture to show the problem my husband discovered. Our ILife started getting stuck on everything - the area rugs & nothing at all. We took it apart to clean it (it definitely needed it) and found that one of the wheels wasn’t turning. When he removed the wheel he saw the ground wire was detached. When the iLife would encounter a bump, the wheel has been rubbing against the wires. 3 are frayed & the ground wire has come out completely. I’m not sure if we can fix it. It was good while it lasted but it didn’t even make it a whole year. I’m pretty disappointed. It worked really well until it didn’t. I’m going to contact the company to see what can be done. **Late update & Final thoughts** The company is in China so there was a lot lost in translation in emails. They didn’t quite understand the issue with the wiring but sent two new wheel assemblies and emailed a video on how to replace them. The video didn’t include how to replace the wires. I decided to attempt it anyway & I was successful! It hasn’t worked nearly as well since then. I’m not the most mechanically inclined person so maybe it’s not exactly right, but it does work. I think at this point it’s getting very close to the end of its life. It’s worse at detecting a fall down the stairs, chooses corners it will never go in & gets stuck easily or on nothing at all. All-in-all, I’d say it was worth $200. Next time, I’ll invest more money into a unit that will hopefully last longer. If you’re on a budget & in the market for one of these, this one has been great overall & even with the issues we’ve had, the warranty was honored, the customer service was good & it does what it says it does. ****Final Update 2 years later RIP iLife**** So after the repair I did, it never really worked as well. Now it’s definitely at the end of its life. It will clean for a few feet, back up in a circle then stop & flash red once. I haven’t attempted to contact the company because at this point I’m way outside the warranty period and I’m not confident in whatever I’d have to repair this time. Like I said before, for $200 I wasn’t disappointed. Do I wish it lasted longer? Well of course, I wish it lasted forever! But it was our first foray into robot vacuums and I honestly don’t see our future without one, just not this one. It’s a great budget/beginner vacuum. Can you live without one? Sure. Do you want to? This little robot will answer that for you. It’s a definite NO from me! At the end of the day, you get what you pay for & this was definitely worth it. I’ll spend more this time for a better quality machine. But, I have zero regrets. If you’re on the fence about owning a robot vacuum this is the budget machine you’re looking for. Not so much that you’ll kick yourself for buying it if you think it’s a waste and not much at all when you look at the cost of higher quality machines when you upgrade. You can’t go wrong. Also - just as a disclaimer, I wasn’t paid or compensated for any of these reviews. These are 100% honest and my own opinions.