Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have to agree with many others here, the new Neato D5 is a winner! This is the first robot vacuum system we ever owned, so did a lot of research and talking to others that owned competitive brands. We chose Neato since others mentioned their brand was round, so had a problem getting into corners and doing a good job. Neato is a D shape, so has corners that fit to clean. Others mentioned their brand would either go randomly across the rooms, or miss areas 5 inches away, and never come back to get them. Neato has NOT missed one spot yet for us. We attribute the great cleaning coverage of the Neato D5 to the excellent programming and laser mapping this unit has. Though you can't see the laser, you can see the unit sitting and turning to map out the room and area. Plus, it remembers the areas that it traveled, such that when it comes by them again, it will automatically turn to do an overlap. It maneuvers itself graciously around table legs and chairs. It goes under our dining room set of many chairs and legs and manages to get around all of them, and it knows that they are there. If the laser doesn't pick it up, the very sensitive edges on the unit will very lightly touch the object, then remember it's there, and go around it. As an example, we forgot about a tall thin ceramic vase we had sitting on the floor. A slight bump would knock it over. We saw the Neato coming toward it, and thought that's it, it's going to fall over. But NO, the Neato slowed down coming up to it, gave it a very gentle touch, and went in a circle around it. We were now very impressed and didn't worry after that. We also have a solid heavy square edged stainless steel table bottom, between 1/2" to 3/4" thick. It stopped when it came to that and couldn't go forward to get over it. Did that stop it? NO! It tried a couple times, realized it couldn't go forward, backed up, turned to an angle, then lifted it's one wheel taller, and went right up on it and continued to clean. Speaking of wheels, there are two main drive ones on the Neato. On bare floor, the unit sits low to the floor, but when it comes to bumps, rugs, edging, etc, it moves one wheel or the other, or both, to a different height, then keeps on going. We thought for sure the unit was going to get itself stuck a few times from the situations that it got into, but, no again. The unit figures out how to get out of a jam. We watched it get into tight spaces like a maze, and sure enough, it's smart enough to figure how to get itself back out. Though there's a Find Me icon in the App on the smart phone, we haven't had to use it. It just kind of takes care of itself. We don't worry about it. The App that you can load on your smart phone lets you set schedules, start and stop it, provides you with cleaning statistics, tech data, battery power, etc. We found the unit battery will at least go two hours, and if it hasn't finished cleaning (depending on size of the area), it will shut of it's vacuum, and find it's way back to it's base to charge. Never bumps into anything on the way either, it knows where it needs to go. As mentioned by another reviewer, it will go up to the base going forward, slow down, turn itself around, then slowly wiggle backwards to ensure it makes a good contact. It will then charge, and when done, leave again and go right back to the exact spot it left off to finish cleaning. The App provides status of everything going on if you want to know. Since we have pets, if the vacuum filled up and needed emptied, that's not a problem either. You can tell it to remind you to clean bin at an interval you choose, or, if you forget, and the unit bin gets too full, or even if the brush gets tangled or needs cleaned, it will stop and signal you, and even send you a message from the App to let you know. If you want to clean just one room, all you do is sit it in the room, press Start, and close the door. When it's done, it returns itself to the exact spot you placed it and shuts itself off. If you have an area with no door, or a section where you don't want it to "cross that line", Neato provides a magnetic strip you can lay across that section, and the unit will not cross it. Sorry for the ramble, but you can tell we're impressed with the Neato D5, and are very glad we chose this brand over any other manufacturer. We haven't found anyone else that has a unit that can do the same. Instead, they tell us what theirs can't do. So are we pleased, definitely Yes!