A robotic vacuum cleaner is something I was looking to buy for about 6 years. After my mom somehow injured her right knee she limps around the house and complains about her pain (she does most of the cleaning around the house). My dad annoying sneezes a lot at home due to allergies. Like a good son, hopefully this Neato XV-14 will help ease some of their issues. I bought the Neato XV-14 (Costco exclusive) instead of a iRobot Roomba because I wanted a smarter robot instead of one that bumps into stuff randomly. Plus one of our relatives already has a Neato XV-11 so that asserted our confidences a bit.

I bought it from Costco.com for $324.49 or $299.99 before tax. Here's an unboxing blog of the Neato XV-14 (I know there are some that are interested). Here is the box it arrived in.

The box opened.

The box in a box idea. Pretty hard to get it out of that brown box.

I brought it upstairs.

Accessory box. The replacement squeegee and brushes. On the left, the magnetic do-not-cross strip.

The dock and 3 more replacement filters.

Neato's underside.

Neato's battery was empty on arrival. It didn't turn on at all. So I had to move it to it's dock.

Neato is alive. English or Chinese... Humm. I'll explore both later.

Neato only included a paper Quick Starter guide. The manual is on a CD, which is quite different than the XV-11 and the XV-21.

If your wondering if the magnetic strip is truly magnetic, a quick test on the refrigerator demonstrates our answer.

Here's a look in the included CD. The have the manual in a PDF and interestingly some Linux stuff. Let's look into that folder a bit more.

Oh? Is this the source codes for the Neato? Cool. I guess the Neato runs Linux as it's operating system.

I'll update this entry once the battery is finish charging.

---Update 8/30/2012---

Neato did a okay job at vacuuming the house. It got stuck around the house quite often. Here are some examples of how it got stuck.

The Neato seems to get stuck on very thin and light cloths such as one for wiping our feet after we come out from the shower. It needs my assistance to untangle itself. (I know a lot of people that doesn't wash that cloth on a regular basis, gross.)

Neato tends can get tangled in wires and tends to not be able to get itself out of this. I'll try bunching the wires together to see if Neato can run over it instead. It does handle our rug tassels just fine.

Neato does a fair job at actual clean up. After vacuuming I took out the Swiffer and cleaned the hard wood floor. The Swiffer was lightly dirty. As for carpets, I don't think Neato is getting as deep into the carpet as an upright vacuum. Maybe it's the rubber brush's issue. I'll buy the bristle brush, maybe during Christmas, and see if it cleans any better.

Battery life is okay. Neato was able to finish ~1,000 square feet in two charges (Neato wasn't fully charged when it began). As for sound, it sounds like a lawn mower (in loudness and kind of sound) on hardwood floor. On carpet, it becomes muffled.

---Update 8/30/2012---

The Neato ran again. My mom had the idea that the Neato understands verbal commands like "Come here" and was dumbfounded when Neato didn't listen to her. That would be a cool idea though. The Neato seemed very lost today. As Neato was vacuuming, my mom decided to move the furniture around to make it easier for Neato to vacuum. It seems to have confused the robot quite a bit. Neato mapped the dinning room twice. Neato was also extremely confused of all the dinning room chairs. The chairs didn't provide much room for the robot to enter.

---Update 9/6/2012---

I have had Neato XV-14 for about a week. I've changed the house stuff to be a bit more robotic friendly. The rug tassels are now tucked (and taped) under the rug. In my opinion, the Neato was wasting valuable battery energy and time trying to untangle itself when it did get stuck. The wires that it gets tangled with is now hanging ~1 feet above the floor. I'm thinking about getting the floor wire covers to make this less of a tripping hazard.

I noticed that Neato likes to bump into things that are black/dark. So in the past, it would often bump and get stuck between the legs of the dinning room chairs. I wrapped some white paper on each of the chair legs and now Neato no longer bumps into the chairs. (It makes the dinning room furniture look hideous though.) Placement of the chairs seems to be very important. It's best to have either all the chairs tucked under the table or none at all. Neato tends to get stuck and/or confused when there is a mix of chair placements.

For our ~1,000 sq. ft. house, it takes 1 additional charges for Neato to finish it's job. Off the charger, Neato can run about 1 hour +/- 5 minutes. Neato returns back to it's charger and recharges from 1 hour to 1.5 hours. Then Neato resumes it's job running for about 20-30 minutes before retuning back to it's charger.

I really wish I had the bristle brush for the Neato. I vacuum one of the rooms with my cheapo Eureka Pet Oh! after Neato vaccum that room ~6 times and my Eureka was able to pick up a lot more dust up.

My Neato is set to vacuum the house everyday. It comes back to the charger with very little amount of dust. Maybe .7cm thick of dust. But after 2 runs with only .7cm of dust on the filter, Neato suddenly pops up with all these messages at once: 1) Check the filter, 2) Empty the dustbin, 3) Clean the sensors. Cleaning the filter and dustbin eliminates this error message. I think it is only a warning; Neato will still clean my house with that message on the screen.

---Update 9/7/2012---

Today Neato seems to be acting very strange. Neato vacuumed the living room 3 times, the dinning room 4 times, the bathroom 2 times and the kitchen 3 times. No error messages though. I'm not sure why Neato wants to do a ultra thorough job today. Neato has recharged itself 2 additional times (so far) to finish the job.

---Update 1/20/2014---

The Neato LCD screen died sometime during December 2013. We called up Neato to see if we can send it in for repair. I did not care how much it would cost to repair since my credit card offers extended warranty. Neato says they do not repair their vacuums that are out of warranty - that is preposterous! They suggested that we take it to a robot repair shop but they are unable to refer me to anyone. That's okay, I'll just buy a whole new Neato as long as I have 1st party documentation for the replacement cost to submit to my insurance, but NO, Neato does not send emails or regular letters of the replacement cost.