Neato Robotics - Botvac Connected App-Controlled Self-Charging Robot Vacuum - Black

First off, we have approximately 2200 sq.ft. of floor space which includes 9 rooms and 2 hallways. The floors are wood, carpet and throw rugs. Along with that two cats which comes into effect for picking up hair. We've used the vacuum now for little over a month, vacuuming twice a week. Battery Life and cleaning time: The battery does need one additional charge before completing the whole home which seems to be around 1 to 1 1/2 hours to complete the charge. So including the charge time it takes about 3 hours to compete the entire home. Though it may take longer to vacuum you do have the time to be doing other activities in the home while the robot takes care of the vacuuming. Cleaning: All in all we were surprised at how well it picks up cat hair and other debris on both surfaces mentioned above and under counters. The vacuum dirt bin is small but seems to hold enough for the size of home it is being used in, only having to empty the dirt bin between charges. At this time we can't really determine if it does a deep clean on the rugs but there is no evidence that it isn't. There were pine needles from the Christmas tree on the rug and the vacuum had no problem picking them up, well I'd say it got 99% of them. On the wood floors there isn't any evidence of scratching and the vacuum is getting under the lips of the counters and along the kick boards well. Another nice ability is that the vacuum gets under the beds, which is hard with a regular vacuum, where there is a lot of dust that accumulates. App, instructions and programing: We have not used the app for manual control of the vacuum but hope to do that in the near future. The app has been easy to use plus with the larger screen on the Tablet makes it easy to set the robot up. Instructions are a little lacking. But was able to work through any questions we had. An example would be the magnetic strip that goes on the floor to prevent the vacuum from entering specific areas. How much do I need to place? I also wonder how well the magnetic strip will hold on carpeting which I haven't had to do. The downside of the initial programing is the screen on the machine is small which makes hard to read. So use the app whenever you can. We have programmed a schedule for cleaning, using the app, with no problem. The unit starts up right on schedule. General: The vacuum has only got stuck twice, once on an item that isn't usually on the floor and once under a TV stand, which it got under once before but must have gotten a big ego and didn't make it the second time. Noise level is comparable to a regular large vacuum though may be a little louder when on a bare floor. I researched all brands of robotic vacuums on the internet and decided on this one for two reasons. 1) The square head seems to be logical for getting into corners better and 2) the app for manual control if you want or need to use it. Summary: I would recommend to a friend and have not found any real downside to the unit at least yet. Since it's only been a month of use I can't give it 5 stars. If it continues to operate at it's current level 5 stars would probably be reached. As for the cats, they seem to tolerate the unit better then the regular vacuum. They seem more interested in watching it then running away from it.

My unit arrived on 08/11/2017 (3 days ago). Since then I have used it for house cleaning (entire floor) and spot cleaning (under the bed, kitchen floor after meals). On the positive side: when the robot works it is a good vacuum cleaner. Turbo mode did well with dry food crumbs, standard household dust/dirt and human hair on both tile and carpet. The combo brush is better for carpet and the spiral blade brush is good for tile. Also the D shape is pretty good at getting close to the edges. Overall it's not as good as a Dyson upright (I have one of those as well), but I highly doubt any robot is. The negative (see attached photos also): 1) The robot refuses to start a job if the battery level is less than 50%. That is a total waste of 1/2 a battery charge! If a job is already in progress, it will go until about 5% and then look for the charging base but if you're moving the robot between rooms or floors and it happens to be less than 50% then you're out of luck and have to charge it up before continuing. Waste of time! 2) If your 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi networks have different SSIDs and your mobile device is on 5GHz, then you won't be able to use the Manual Clean (remote control) mode. The Neato app is not smart enough to realize that you are in fact on the same network. The unit only works on 2.4GHz. 3) In the past 3 days since I received the robot, it has dropped off the WiFi network at least 4 times. And this is NOT an issue with my home WiFi router. I have plenty of other devices on 2.4GHz and 5GHz without dropping issues. The software on the unit is 2.2.0 (current as of today). This is one of those cases where a product looks better on paper than in practice.

This is my first “robot vacuum”. It has done very well so far. It does get hung up at times, it helps to have the area picked up ahead of time. My first problem with it, the button sensor for the dust bin needed to be pressed a few times. I really like it but there was a small learning curve that everyone has to deal with in getting an appliance that is new to them. One thing I wish they would improve: if it gets stuck, you have place it back down very close to where you picked it up or it will get lost. We named ours Rosie (Jetsons reference) and she can do all the common areas in one charge.

I've owned / own an XV-11, XV-21 and Botvac 80. I've been a big fan of Neato since they came out with their first product and I still believe in the quality of their LIDAR system to map the room before cleaning. I bought my unit the very first week (Oct 14), but I've held off posting a review until I could work through all of the issues I've had with the unit. Let's start with the positives: - I like the new captive touch interface. Takes a second to adjust to when coming out of the other robots since it's more sensitive. - Nice color screen - easy to read. - Being connected, the day / time automatically gets set for you. - Finally they ditched the Pb batteries and went to Li-ion. I can attest to the fact that in Eco mode, the batteries really do run 2 hours. I can now clean 2000+ sq ft on one charge in Eco mode vs. 2.5 charges with the prior robots. - I don't see a lot of difference between Eco and Turbo modes. Mostly Turbo is a little louder (haven't done the measurement's but probably 5db more) than Eco. Eco picks up dirt just as good as my XV-11. - The new filter is awesome. A quick swipe of the finger gets all the junk off of it. No more vacuuming my filter after every cleaning cycle. - Controlling the robot with my iPhone is nice. Just have to remember to get all the stuff picked up so not to confuse / block it. Messaging when it's done is nice as well. - Side brush works well. Nothing is ever going to get a corner perfect, but this helps. Now for the negatives that drag this down to 2 stars: - All shiny black = shows every single fingerprint. If you want your robot to look as clean as your house, be prepared to wipe the dust bin down constantly. - It took me 4 tries to get the robot connected to the Neato servers. 1st time I let it try for 36 hours with no success - could never link up to the Neato server but was on my wifi network quickly. 2nd and 3rd tries the robot would not connect to my wifi - yes you have to start from scratch if it won't connect to Neato's servers. 4th time it actually connected fairly quickly. I sent an e-mail in to Neato the 1st night I had it about the connection issue - they never responded. Had to call in about another issue to even get an answer. - Once you get the robot connected to the Neato servers, you have to go online to complete your profile setup or you will not be able to get notifications from the robot. And this means giving them info about where the robot was purchased, not just name and e-mail. And BTW, they know there is a problem with their website with some browsers. I actually had to use my phone to do the registration as I could never get it to work on my computer. Pretty sad for a "connected" robot. And BTW - nothing in the documentation tells you that you have to do this for the notifications to work. - The only notification you'll get from the robot is that it's done. There's no warning that I've seen if the robot gets stuck or has another issue. - No matter if you've selected Turbo or Eco as the default on the robot itself, if you use the app to start the robot, Turbo is always the default, even if Eco has been used before. So if you forgot, you have to life with more noise and shorter battery life. Silly that you can't set a default for Eco in the app. - Here's the real kicker for me that dropped this to a 2 start product. The units are built wrong. The 1st minute I put the dust bin into the main robot I noticed that it did not sit flush with the robot. And the left side (looking at it) sits higher than the right side. I'm not talking about a little bit, I'm talking enough that if I put a light inside the dust bin, I can see it shining out between the robot and dust bin lid. I contacted Neato more than 5 times and included pictures to show them exactly what was going on and the best they could do is send me a replacement dust bin. Even after multiple e-mail confirmations of my shipping address and a phone call in over 1.5 weeks, the replacement bin still never got shipped out. Had to spend 30 minutes in online chat with them to actually get the replacement sent. And I told them I didn't think this would fix the issue and sure enough it didn't. Another phone call to them and the best they could tell me was that this is the way the robot is built. Seriously - for $700 you can't build something where all of the pieces sit flush with each other? See the attached pictures and be warned than your spanking new robot that's 2x the price of their 1st robot is going to be flawed and Neato thinks that's okay. - Even though Neato customer service by phone has a special button press just for Neato connected owners, it doesn't seem like they really care that you bought their flagship model. Like buying an Audi and getting treated like you bought a VW. Unknowns: - The robot comes with a USB adaptor for doing software upgrades. You can look at your account online (but not through the app specifically) to see if there are software updates available (none right now). But the real question is will the updates be done over the air like they should be for a connected product or are you still going to have to plug it in to a stupid PC (sorry no Macs) to do the update? Would I buy this units again knowing all this issues - no. Would I wait for the 2nd generation of the Neato Connected - yes.

First off - it is much better than the older models of Roomba that just bounce around. It takes a map of your house the first time, and follows it each time. It sends you a map daily showing how many sq feet it vacuumed and where in the house. It is pretty systimatic - it does the outside edge first, then "mows the lawn" so to speak for the center. So it covers every inch! The only downside so far is after 1 month the brush broke which costs $40 to replace or I would have given it max stars. I hope this is not a repeat occurance as this will drop the rating I gave significantly.

Pros: -Vacuums Really well as a vacuum. -It seems to have a system when cleaning and not just randomly going everywhere. -Picks up stuck items like play-doh or small candies. -When the battery is low the robot go back to charge station by itself, then go back to the area it was and continue cleaning. -Side brush will pop off if it gets snagged on something. -Will work in low/no light (which is convenient during the fall) -Works great on hard wood, carpet, and tile. -Does a good job picking up pet hair (for the most part) Cons: -You have to "prep" the cleaning area. -Filter is not washable. -Side brush will pop off if it gets snagged on something (I cant find mine). -It doesn't seem to pick up medium size to large hair balls from pets This is my first robot vacuum. I have been using this robot as a primary vacuum for a few months now and has been working extremely well. The vacuum seems to pick up everything, with the exception of some dust in curved corners. It cleans under chairs and couches too. The first time I used it it came back covered in cobwebs (like a Halloween decorated robot). I have a kid and it works really well picking up items that are stuck to tile floor like play-doh or a small candy. You do have to pre-check the area to see if their are items that the vacuum will get stuck to. Things like pulling out the chairs in the breakfast area or picking up toys. The vacuum has tank tracks and is able to tilt if it get stuck. However, if you leave something out like a toy, the vacuum tends to go over it, freak-out, and get stuck. Also it does not work on very high pile carpet. I have a "shag" rug and it jams on that rug. But I had other vacuums jam in that rug as well. Neato includes a magnetic strip to prevent the vacuum going into an area of your choice. However the strip does not hold very well and I'll notice the robot moving it around before realizing it's the magnetic strip. I have built a little fort for the shag carpet and use the strips when I need to do a specific area. The filter is not washable but it last a very long time. I let my friend try it out and he seemed to like it as well. He has multiple pets with carpet as his primary flooring. It picked up a large amount of hair. It didn't pick up some hair balls that were on the service of the carpet. However he told me that most vacuums he used were not able to pick up that type of dog hair. He only is able to get that pick up by a Dyson Animal or a high quality pet vacuum. Even with all the small issues, it has saved me so much time when cleaning around my house. Maids/Cleaning services charge $50 minimum for a basic cleaning per session (vacuum the house and wiping down counter tops). Even with replacement filters, it pays for itself in less than a year compared to getting a maid to come by twice a month for vacuuming.

I purchased the Neato Botvac to help clean since I have 4 dogs and 1 cat, and a very bad back. This little machine is lifechanging. I no longer have to ask my family for help vacuuming every day, this little botvac goes everywhere, even under our beds and furniture. I loved it so much I purchased one for my parents house too. If you're considering a botvac, the Neato brand is by far the best on the market. Additional bonus for this botvac, I can use my smart phone and guide it manually or I just tell Alexa to have Neato, I named him Botty, clean my house, and off he goes. The dust bin holds a lot of debris and he tells you when it's full so no guessing. If you're considering a botvac, don't pass this one up! I have combination floors, wood, tile, and carpet. He cleans them all!!!

I bought my first “vacuum” years ago (roomba) and was such a disappointment that I never tried again. Went to the store looking for alternatives and the tech guy talked to me about Neato although not sure I took the initiative and bought it. I was amazed and delighted! Such a big difference! Not sure if technology has advanced enough since the time I bought the first one or just the shape since is different does a better job! I will not go back to the old fashion way of cleaning! Love it! Pets don’t even bother with it!