Neato Botvac 80 Robot Vacuum

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can open up the unit and replace diode D14 (assuming your unit has the same board as my XV-21). It’s a $0.60 part. Basically, this diode fries easily. This causes the battery power and charging dock power circuits to cross lines.

When the neato approaches its charging station, it moves in reverse until it senses power from the base station recharging circuit, then stops. When D14 fails, the neato will stop about a foot away from the base station because it thinks that it’s being recharged by its own battery pack.

I recommend replacing the diode with a beefier unit. I bought a 5 pack of the factory spec diode and they keep frying, but I want to use them all up before I buy more (sunk cost fallacy, but whatever).

I don’t get the fuss for these robot vaccums. Can anyone explain to me why spending the money on this is worth it over a nice quality regular vaccum? Does it really save that much time and effort from cleaning your own house? I just don’t get it.

Plus, like most of you have said, these things are just not reliable. So you’ll spend more money replacing parts if you are savvy enough, or buying yet another replacement vaccum, robot or otherwise.

Guess I’m just old fashioned.

I wonder if mine has this D14 failure - it often stops just short of the charging station. Lasted just beyond the 90 day warranty before the issue arose, so I don’t expect any support from Neato or Woot.

The other comment I’ve made when these come up in the past is that they do a good job mapping a ‘complex’ house, but their charging connectors are hell on (white) baseboards. Going forward, the vac has a bump sensor and works great. Going backward, no such thing - it’s just full force, drive over it, shove the furniture out of the way, etc. If your arrangement of stuff makes anything like a pocket, causing this reverse to hit baseboards, the contacts on the back of the bot take their toll on the finish.

Stay away! I’ve had 2 in 2 years. Will probably work until the warranty expires. Worked great until it stopped working (right after 90 day warranty expired).Got the second one thinking I just got a lemon the first time. Shame on me. Customer service is horrible.

I got this from Woot months ago. I have had the XV11 and 21(pet) model and a Samsung V9000 series as far as vac’s go. I have a fully finished basement where the 11 does it’s duty twice a week. Main floor is all hardwood, about 1900sq ft worth. The XV21 is just a backup. Here’s my “experience” of these devices.

The Older models were better at not running over your furniture. The 80 seems to ignore the mag strips form the older machines so not sure if the sensors are less sensitive or it just goes where it wants.

The little brush attaches via magnets. The one(s) that came with mine never stayed on well. I got a new bush and filter kit from Neato and it came with a 5 blade type brush instead of the 4 set of bristles. (I’m talking about the silver dollar sized side brush). But newer brush stays on way better but I sometimes have to take it away from the cat(s). They like to play with the brush for some reason.

It does a great job at eating balled up post it notes (cat toys). Wife pulled 4 form it’s clutches last run. It navigates as well as the XV’s and it seems faster. Battery lasts longer then the other models. Larger tank just means you have to dump it less but there’s more to dump when you do. I’ve not updated any of it’s programing but this model doesn’t seem to be as furniture friendly as the others. This one seems to like bumping into things more and with more force. least it’s not like my iRobot Scooba. That things beats the leaving crap out of my kitchen table and chair legs. I swear it was once a bouncer in another life.

It’s not as noisy as previous models either. A plus when wife is working for home and this thing is trying to bust down the door going into the office.

Of the Neato units I’ve owned, this one seems to be much improved in speed, quietness and longevity. But it’s not as sensitive both banging into stuff or the mag strips on the floor to keep it out of certain areas.

My XV11 and 21 are over 3 years old. I’ve changed the batteries at least once. The main floor gets vac’d 3 times a week, basement gets it twice so mine have been solid. My 2cents.

It sounds like I’ve been lucky in the quality department. I haven’t had a single issue that a simple sensor cleaning couldn’t fix.

And yes, this is absolutely worth every penny to me for the time it saves me. I have an indoor/outdoor cat and dog and very sandy soil around my house. If I don’t vacuum every other day the floor starts to feel very sedimenty (is that a word?). Now I only do a spotclean with a regular vacuum about once a month. I’ll never go without a robot vacuum again.

By no means is this a replacement for a real vacuum. I purchased one of these (not this particular model) 1)for the entertainment factor 2) kitchen clean-up after late-night munchies. The one a purchased ILIFE A4s was offered here (I ended up getting on Amazon- too late to pull the trigger here, it sold out). Like the one being offered today, a pretty basic unit. I was amazed to watch it in action though. The decision algorithms it had were pretty decent despite it not having real navigation like the higher $$ models have. Watching it be able to climb over the base of bar stools, navigate in and out of chairs, and even eventually find its way home after being 2 rooms away from the base is totally worth the entertainment value. They do work, but like I said, not a replacement for real vacuuming. I told my kids since my wife wouldn’t let us have a pet, this would have to do. I allowed them to name it, and we call it the I-Savage.

So this is sort of like a kitty Sybian machine?

Oh- wait…did that cross the line, baba booey

BEWARE,139 TERRIBLE REVIEWS FROM AMAZONE. I.E.

Are you READY FOR THIS!!! Neato does not service any of their product. ANY. At all.

When it works it does an OK job. We have dogs and the small opening to the filter rapidly get clogged with dog hair and it will keep rolling along with no effect. It needs a sensor to detect when there is no air flow through the filter to warn you to clean it

The battery will not charge. So, I contacted NEATO and was helped with several probable trouble-shooting ideas. None worked and I was advised that I should take it to a vacuum repair shop because my unit is not under warranty because it was purchased from an UNAUTHORIZED seller

I wish I’d never chosen a Neato. The first one I got wouldn’t charge. I had to call customer service NUMEROUS times. They are unfailingly polite, even though I pretty much lost it a couple of times out of sheer frustration, but the follow-up is horrible

The Botvac bumps into things, gets stuck in weird and unexpected locations. I think it’s optics are out of alignment.

I’ll bite.

I have a 4000sq ft house. main floor is ALL hardwood. We have 2 cats. Had 3 at one time, then down to zero, now back to two. Though we have a whole house vacuum system, these are for cleanings in between, if anything. We drag out he 25ft hose about once a month. SO, this little gadget will go around and pickup all the crumbs and “hair balls” and ghost turds that it can get too. Nice to see all that crap on the floor on the way out to work in the morning and come home to find the cats still there but all the floors are clean. Wife loves it. Costly yes, but so are half the options one might get in a car that are not needed, but nice to have.

Bought my mom a Neato XV model over 5 years ago. She’s changed the battery once. It is run once a week and cleans their whole house (all hardwood/tile). The only issue it has ever had happened just last year, it would only run for about 10 minutes then stop, not even going back to base. She called their tech support, they talked her through a complete reset. It has worked normally ever since. I’d say this has been the most reliable little machine and my mom and dad would likely give up one of us kids before they’d give up that Neato vac.

There are not many chores I hate more than vacuuming, so for me to come back to a clean floor with zero time and effort on my part is well worth the money. I do have another vacuum that needs to come out sometimes to do spot cleaning, but that’s more the exception to the rule.

I used to have 2 of the XV models and they were indeed crap as some people have mentioned. I’ve had the D80 for almost 2 years now, an upgraded model to this one and the only thing I’ve had to do is clean off the sensors.

The 90s called and they want their robots back…

As with all assembly line products, there’s going to be lemons out there. I’ve been dying for one of these for years now, and this is the right price for me to jump. I’m going to run it’s robotic butt off for the first 90 days, hopefully anything that’s going to go wrong does so during this time. I hope this works!

I hated my Neato. Constantly getting stuck,the filter switch died after a couple of weeks and we t through three battery packs in a year. My replacement Roomba arrived 2 weeks ago and I could not be more excited to have one again.

Honestly, I felt the same way. Then I got a Roomba several years ago and I was promptly reminded how nice it was to not have litter all over the living room floor all the time. And how nice it was to not have so much dirt and dust everywhere. And to feel like our once-a-month vacuum schedule was more than enough to keep the house looking decent. I almost cried when my Roomba stopped holding a charge and had to be retired, but I would buy another one in a heartbeat if I could find it at a decent price (not feeling the Neato, sorry). There are a lot of things in life that make things better without really being “needs”. Robot vacuums are one of them if you have pets.

Will it also rewind my VHS?

Just received this thing a few days ago, and it is a nightmare. Still have yet to get it to vacuum anything. It rolls 10" off the charger then displays “clean my brush.” The damn brush isn’t dirty, it hasn’t even been used. Called customer service. The first call to Dublin went well. He walked me through some troubleshooting. Unjammed the brush (the bearing locked up). Was supposed to send me a follow-up email with claim number; it never came. Didn’t run the Neato until morning because it was late. Then, the thing ran for about 2 minutes and the brush locked up again. I unjammed it. Then again. And yet again. Called customer service back. This time I spoke with a lady who was rude and difficult! After an excruciatingly painful phone call, they’re supposed to be sending a new combo brush. NOT HAPPY!

Got ours yesterday and charged it overnight. Battery dead this morning. Remove from base and re-connect and it says battery error, but then charges.

Now it constantly tells us to open the bin and press the switch down as if we hadn’t done that countless times already.

Dud.

Ugh. I’m sorry. Please use the Woot Customer Service form for assistance.