With 3 cats, and constantly being in/out of the house, I always need to vacuum. That said, it’s not fun, and not always the easiest. Grabbing a vacuum, going room to room, even if you have a battery operated one and aren’t plugging in room to room, it’s certainly time consuming.
As robot vacuums got more popular and mainstream, I was instantly on-board, but I took time in picking which was going to be the best vacuum for me. Here is what I wanted, and exactly what I found in my Neato Botvac Connected.
1) Suction – believe it or not, not all robot vacuums have this, some are just spinning brushes. This vacuum has incredible suction! It picks up food debris, cat hair, etc easily on hard surfaces, and even gets cat litter and food out of carpet.
2) Form Factor – I like the D shape, because these vacuums can fit better into corners. The spinning brush on the side helps grab things in corners.
3) Connected – Being able to control via Alexa, etc is cool, but mainly wanted to be able to control and track progress from phone. Neato has a wonderful, simple app where you can schedule and/or start by hand, track progress and see cleaning summaries. See my screenshot below.
4) Control – I wanted to be able to control which rooms it goes in/out of. This vacuum lets you put down magnetic strips to prevent the vacuum from entering. This is a bit more work than others that use wirless sensors, but those get costly if you have a lot of restricted areas.
5) Simple – I wanted something easy to clean and be relatively maintenance free. This vacuum is super simple, I just pop the lid, dump the debris, and it’s ready to run whenever I want it to. It comes with a cleaning brush to remove pesky hair and stuff, and removing the bin to clean and even the brush is super easy.
When I put all those together, the Neato Botvac Connected was the clear choice.
Neato Botvac Connected in its natural habitat
I mean, I think the amazing straight lines please my OCD. It’s awesome to see it scanning around the house and mapping everything out which helps it get into every corner.
Cleaning Summaries
Admittedly, this wasn’t a selling point to begin, because they didn’t even have them yet, but now, I love it. I can quickly see what it covered.
Happy Pets & Happy Owners!
This vacuum suction and filtering technology really seems to help with allergies, and of course pet messes with litter around the litter box, and food around feeders.
Features of the New D7 Connected
Hey Neato, if you’re reading this, I’d LOVE to try out the new D7 🙂
The D7 has the ability to use virtual barriers, so you can prevent it going into whatever room as you wish, without placing additional sensors. This rocks because sometimes I want to vacuum, but know one room may have clothes or cat toys on the floor which could trip the vacuum up, so I can instantly and easily change where I want it to run!!
Have I tried other vacuums?
I currently have an Ecobot that I got off Amazon, and it is terrible. I got it because I have a split level home and need to clean 2 floors. The suction is poor, it has NO pattern at all, it just zig zags and circles. I haven’t tried any of the Roombas. I know the top end ones are good, but they are very $$. Originally I didn’t get a Roomba because they didn’t have suction.
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