This will not be a detailed, in-depth review of the Neato Robotics XV-11, but more of a functional, day-to-day overview of how it will work.
To start, here’s what you’ll receive in the box aside from the unit itself. You get a charging base, an extra filter and a 15 foot magnetic strip to set up temporary borders that the Neato will not cross.
The Neato is a little bit noisy, but not nearly as loud as an upright vacuum. And for the quality of cleaning it provides, the noise is negligible. However, if you’re trying to watch TV or listen to music on anything other than headphones, you may still want to keep the Neato out of that room.
There are two ways you can run the Neato. One is by simply hitting the orange button once to turn it on, and again to begin cleaning. It will immediately power up and begin its routine. The other way is to schedule cleanings. This is simple to do by following the menu prompts on the LCD panel on top of the unit.
How the Neato navigates is probably what impresses me the most. It has a laser mounted on top which scans the room and looks for obstacles. It then performs a perimeter cleaning around the walls, then does everything in between. This is where it differentiates itself from the Roomba – it does the interior of the room in methodical, back and forth paths as it makes its way across the room. The Roomba just goes in random directions until it decides it’s covered the room entirely. There are pros and cons to both methods, but I’ll list the main pros:
- For the Roomba, you get more coverage of the room. By this I mean that the Roomba will cover the same area multiple times, thus theoretically resulting in better cleaning of the floor.
- For the Neato, you get a nice, linear pattern on your carpet or rugs that give your floor that ‘just cleaned’ look, while actually doing a really good job of cleaning.
Speaking of cleaning, I’m impressed at how such a small unit (relative to an upright) can clean so well. You can definitely see a difference in the carpet after it’s been cleaned, and I don’t just mean the neat linear pattern left behind.
As for maintenance, the only things you really have to worry much about are emptying the dust bin after each run and cleaning the brush of any hair it might pick up. On emptying the dust bin, it might also be a good idea to clean up the filter a little bit. I have a hand vac I occasionally use to clean the filter in hopes I can get it to last longer than the recommended 6 months. They’re not that expensive to replace, I’m just a penny pincher that way. On cleaning the brush, it’s really simple. It’s an aluminum shaft with rubber ‘bristles’. You simply remove the brush guard from the bottom of the unit and the brush pops out. It’s easy to clean by hand – absolutely no tools required. You’ll want to remove the ends off the brush as well as hair can get trapped in the parts there. Once that’s done, route the belt back over the left side of the brush and the whole thing pops right back in.
Overall, I’m really pleased with the purchase of this Neato XV-11. My wife and I have it scheduled to run 3 times a week, and it keeps our floors (carpet and hard floors alike) very clean with very little effort on our part. The most we have to worry about is the 5 minutes of maintenance after each run, and making sure the floor is picked up ahead of time. On that note, the Neato will shut itself off if it finds itself stuck on an obstacle or is otherwise unable to navigate itself out of a tight spot. This is a rare occurrence, and is definitely worth putting up with when considering the overall benefit.
Below is a demonstration video taken in my house with a few notes included.
