The neato I got is slightly quieter than my Roomba discovery. It's still a vacuum cleaner, so it's still not pleasant, but its pink noise spectrum is slightly less annoying than the Roomba, and the overall volume is slightly quieter.

The Neato can turn and drive forward at the same time. For instance, it does this when circling around table legs. This can be seen in their promo video.

My idea would have been to have it vacuum on a schedule, like you, but the problem is that I need to "prep" the house before it vacuums or else it will get stuck in spots. I have to remove clutter on the floor (backpack straps, shoelaces, etc., will jam it), then turn up certain chairs so that it will not get stuck under them. So a regular schedule for this thing is not in the cards.