Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We had been looking at robot vacs since they first came out but with a dog and a cat and the mixed reviews and expense we just kept waiting. Am I glad we did. We had a bunch of cash back sitting on one of our AMEX cards and found the D80 on sale for $100 less than MSRP so decided to risk it (essentially free - thank you American Express!). So very glad we bought this - I love, Love, LOVE this robot! Between Neato and our Amazon Echo it feels like living in the Jetsons (maybe someday they will integrate?). You might see the price on these dropping since Neato just announced a new version with Bluetooth and an improved battery. Based on what I read I don't think we are missing anything for the extra $200 they are talking about when it is released. Admittedly the controls could be better (and will be on the Bluetooth model) but once Neato is set up you really don't need to mess with the controls again. If you are good without a remote get the D80. The D85 comes with extra replacement filters but is usually too expensive to justify the price difference. Compare them before you buy and decide for yourself. Replacement filters are available on Amazon and Neato is talking about an improved filter with the next bot release. I was always concerned about the bin getting full quickly on any of bot vac because of the pet hair. Another Amazon reviewer showed how much pet hair his Neato picked up in one pass and I was impressed enough to give it a try. Let me tell you, Neato really packs in the pet hair! It's better than my stick vac. The first day Neato cleaned the house without any help. It navigated around the dining room table and chairs and the stools at the breakfast bar flawlessly (which just blew me away). It goes under places I never expected (and better than I do with a stick vac). Day one it missed some pet hair dust bunnies in some corners of the house it couldn't reach (to tight for Neato to get in). No surprise - we have a few odd corners that I figured any robot couldn't get to. A few days later it seemed like there was less pet hair in one of those corners. Guess what? A few days after that ALL those odd corners were clean - no pet hair!. How? Why? Magic! A little experimenting and I figured it out. Neato turns frequently. If it gets into a tight space it will back out, pivot around 180 degrees and head out. When it did that near the areas it couldn't reach, Neato's back exhaust was powerful enough to blow the dust bunnies out to other parts of the room. If Neato didn't catch it the same day (because it had already gone over that area) it picks it up the next day. A few stray dust bunnies sure beats drifts of pet hair around the house - especially since I don't need to do the vacuuming Took me a few days to figure out Neato wouldn't go under the bed because it thought the bed skirt was an obstacle. I decided I'd rather have clean than decorative so I tucked the bed skirt up on one side and Neato zoomed under and no more dust bunnies and pet hair under the bed. You can tuck just one side of the bed skirt up and Neato will clean all under the bed without a problem. You don't even need to tuck the whole bed skirt up, just a handful tucked up is enough for Neato to find it's way under the bed and clean, However under the bed was the first place Neato got stuck when I wasn't home. I came home to a freaked out dog and cat and a distant beeping. Neato got tangled in the electrical cords under the bed and couldn't get out. The instructions DO warn about this possibility but after several days without a problem I figured we were ok. Neato had shut itself off except for a mournful beeping and a display message asking for help. Aside from the dog and cat freaking out from the beeping not a big deal. I freed it up and tried the magnetic border that was included but Neato kept moving the boarder. I tired weighing the border with something and still didn't help. Finally I just shoved some boxes under the bed in front of the cords and this kept Neato out of harms way. The weird part of this is we have a refrigerator that has a surface that scratches easily (don't get me started on how we learned that or what it took to fix what one fridge magnet did). I put the magnetic strip down by the fridge and Neato glides by every time without a problem. So you might have hit or miss luck with the boarder also. When the nephew moved out we found one of his socks under the bed when Neato got caught on it so if you are one of those people who leaves stuff laying around the house this can be a problem. Again, once I freed it up, Neato went on it's merry way. Let's talk about the battery. Neato has very specific instructions about conditioning the battery which I religiously followed. Neato is able to do our 1600 square foot single level house in one pass in about 1.75 hours on one charge. Getting stuck seems to use up a lot of battery. Both times Neato cleaned for a while then suddenly shut down it's vacuum and started silently heading for it's home base to recharge. A message on the display explained what it was doing. A bit awkward to read it while following it (I didn't want to disturb it's route as I wanted to see what it would do). Once it was charged up again, off it went a started where it left off and finished up a few minutes later. It's cool to watch Neato sidle up to it's home base. We did have an incident where Neato committed suicide. The socket Neato's home base is plugged into for charging is a bit loose. After several days of working fine, one day Neato managed to pull the plug for it's charging station / home base loose and we didn't notice so it didn't get a charge. The next time is started cleaning it headed home for a fresh charge after just a few minutes. I thought the battery wad fried but when I looked at the charge indicator it wasn't doing anything. That's when I investigated and discovered the plug had been pulled loose by Neato running over the cord. Easy fix, moved the cord near the wall out of the way and no problems since. It would be nice to have an led on top of the home base indicating it's plugged in but now that I figured it out it will probably never happen again. There have been a few other incidents were Neato got stuck and drained it's battery. For some reason occasionally it gets trapped under one of the breakfast bar stools. I came home and found them moved and thought that was odd. I watched and finally found it getting stuck. It acts like a trapped animal or like Herby the luv bug (for those of you that remember that movie). After a minute or so Neato gets free but moves the stool in the process. This also drains the battery. Freaking out the human - one day I came home, found Neato safe on his home base (as it usually is). I emptied the dust bin and went about my day. I noticed the breakfast stools had been moved but didn't think about it. A little while later, Neato started up and scared the 'bleep' out of me. Neato hadn't finished cleaning so off it went like a dutiful servant and finished up once his battery was charged again. One time it didn't quite get home and stopped about a foot in front of it's base so I assumed it got stuck somewhere and drained it's battery. I placed it on it's base and it was fine. In the three weeks we have had Neato this has only happened once. I have to devote a section to pet treats. Both the dog and cat tend to be hoarders. Neato found every cat treat that our little furry friend had hidden away - they showed up one or two at a time in the dust bin. Dog's treat are two big for Neato to pick up but fortunately our dog tends to drop his by his bowl. It's not a big deal to pick them up and throw them in his food dish when we see them. Let's talk dust bin. I empty it every day as recommended. Not a big deal. I use the included comb to clean out the filter (easy) and every now and then use an air can duster to blow it clean. Spending 5 minutes a day on this simple task is a great tradeoff for having a clean house to come home to everyday and not having to vacuum myself. I keep the comb near a trash can with a q-tip and give the bottom sensors a quick wipe with the q-tip as recommended. Easy! Ok, this next bit is a bit embarrassing because I had no idea the house was this dirty. I knew we were overdue for a vacuuming (it had been a few weeks) but I decided, let's see what Neato can do with a somewhat dirty house. The first day the dust bin was packed with pet fur (just like the other reviewer's pictures showed) and the house looked great! Except one area rug (more on that later). As mentioned before, every day there were less dust-pet fur bunnies and the dust bin was packed full. After three weeks the pet fur finally seems to be less packed so Neato must have searched-and-found most of it by now. Ten years ago I had some surgery (before we were married) and hired a housekeeper to come in once a week to vacuum, do laundry, etc. The house is cleaner now than it was then! Neato is better than hired staff! Neato did something weird but understandable. We have three bookshelves that the bottom shelf is flat on the ground. Neato climbs the lower shelf and vacuums all the way up to the books. The first time I saw this I almost had a heart attack because I built that bookcase with my grandfather 40 some years ago. No problem. Neato didn't leave a mark. Neato has a hard plastic 'bumper' as part of the casing (made of the same material). We have a lot of antiques handed down from my family and I was dubious about turning Neato loose to crash into these. No problem. A gentle bump and Neato backs off and moves away. It's a bit rough when it gets stuck on the kitchen stools which I got at Wal-Mart but it's never left a mark on those either. One area rug picks up all the pet hair and seems to trap it until we vacuum. Neato went over it without a great dal of improvement. I was a bit disappointed but given the rest of the house looked good I figured I could live with one 3' x 5' rug that I would have to vacuum myself. After three weeks and Neato getting a little more off it every day the area rug now look like we just pulled out the upright. Way to go Neato! I thought the spinning side brush was pretty cool. I was disappointed that there wasn't one on each side (seems obvious to me). The brush got stuck somehow between the floor mat under the treadmill and the tile floor and popped off. I was able to find it easily enough and pop it back on. The side brush is held on magnetically and seems designed to pop off in these situations. The replacement brushes are cheap so I was thinking about keeping a few extras around in case we lost one. A few days after we got Neato, it started making this horrible racket. A little playing around and I figured out removing the side brush stopped the noise and didn't impact how Neato performed. I considered returning Neato but after a few days decided we could live without the side brush and expense of replacing these periodically. I was worried the edges would be cleaned well and was resigned to getting out the upright and running the hose along the edges of the carpet. So far does not seem needed. Maybe before company comes over or my mother-in-law visits :) I'll get the edges but for everyday we seem to be fine with Neato. Other reviewers have talked about the brushes, filters, etc. so I'm not going into all that. We find Neato pretty quiet on carpet, louder on hard floors but no worse than any vacuum. Since Neato can be paused by pushing a button on top and will resume by pushing the buttons again this is not a big deal. If I am on the phone, the person on the other end can't hear Neato but I can't hear them so I just pause Neato until I am off the phone or go into another room, Side brush or not, Neato simply can't get all the crumbs around the coffee table legs on the carpet. No problem - just move the coffee table a few inches and let Neato do it's thing. Or get the upright out - either way seems decadently lazy and I love it (oh, the problems we have in our lives) . I am so glad we waited for a good vacuum to finally be made. We know to many people how have tried other ones and been disappointed (including our minister who actually worked her disappointment with a different bot-vac into her sermon the week we got ours - we haven't told her about ours yet). Neato's engineers should win an award for brilliance. I have NEVER had a vacuum that is so easy to maintain. The brush pops on and off easily for cleaning and if you get any string or long hairs wrapped around the brush, the filter cleaning tool has a built in cutter to handle it. I would love to meet the person who came up with these ideas! If you have been waiting for any reason - wait no more. Grab one, you won't regret it. Thank you Neato for making a product that actually works as expected and better.