Robot vacuums · Neato
A D-shaped robot vacuum owners keep for how thoroughly it cleans, pet hair included, while working around an app and support situation that got much harder once Neato shut down its servers.
Cleaning performance is the clearest praise: every owner who raised it said the D7 vacuums well, and several who tried newer rivals said the D7 still picked up more, especially with a shedding dog in the house.
Customer support is the clearest complaint. Since Neato switched off its servers and disabled the app, owners describe a vacuum that no longer behaves properly in manual use, with no help to be had from the company.
Pick up to three. You get a page with just those, side by side, on the subjects owners raised.
What still pleases people is the basic job: the full-width brush and LIDAR navigation cover a floor well, and owners with heavy shedders say it keeps up with daily runs, sometimes twice a day. Sound is a quiet strength too, with most owners who mentioned it happy with how it sounds in use. One long-time owner even preferred the D7's software to the newer D10 for drawing no-go lines and setting up rooms.
The adjustment is the app. It is a concern for most owners who raised it, and with the servers gone the app is no longer there to lean on at all. Several owners now push the robot onto its base by hand and have found it will only start charging after they unplug and replug the base, sometimes more than once. Obstacle handling is also a concern for most who raised it: the laser sits high enough to miss a wall-hung cabinet, and some owners describe it ramming a dryer or couch repeatedly or failing to recognise the house after remapping. Others say the way it lifts its rear when backing out of tight spots has kept it from ever getting stuck.
Owners are divided on reliability. On one side, a household running a D5 and D7 twice daily after a Malamute for six years has only replaced spinner belts and rollers and never had a part break. On the other, owners describe robots that have started wandering with no end in sight after several years, batteries dying without warning since the shutdown, Wi-Fi that will not connect, and a company that stopped issuing software updates well before it stopped issuing anything. Battery life is similarly split, with roughly as many owners happy as not. Hair tangling leans negative for the owners who raised it.
The long-term picture is thin. Only a small share of accounts speak to years of ownership, and most of what they say is tangled up with the server shutdown rather than the hardware itself. Owners who are still running one do the fixes themselves: replacing belts and rollers, cycling the base's power, and keeping spare filters, since the company is no longer part of the equation.
Nothing with a clear majority yet. Owners who raised these subjects were split, or too few to judge.
Nothing has a clear majority against it yet. Counted from the owners who raised each subject, not from everyone. A subject is judged once at least 4 owners raise it.
The same owner, asked again at each point. Fills in as owners answer.
More in robot vacuums: Neato D8, Ecovacs X1, Dreame D9.
Counted from public accounts by people who said they own it, and summarised by Still Kicks in its own words. Not a manufacturer claim, a lab test or an estimate.
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