Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I own two Roomba 560s and have now tried two Neato XV-11's. After watching the Neato produced videos, I was pretty enthusiastic. According to Neato, the XV-11 won't hit your furniture like the Roomba does, and will cover an entire room by doing the perimeter and then going back and forth across the room the way you'd normally vacuum. My experience with the XV-11 was not positive for several reasons. 1. The XV-11 WILL hit your walls and furniture: While the XV-11 doesn't hit walls and furniture nearly as often as the Roomba (which uses its bumper to detect when to change direction and thus always hits the walls and furniture), the XV-11 WILL hit your furniture and other items from time to time when the laser is unable to "see" the item. This seems to happen most often with irregularly shaped objects, where the portion at the level of the XV-11's laser is farther out than the portion that the XV-11's bumper actually hits. Thus, it is still important to prep the area by removing fragile items and furniture that might be in the XV-11's path. 2. My XV-11 missed some portions of the room: The XV-11 attempts to vacuum your rooms by doing the perimeter and then covering the entire room by going back and forth. I found that my first XV-11 created long, thin islands of missed areas as it went back and forth. As that XV-11 turned around to come back across my room, it goes just a bit too far and thus left a long thin gap in between where it went down one way and where it comes back the other way. I returned that XV-11 and Neato replaced it with a new one that they preinspected before shipping it to me. The new one doesn't miss long gaps when it goes back and forth, but instead misses areas as it does the perimeter. As a result, the Roomba, which bounces around randomly, seems to do a better job at covering an entire room. 3. The Roomba has better battery life: The XV-11 does finish the room much more quickly than the Roomba, but the Roomba's battery life is significantly better. My XV-11 did two rooms before needing to re-charge, and my Roomba can usually get through 3 or 4. Also, when I left my XV-11 off the charger (but turned off) overnight, I found it only had 50% of the battery left the next day. My Roomba has not had that problem. 4. I have serious questions about the quality control on these units. My first one missed areas when going back and forth. Although Neato initially refused to replace the unit, an executive team member contacted me after reading an earlier version of this review and shipped me a new one. The second one missed areas on the perimeter, but handled the back and forth just fine. But, after completing the first room, the second XV-11 moved on to the middle of the second room, and then parked itself with the vacuum and scooper running. I let it sit for about 10 minutes before I finally intervened (to prevent it from damaging my carpet). At the time, the display said "Cleaning House" and the timer said "00:00". When I tried it again, the Neato got stuck trying to clean the upstairs area near my stairs. Roomba has vacuumed that same area dozens of times without any problems. Given that the XV-11 costs almost $400, I'm surprised that the two units that I've owned have had two entirely different problems very early in my ownership. 5. I have concerns about Neato's customer support. After I experienced the missed areas problem with the first XV-11, I called Neato and explained the problem. The lady I spoke with claimed that she'd never heard of the issue I described before and she offered to let me ship the item to them so that they could check it out. However, she was unwilling to offer an advance replacement, so I'd simply have to go without while they check it out. Since my 30-day return period with Amazon.com was likely to expire during that time (and I didn't think that I should have to lose the use of the $400 vacuum cleaner while they figure out what's wrong with it), I returned it to Amazon.com and wrote a review explaining my experiences. To its credit, someone at Neato apparently read my first Amazon.com review and had someone in their executive team contact me and arrange to sell me the second Neato. My review was one of the first five on Amazon.com, was featured prominently, and was the only negative review at the time. Many of the positive reviews appear to have been posted by people who didn't buy the product on amazon.com and who have a limited history posting reviews at all. Future buyers may not be so lucky. In any case, I feel that you shouldn't have to be the squeaky wheel just to get good customer service. In fairness to Neato, its customer service people are located in California (not a foreign country) and generally seemed to understand the product. Also, there are lots of compaints about Roomba's customer service on various web-sites as well. Conclusion: My Roombas were considerably cheaper ($250 each) than the XV-11 and have been quite reliable. Also, the place that I bought them offers a lifetime satisfaction guaranty, and so I won't be out $400 if they fail two months down the road. Given that the Roomba is significantly cheaper and works better overall, if I had to pick one, I'd take the Roomba for now.