We have a Roomba 960 and it works well on both hardwood and carpet. We turn it on before we leave for work and it's all done when we get home. Here's some reviews. I can't speak to the other brands but my guess is Roomba does not have the market cornered like it did a few years ago. BigWhup is probably right, if she's asking for a Roomba you should pay attention

Ok. The Roomba 805 is the one I really like, we bought it at Costco. It does a great job and is easy to clean and maintain. It doesn't get stuck or lost. The one I don't care for too much is the 690

Mostly hardwoods with six cats and a dog, it helps tons.

The Neato D7 is outstanding. You can set no-go lines easily. I caught mine on sale at Amazon for $539. We bought on to try and the Wife liked it so much we bought another one for the upstairs. I use a cheaper model for my unfinished basement since we have 2 dogs and foster up to 4 more so it keeps the concrete floor clean. I don't recall the brand but it was ~$140.

The only downside is that they are loud (duh, it's a vacuum) and I feel like I am constantly emptying the little bin. Probably because I have 3 of them. My Wife now only runs the "real" vacuum once a month. Huge time saver for her.

As to the learning aspect, no big deal. It'll figure things out pretty quickly. Ours has to recharge twice for the downstairs. The upstairs does it all on one charge. Our house is not a prefect setup and the one downstairs gets hung up under the kitchen table trying to maneuver around the chairs. It alerts on your phone when it has a problem. Move it and hit resume. Starts right back up.

Neato D7 Setup is easy. Took a few minutes to get everything on wifi and connected to the phone app. Setting no-go lines can be programmed into the floor plan or you can use the included magnetic strips to block areas until you can get no-go lines programmed since it has to learn the layout before you can set them in the phone app. The cheaper model in the basement doesn't have many of the advanced features and gets hung up all the time. I just put it back on the charger when I let the dogs out in the morning. It is setup to run once a day. Since adding that one, no fur tumbleweeds in the basement from the husky fur.

Reviving an old thread here. Anyone have the Roomba i7+ ? I am curious how well the self emptying feature works and if you consider it was worth the extra money.

I do not but we don’t let our version (Samsung?) operate extensively on its own and thus that feature is not important.

For us, there are too many limitations (shag rugs in two main rooms, etc) that neuter the little thing. I primarily use it to clean bedrooms and I shut it in a given room for a period of time, dump the can and then send it to the charging station.

Overall, I personally wouldn’t buy one unless I only had hard floors and / or good quality, tight carpets. Otherwise, it’s not that hard to pull out the old Electrolux and do a much better job.

My wife purchased the Sammy when she first got sick. I wasn’t going to object at that time. It’s useful but, again, it’s not truly self reliant.

TL;DR - Get the self-emptying base.

We have the S9+. Let me start off by saying I think the robot vacuum is an expensive gadget. I wouldn't have bought one, I mean how lazy can you get?

That being said, I wouldn't get one without the self-emptying base. The whole purpose of the gadget is to make the chore of vacuuming easier, why would you skimp on this feature?

In practice, the base works great. Without it, we would be emptying the robot every time it ran. I actually had to convince my wife that we needed the base. Now that she has it, she said I was right (that's probably the 4th time that's happened).

The S9 does a decent job keeping up with out dog's hair at home and the hair and sand at our beach house. Our dog doesn't shed like crazy though. The S9 manages with our rugs and floors well. It really does better than I expected it to.

Looks like there is a Shark with auto empty with decent reviews and less money.