Neato really sucks!

Last night was the monthly running club board meeting.  For the first time in quite awhile I didn’t follow it up with a trip to South Street for beers.  I have a bunch of stuff to get done at home since I will be on the east coast for most of the upcoming weekend.

One of those things I needed to do was unbox my Neato. I used a big chunk of my Amazon spiff points to score one.

My house already is well staffed by a large collection of cleaning robots.  I have 3 currently functioning Roombas along with several more in need of some TLC.  I also have two Scoobas to handle the hard surface washing duties.  I love my robots.

The Neato is my first non-Irobot unit.  It utilizes some interesting tech to get the job done.

Roombas sort of use a brute force attack to clean a room.  It has a bumper in the front and some sensors underneath that give it some feedback but even so it is akin to putting a blindfold on and walking around.  You bump into something, you stop, you turn and then you walk again until you bump into something else.  Now thanks to some algorithms that randomize a Roomba’s movement it still manages to normally cover an entire room, albeit in a scattered manner.  Some spots may be swept multiple times, some spots once and some spots possibly not at all.

A Neato takes a much different approach and uses much more tech in doing so.  In addition to a front bumper that will let the robot know it ran into something, it has a laser, yes a laser.  No the laser is not used to attack pets or burn holes in your walls, it is used for navigation.

When the Neato starts in a room you will see it pause, turn and pause again.  During this time it is using it’s laser to complete a map of the room and the obstacles within that room.  Once it obtains that information it goes about the room systematically, hitting every area thanks to it’s tracking data.  It handles sweeping in a similar manner as you would take mowing a yard, it is actually quite fascinating to watch, at least for someone like me.

The other thing I immediately noticed about the Neato in comparison to the Roomba is it has a MUCH stronger vacuum.  It sounded like a mini-jet as the impeller spun up.  Even though I ran the Roombas the day before, the Neato pulled a bunch of debris out of the carpet during the roughly 45 minutes it was running.

Scheduling the robot is very easy via the easy to use LCD screen.  I also like that it is software upgradeable via a USB cable to fix bugs and/or add features.  If the Neato has a large house to clean it actually is smart enough to drive itself back home, gas up and go back out to finish where it left off.  I watched it drive from the back slider to the front corner of the house to it’s charging dock without a hitch.  When a Roomba runs out of juice it is done, plain and simple.

The Neato also supposedly doesn’t suffer from the same maintenance issues as a Roomba.  The brushes in the Roomba are famous for getting all wrapped up in shit, especially out by the bearings which can cause big issues if it isn’t cleaned regularly.  The Roombas also inadvertently deposit tons of dirt, lint, and scuzz up into the body of the robot due to it’s design.

The Neato doesn’t have a bristle brush and from all reports has very little issue with the debris getting wrapped around the beater bar.   I took a look last night after it was done and didn’t see anything wrapped around it at all.

The high power vacuum and increased tech require more juice.  The Neato actually has two separate battery packs as opposed to the single battery that powers a Roomba.  It will be interesting to see how long the factory battery lasts as the battery costs are always the biggest expense to cleaning robots.

So anyway, so far, I am quite happy with the Neato.  It has definitely taken the top spot as far as geekiest item in the house.  It really sucks!

Tonight I have a jam packed night ahead of me.  The hope is to quickly grab groceries on the way home and then hop on the mower to do a bare bones speed mowing session.  Then I want to try to get all my ducks lined up so I can shove off for Tracy’s place as quickly as possible after work tomorrow.