Ok, just got the GoDogGo an hour ago, so I cannot speak to the durability/longevity of the device, but I can say my heeler learned how to work it after watching me put the ball in once. He even sometimes puts it directly onto the launcher, skipping the bucket all together.. haha, gotta love those herding breeds. Now my goal was to use this with his chuckit strato balls, because those are his favorite, and he can do his victory lap/chomp session without ruining the ball (a tennis ball gets cracked within seconds of him doing that, and if it miraculously manages to last for 2-3 throws, it winds up soaked and unusable). The strato ball is the same size as a tennis ball, so it fits and seems to work fine in the machine. It seems to fly about the same distance as the tennis ball, which is to say..not very far at all, even on the longest distance setting (it flies about 10 ft, give or take a bit). There are several balls that came with the machine - some tennis balls, one light and hard plastic ball, and one kind of rubber/foamy ball that feels about the same weight as the strato ball. Oddly enough, the rubber/foamy one is the one that flies the farthest - goes about 15-20 ft. I'm not sure why that one goes further than the strato ball, given they're approximately the same size/weight, and you would think the strato ball would go further given that it's a hollow rubber ball with 2 holes on either end, but who knows. So.. so far, I'm not overly thrilled with this purchase, especially considering how much I spent, but I'm not super disappointed either, since it saves me from having to throw the ball every 2 seconds. I'll keep messing around with it and trying different setting/balls to see what works best. Sidenote: changing the distance setting can be really difficult depending on which way you're changing it. It seems to be a pretty heavy duty/tight spring, so it may be more difficult to move it if you're trying to set it to high (which is the shortest distance from what I can tell, because it just makes the ball go directly up instead of out).