Neato Botvac Connected Review – Robot Vacuum Cleaner

In this in Depth Neato Botvac Connected Review we will show you all the Features, test results, Pros and Cons. As always you find a brief conclusion and optical rating at the end. Can we recommend it? Can it stand the pace with the iRobot Roomba 980?
Lets see after our Review.

 

Product: Neato Botvac Connected
Category: Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Special: WiFi enabled / Control with App
What other Customers say: Check it Out

 

Although Neato has become the No 1 Competitor to the leading Robot Vacuum Cleaner Company iRobot with its Roomba Series, some of you might ask who is Neato? To make it short: Neato Robotics is a company born at Stanford’s annual Entrepreneur’s Challenge. They believe that robots can perform household chores as intelligently as humans. With their smart technology to measure and calculate a rooms perfect cleaning pattern; they cleaned homes better than their competitors for a long time. With a more intelligent form factor, this smart technology, more powerful suction and some extra features they became quite famous the last years.

If the new “Neato Botvac Connected” can keep up with this expectation? And how it can compete against the iRobot Roomba 980? Let´s jump right in!

 

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Neato Botvac Connected Review

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Installation – is very easy. After you unboxed your new robot vacuum cleaner, you have to find a good place for the charging station. Placement Tip: If you have a couch which is fairly high you can place the charging station behind/under it; with 3.9 in the Neato Botvac connected is fairly small in height.

Nobody will be able to see your hard working device and it never is in your way. In our setup this was working flawless. Like a miracle at the scheduled times your little new friend comes out of its hiding and does its work. After finishing, it automatically goes back to the charger so it hides again – awesome! To connect your device you have to download the app to your phone, create an account at Neato and then pair your phone and your bot, by using its display and buttons. You can even give your new “family-member” a name. We named it “R2D2” and hoped: “May the forth be with You!” All this setup took us about 10 minutes! This can be compared to the iRobot Roomba 980. The Roomba even has the slightly better app as it provides much more detailed information about the status of the device.

 

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Neato Botvac Connected Review
Key Features & daily user experience

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The newest model of Neato not only comes with WiFi connectivity it now also has a Lithium-Ion-Battery instead the NiMH Battery. Therefore it now lasts a little longer and runs down a little slower than previous models.

Battery Life – Charging – With our first test run “R2D2” was able to clean 2/3 of our test area without charging. As these rooms are quite packed with furniture and a lot of items the bot has to circle around, this is quite expressive and took him about 1 hour and 20 minutes. The good thing we noticed it did not get stuck once or tangled at any cable. After running dry of power it navigated to the charging station on its own. About an hour later R2D2 suddenly came out of his hiding place under our couch and started its work where it left at the first run!
It now also comes with two cleaning modes. The default mode is the turbo mode, very powerful but also of course louder than the new ECO-Mode, which is more quiet and makes the battery last longer. 
Measuring the room – Cleaning Pattern – this is the most obvious strength of Neato. When we do the Comparison Robot Vacuum Cleaners in the next days you will understand why. With its Laser the Neato is “measuring” the room and then running a good calculated cleaning pattern. Inspite of the iRobot Roomba 980 (Read our Review Roomba 980) will be released in the next few days!) which now also comes with an optical method to measure its surrounding, most of the other robots just run a kind of chaotic pattern. This leads to longer overall cleaning times for each room and therefore less cleaned floor with one battery charge! A lot of other robot vacuum cleaners even left a lot of spots uncleaned. This did not happen in all of our tests with the Neato Botvac Connected.

Different Cleaning Patterns
iRobot vs. Neato

Laser Measurement vs. Camera (Roomba 980) – different to the iRobot Roomba 980 which uses a camera to get fix-points for its navigation the Neato Botvac Connected uses a Laser to measure its space. Why this difference might be important?
1st is seeing in the dark – Our R2D2 can navigate in the dark. This means you can schedule the Neato for the nighttime which can have huge advantages. Especially if you use it in a larger house or in an office. You wouldn’t want to leave your lights on for the robot vacuum cleaner to see. The Roomba 980 necessarily needs lights on to work properly. Even letting your robot clean upstairs in the evening while you are downstairs would mean to leave the lights on for the Roomba 980 which is a huge disadvantage.
2nd – Big Brother is watching You! We are talking about connected devices! Not everybody wants a camera “walking” through your home and being connected to the internet. Although this may not be scaring everybody, some may feel more easy with no optical camera in use. Therefore the Neato would be the more safe choice.

Noise/Sound – is fairly loud when you first turn it on, but we soon realized that compared to our standard room vacuum cleaner this one is almost quiet. We even had a few phone calls during the Neato Botvac Connected was working and were easily able to understand everything, which is good.

 

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Neato Botvac Connected Review
Cleaning Capabilities

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The Cleaning Capabilities – of a vacuum cleaner (robotic or standard) should be the most important feature. For some customers of course – next to the Lifestyle factor of a robot vacuum cleaner. Like in previous tests, we measured the airflow in this “Neato Botvac Connected Review” to get an idea of the absorbent properties of the device.
Compared to other Robot Vacuum Cleaners even iRobots new Roomba 980 (WiFi) this device has a much higher absorbent capabilities. The Neato combines this powerful vacuum suction with precision brushes to leave floors as clean as possible. Of course with a powerful classical “hand” vacuum cleaner you will get better results with one attempt. But be aware: Results get better over time as these robots will probably run much more often and therefore results will really become comparable with classical vacuum cleaners – considering the overall cleanse of the rooms!

The Turbo Mode provides a super-powered cleaning, maximizing pickup of stuff like dirt and debris. Especially with pet hair it did a better job than the Roomba 980. Like all the better robot vacuum cleaners on the market, you can choose a spot clean mode (either from the app or the bot itself).

For harder debris you can even choose to cover the area twice for extra cleaning, stop or pause the robot, and get instant notification about the status of your vacuuming run. Sadly after navigating the bot to a spot to clean it does not find his way back home to the charging dock.

Clean Air ? – Our last point on the list of this in depth Neato Botvac Connected Review: How clean is the air after vacuuming a room? Especially for people with all kinds of allergies this can be an important fact. The new, so called “ultra performance filter” which is easy to pop out and includes an extra filter screen for easier cleaning did a good job. It captures considerable more particles than older models but as long as its officially specified not as fine particles as the Roomba.

A great Pro is the extra large Dirt Bin. With 0.7-liter this dirt bin holds a lot more dust and dirt than the Roomba 980 and is more easy to empty. In all day use we recognized, that longer hair can tangle in the filter which afterwards got a little tricky to clean.

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Neato Botvac Connected Review
Conclusion

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After we have tested several robot vacuum cleaners in the past, we surely can say that the Neato Botvac Connected Review has shown us, that this is one of  the best robot vacuum cleaners you actually can buy. It is easy to install has the best overall cleaning capabilities on the market and a good user experience. If we could make some wishes for the future, we would love Neato to re-work the app. Although it is  easy to use and you can do what you have to do, it would be great, if the app would provide more feedback on the actual status of the bots components. The second is the material which seems to be a little less resistant against scratches compared to the Roomba 980.

For everyone, looking for the best cleaning experience with an easy to use device you can´t go wrong with the Neato Botvac Connected. It is very similar to the Roomba 980 but at a price between $549 – $700 you will save about $150-$200 compared with the Roomba. This and the fact that only this device can navigate in the dark  (see: Laser Measurement vs. Camera above) makes this device our actual recommendation. For those looking for the more stylish product with the better App, the iRobot Roomba 980 maybe your 1st choice.

You find the iRobot Roomba 980 Review here.

Looking for a good robot vacuum cleaner for a lower price – still doing a decent job:
iRobot – Check out the: iRobot Roomba 770
Neato – Check out the: Neato Botvac D80 Robot Vacuum

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Neato Botvac Connected Review
Let’s exchange experience
Help others – Comments welcome

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If you have any own experience with a Robot Vacuum Cleaner you want to share – Help others by leaving a comment below, appreciated! Leave us a comment what you liked about this Neato Botvac Connected Review or if you need help or have any question – we are here to help.

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