Neato Botvac D85 Robot Vacuum by Neato Botvac D85

Pure junk considering it doesn't last. I've bought 3 in total, with all three lasting less than one year. Forget about customer service. Read all the other reviews. They basically try to wear you out on the process. They will try to "troubleshoot" the problems on the phone with you until you grow grey hair before they will let you return it for repair or replacement. Oh, and don't bother with any sort of extended warranty on Amazon by Asurion, since theirs doesn't kick in until the crappy 2 year manufacturer's warranty expires. Here's the setup: Buy a Botvac D80 by Neato for $400-$500. Buy an additional insurance policy extending the warranty for 3 more years. Assume you have spent around $450-$550 of your hard earned dollars to have the assurance you will have the peace of mind of a vacuum cleaner that will almost completely vacuum your home for you for the next 5 years. Reality, you bought a piece of junk that will make you happy for around a year or less, you will be frustrated to death with their poor customer service and lack of true warranty. You will sit waiting for the next year for your warranty to expire so you can begin the fight with Asurion to play the same "attempt to diagnose it by phone" and attempt to find reasons your situation disqualifies you from receiving the warranty extension you paid for. In the end you will have spent money to be terribly frustrated and dissatisfied. I hope your short term gains Neato, are heavily offset by enough bad publicity about your crappy quality, warranty, and customer service. What goes around comes around. You can't play unfair forever without it catching up. The 1-stars are growing.

Bought this vacuum in late 2015. It does a great job when it runs, but it needs a fix here and there. The first year was simple: call in and ask - usually the fix was simple.We bought it with an extended warranty, but when late 2016 happened and we had to switch to the other warranty, the vacuum needed to be sent in. So we sent it in Jan 2017 and now it's almost May and we can't get our vacuum back - the password reset doesn't even work on the website of the warranty you buy off amazon. We try to call in and get non-answers. I don't fault Neato for that, but if you need to consider the risk that you won't have a working vacuum after a year and will be on your own. Most of the fixes pre-2017 were simple, but we still had to ask for advice because they weren't obvious. I think the risk is high you will need help and I'm not sure the value of the vacuum for a year is worth it.Update2: It's May. We got the vacuum back, but it doesn't work. So we have to now 1. get our money back for paying for the repairs 2. find a way to deal with squaretrade and 3. keep living without the robotic vacuum we paid money for a couple of years ago. My partner agrees that he wouldn't buy this in hindsight either.

Original Review from October 2017: I absolutely love my Neato Botvac D80. Having done some research, the Botvac was supposed to be really good for handling pet hair, or which we have plenty in our 3 cat/2 dog household. I was also gifted a iRobot Roomba. So here's my review and a bit of a comparison after 3 weeks of operating them side by side (on different floors of our house but same surface types). The Neato Botvac does an absolutely bang-up job on vacuuming up pet hair. the little bin is full every day. To that end, I kind of wish it had a bigger bin, but I clean it every day and it appears to be doing a good job keeping up on the house. It does a great job on corners, also. Like any robotic vacuum, you have to keep the floor clear of things that could get sucked up by mistake- socks, the corner of blanket, lighter weight power cords, stuff like that. If it does get stuck or suck something up it shouldn't, it shuts itself down and emits a chime to let you know where in the house it is so you can find it and fix the problem. By comparison, the one time the Roomba picked up something it shouldn't have, it just continued to try and vacuum it up. The Botvac is a little louder than the Roomba. And the dust bin is a little bit harder to clean (because you have to pull out the filter rather than just pop open the door) but the dust bin on the Botvac is larger. Between the two, the Botvac is the more capable of the two units.UPDATE 11/25/2017: So the Neato performed flawlessly for about 3 weeks. We have a new house and we finally got internet service about a week ago, and the day after we got internet service, the Neato started having issues. It would start running into a wall over and over and over, not trying to turn itself around. if you moved it, it would go right back to the same wall and start running into it again. But then after the next charge-up, it didn't do that anymore, and would run fine. Then the next time it might vacuum the same spot over and over for like 5 minutes before moving on. But other than that, run fine. Then the next time, no problems. Then the next time, it would operate fine except when it would go back to its charging base it would stop about 8" away and say it was docked. It's still doing a fantastic job vacuuming, but it definitely has some issues. Is the wi-fi interfering with it somehow? Did it download a virus? I have no idea. Maybe the fact that it operated flawlessly until we got wi-fi is a complete coincidence. It requires more babysitting now, but it's still doing a relatively good job. I'm dropping the rating from 5 star to 4 star due to the additional babysitting it requires. I would also point out that the Roomba has had no similar problems in the same time period.Update: 2/14/2018: I have downgraded the Neato Botvac D80 to 2-stars. Why? Well, on Jan 24 it stopped working. It still turns on, it'll roll out from it's base...and then, nothing. I have done all the troubleshooting. Cleaned it inside and out. Worked with Neato customer service. Watched videos on YouTube of people with the same error code. Finally I went to Neato and began conversing about getting this repaired or replaced as it's not even 6 months old and still under warranty. And two weeks later I'm STILL waiting on Neato to send me an RMA. The customer service agent I worked with asked me the same questions over and over and over and when I made sure that the answer to every question was in the final email (with proof of purchase and a ton of photos of the unit inside and out) he told me he had what he needed to issue an RMA. And I've never heard from him again. I've emailed him 3 additional times. I called Neato and another agent told me he'd fast tracked it. The upshot of this is- I love the Neato D80 when it's working. But to me, because I am in customer service myself, a company is only as good as how they handle a problem. And for now, I am NOT impressed with Neato not resolving my problem I'm about ready to escalate either to Amazon or to my credit card company directly. It's a real bummer because the performance of the Neato is so much better than the Roomba...when it's working. It sucks up at least twice the dog hair. It covers the floor area better. The Roomba I pretty much have to follow along behind and clean up behind it. I never had to do that with the Neato. So I'm pretty heartbroken about the crap customer service from Neato. I'm hoping they fix this so I can delete this update, honestly.3/16/2018- Ok, so Neato FINALLY came through on warranty. After speaking with a third person at Neato (because the first guy pulled a disappearing act and would never email me back and the second guy didn't fast track things like he said he would) he went to a supervisor and got authorization to issue me an RMA which I got that day. I shipped the defective unit back, 2 weeks later I received the replacement unit which thus far is working flawlessly. I seriously missed a working Neato in the 6 weeks this took, because no matter how hard it worked my Roomba simply could not handle the main floor of our house. I had to help it by dust mopping every couple of days, and using my upright occasionally. Also, no matter what Roomba says, I'm seriously skeptical that its random vacuuming pattern is as effective as the Neato's logical grid pattern of vacuuming. I know this review is getting long, but I think it's fair for people to see the good, the bad and the ugly in order to evaluate a potential purchase.7/30/18- So last week this replacement Botvac D80 vacuum I received in March began malfunctioning. A different issue this time- now it rotates between telling me it needs me to turn it's switch to on (when it's already on- so I have to turn it off then back on again) and then telling me its battery is low and needs to charge. Rinse and repeat. It will not run, will not vacuum. As stated previously- I LOVE this vacuum...when it works. But in the exact same time period, the Roomba has had zero problems. None. Other than replace filters, it has required no maintenance. The D80 went through a brush in 4 months (the good brushes are expensive) and I've had two units become non-functional on me. It's still within warranty period so I expect Neato will either assist me in fixing it or they will replace it like last time, but it took them 2 months last time and that's a long time to try and get things fixed. I just find that the Neato is simply not reliable. I would not buy another one, at this point.Edit to add: Neato refused to warranty this, because it was now outside of 1 year from when I purchased the initial unit. So I replaced it with a Roomba i7.

Let me make this clear, the Neato D85 cleans very well - when it's working. We bought ours in August 2015 and we were extremely pleased with the amount of dog hair it picked up. A full dirt bin after every session. But after a while, the problems started. Neato would keep asking for you to replace the dirt bin even when it was already in. It would ask to be put on the ground when it already was. Sometimes it would just sit and bleat for no reason. The Neato has a really annoying bleeping sound that it repeats over and over when it wants attention. I understood that sensors etc could get crudded up over time, so once a month I would give Neato a super deep clean of all its bits, then we would be ok for a few days. Last week it got stuck in a loop of asking for the dirt bin to be replaced. Nothing would shut it up. After doing some research it appeared that a new battery might be in order. So I ordered and installed the new battery but unfortunately Neato has lost its mind. Now it continually says 'Thank you for emptying my dirt bin and putting me on the floor' over and over and over. I think the time has come to finally pull the plug and buy a different brand. I think Neato cleans really well but is let down by poor software, over sensitive sensors, flaky on off switches and obviously poor magnetic dirt bin switch. Shame we only got 16 months out of it.

My main uncertainty with buying a bot was how it would cope if it encountered some cat offerings during its nightly schedule. I posted a question and got some patronising replies (Check out the Q&A history), so I feel it time to provide proper advice to anyone else who may have similar concerns.We have stone and tile floors and find that Skutter is great at keeping the dirt in check. Mouse guts pose no problem, I even found half a shrew in the dirt box once. It did fail when it once encountered a whole vole; Skutter had stopped and signaled to clean its brush, on inspection I found the whole rodent wrapped around the brush but once removed it went on its way happily (the bot, that is). No, I wouldn't put this device into a barn full of dead rats but if you have cats then you needn't worry too much about the night time cat gifts.Above and beyond that, we love our Skutter and it has helped us to be a bit tidier by not leaving clutter and obstacles. It's hard to believe that two cats shed so much fur every night!The cats themselves were scared of Skutter at first but after a few months have developed a relaxed attitude though they do perk up a bit when it gets near their food bowls. Tip, a bit of the magnetic strip along the edge of their food mat prevents Skutter from shunting their bowls around the kitchen.

I bought this just under a year ago, we have a lot of laminate flooring with carpets in the stairs and the upstairs hallway. Before i purchased this vacuum i bought some new settee plastic stopper feet to raise it a little. It needs 11cm to glide underneath which means it cleans the whole room and that makes a lot of difference for me saves dragging the sofas about get underneath. Ive been nothing but impressed with this vacuum its very clever and methodical the way it works out where its been, and it never misses any. It glides about in straight lines and always goes back to its base for a charge and leaves straight lines on the carper. I also made my home a little more robot vacuum friendly as well by not having a lot of clutter and keeping things tidy. I think a lot of people think they are a bit of a joke but they seem to clean up so much better than a normal vacuum probably because they don't miss any bits and seem to have a lot of power .To empty it i always use the suction tube with the small brush atachment on my mains vacuum i find its the fastest way to clean the filter and get rid of the dust.I always watch it at the top of the stairs, it once didn't stop and i had to catch it, that was when it was new. Its never done it again but i watch it anyway. Would i buy another if i ever had too?? yes defo its the best thing i have bought in ages i am really pleased with it.

Amazing product! Yes it has a small hoover compartment that needs emptied regularly, and yes you have to clean the brush regularly to get rid of hair and whatnot (especially if you have pets) but for keeping your floors looking clean and free from dust and debris, you can't go wring with a bot vac!I did a fair amount of research into different manufacturers and models before I bought this one, and I can say in all honesty that I'm really happy I got the Neato. It's efficient, it learns the spaces in your home, and it's relatively quiet compared to pretty much anything else.Just keep it away from shoe laces, deep carpets and rug tassels as these will get chewed up and you'll come home one day to find your little Neato stuck in some corner of a room, beeping away sadly, awaiting your rescue.The standout feature for me is that it finds its way back to its wall charger automatically, so once you've set your schedule, you can simply leave it to work its magic, and all you have to do is empty it.

I've had Nigel for a couple weeks now and he has been just amazing. Usually when you buy something like this the "What you think it will do" & "What it will do" are two separate things. It in this case. Nigel has exceeded my expectations.As per many previous correspondents I gave my house a thorough vacuum before it arrived and was pleased with the cleanliness of my house. I turned Nigel on and let him go and he picked up loads! Actually so much that I felt I had to explain to him that my house was actually not always this dirty.I have him programmed to clean at 4pm every second day. He takes about an hour to clean the house. There is a tendency to watch him closely in the beginning but you soon get over that and just trust him.It is important to do a quick clean up of the floors to ensure no cables or animal toys are lying around as he tends to eat these with relish and the sit there beeping at you till you clean his roller. This is not a hardship at all however.If you are considering buying your own little Nigel, don't hesitate. It is awesome!