without lifting a finger? not yet… you still have to empty the dustbin…

but eventually you could have a PR2 do it!!

The XV-11 is four times faster than the Roomba, cleaning living room in 12 minutes as opposed to the Roomba’s 45 minutes…

12 min VS 45 min – the winner is clearly Neato!! The Roomba takes too freaking long to do its random path cleaning compared to the Neato wghich does a very efficient ‘map and clean’.

I’m going to get one, but still can’t figure out which.

Neato cause it does multi-room well, but I get the feeling the Roomba cleans the carpet better.

Speed isn’t a worry, I just want it to clean well and do multi-rooms.

Apartment is all carpet, so can you comment on ‘how’ much better the Rooma does carpet over the Neato?

It mostly depends on whether or not you have pets. Both the Roomba and the Neato get plenty of dirt out of carpet. It’s hard to measure such things quantitatively (as far as my living room goes, anyway), but it’s true that the back and forth random direction-ness (over any given spot) of the Roomba is probably better at getting the dirt out. However, it may also be true that once you get the carpet clean (like, with an upright), both the Neato and the Roomba are fine at getting the sort of day-to-day dirt up. I will say that both the Neato and the Roomba returned full dustbins off of my carpet after a week of not vacuuming.

If you have pets, though, or long hair, the Roomba is substantially better. The tradeoff is that you’ll spend more time cleaning the Roomba itself, but at least all the pet hair is in one place (around the Roomba’s brushes) instead of spread over your carpet.

I would also say that if you have more than two rooms, you’ll probably want either the Neato or the more expensive Roomba 570 (which can use the Lighthouses to help it navigate). But, the Neato will still probably clean multiple rooms more efficiently.

Hmm my wife has long hair and I’m always vaccuming it up. But I don’t like the idea of all that maintenance on the Roomba. Does the Neato pick up hair at all, or does it just push it around leaving clumps everywhere?

Only have 2 rooms in the apartment ATM, but will be moving into a house in the next 12 mths. So the multiroom abilities of the Neato are very appealling.

I guess if they cleaned to a very similar standard, the the Neato would be the pick. But from what you’re saying, the Roomba does a much better job at the actual cleaning?

“all that maintainence” is less than five minutes of cleaning the brush and the beater bar. The only time it ever gets up past 5 minutes (maybe), is when you have to unscrew the rotating brush to get the hair that tangles around it and stops it from spinning.

@Jen It’s true that the maintenance isn’t that hard and doesn’t take very long. But, it is dirty, and annoying, since it needs to be done relatively frequently… And of course, this is in contrast to the XV-11, which doesn’t doesn’t need nearly as much, although we were only able to test it for a day or two. However, three back to back runs with the Roomba and it requires a cleaning. Three with the Neato, and it looked brand new.

@Ben They do clean to a very similar standard, with the exception of pet hair (which the Roomba does significantly better), and carpet, where the Roomba will probably do slightly better depending on what kind of carpet you have. You may or may not notice the difference on carpet; you probably will if it’s carpet with pet hair on it. Read our XV-11 review for a picture of the pet hair issue. On hardwood they’re pretty much the same.

This seems like a very fair & balanced comparison, and therefor I have no reason to question your journalistic integrity, but … looking at things from the POV of Neato Corp, I am troubled that you seem to be the only reviewers that they are providing their product to for pre-retail testing. I am really motivated to get a robotic cleaner, and at the moment I am really dispsed to buy the Neato over the Roomba, but … I can’t place a pre-order for a $400 product based upon one solitary review. Neato, you clearly have a working model that is available for testing. Please provide it to other sites to do that testing.

Evan, my house is 100% ceramic tile floors. No carpeting at all. I have a beagle that sheds a tremendous amount of fur. Given that it’s all ceramic tile, do you feel that the XV11 is still inferior to the Roomba at picking up pet fur? I’m very concerned about the Roomba and failures due to keeping itself clean.

Another question has to do with capacity of the dustbin. Roomba has the 562 and 532 which have larger dustbins for pet hair. How does the XV11 dustbin size compare to either the 532 or 562? Thanks.

@Jim I’d say that on hard floors, the XV-11 is just as good as the Roomba at picking up anything, pet hair included. The issue with carpet is that the XV-11 doesn’t have a bristle brush to pull out stuck hair, but on a smooth surface, the XV-11′s sweeper and powerful vacuum work fine.

I’m not exactly sure how the size of the higher capacity Roomba dustbins compare, but since the XV-11 has a slightly larger dustbin than a normal model Roomba, my guess is that it’s not going to be a significant difference. I can email iRobot and check on that for you.

Hi Evan,
first, thanks for the great review!

In my apartment which is roughly 1000sqf, mostly hardwood floor, the floor is on two levels seperated by a rounded step of approx. 1 inch height. Similar to a doorstep.

Can you estimate which of the two robots is more likely to be able to “climb” that little step?
Many thanks!

Hi Evan, congrats for the great review on both products.
I own a Roomba 570 with 2 lighthouses and just replaced a ‘leg’ that got destroyed by pet hair (yes, you must take a lot of care as many parts are made of plastic and hair can destroy the tiny and fragile gears). With a Golden Retriever and a persian cat you can imagine how dirty my crazy robot ends every day. But it worth every penny.
Im really impressed with Neato XV-11 videos but worried that after so long time (since nov or dec 2009) they still in ‘pre-order’ status.
How long do they still in pre-order and why is taking so long? Would that because they found some problem on their robot or they don’t have enough $$$ to build them? Im not comfortable to place an order for a product that ‘will become available soon’.

Coming back to my question regarding the 1-2″ step in my apartment: The Roomba 550 makes it without problems in both directions.

I bought the Roomba 550 with the new Aerovac bin yesterday, because the missing side-brush of the Neato is a major downside IMHO.

Hi Evan,

I ended up purchasing the Roomba 560 and thus far am very pleased. You even inspired me to put together a review as well :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqrebYmtiKY

Am still very interested to see your review of the Neato Robotics XV-11 when it ships :)

Thanks again for the advice.

I have yet to receive my preordered neato. Any comments on how the neato did on rugs with fringe? My roomba dragged it all over the carpet making it look dirtier than before it started.

Excellent review of the two vacs. After several months of hearing about the XV-11, itʻs nice to see something other than lots of marketing verbage. I own an older Roomba Discovery that will eventually need more replacement parts than itʻs worth and have been watching for a decent comparision. Iʻm still quite happy with the Roomba as it does an great job on my low pile carpet ( no fringes or loose cables in the place )It has been running great for two years now with just a minor bit of maintenance. ( less than I have put into my upright ) The price was right as I retrieved it from a thrift store discard pile, soldered a broken motor wire and replaced the battery.

“how much area can each robot cover per charge, how long does it take to recharge”… So what are the answers to these questions?

@Susan- The Neato doesn’t have bristle brushes, which in my experience are what grabs carpet fringes. I don’t have any fringed carpet currently (although I’m familiar with the issue), but I would think that the Neato would be less likely to pull the fringe out.

@John- The XV-11 can cover more area per charge, since it doesn’t repeat areas. It also has a smaller battery than the Roomba, so it recharges faster… You just don’t get the redundant coverage of the Roomba.

I have hardwood floors with area rugs that are rather thick. My original-model Roomba has trouble handling the edges of these carpets; it spins its wheels trying to get on the carpet, and if half of the Roomba is on the carpet and half is off, it’s not very happy.

Does anyone have an idea how well the Neato will do with this type of situation?

For that matter, does anyone know if recent-model Roombas handle thick area rugs any better than the original Roomba?

Thanks!

One thing that no one mentioned was whether the flexible spinning brushes on the Roomba get tangled up in rug tassels. Years ago I bought the first two generations of Roombas and I soon saw how the spinning brushes constantly got twisted up. In fact, it was sometimes hard to get them untwisted. I’d often return to a room and find my Roombas tied up and unable to move, the batteries exhausted, and eventually the rubber brushes would be damaged because they were permanently deformed, meaning that the bristles wouldn’t be pointed downwards to the floor. The problem with the brushes led me to give up using the Roombas after a few months, even thought he concept is still fascinating. Also, judging by the size of the wheels on the two different devices reviewed (about the same), I suppose that neither device can traverse physical door thresholds higher than, say three-quarters of an inch. That was also annoying limitation for me.

Although I can’t find a reference immediately, I believe that the latest generation of Roombas will detect when they’ve tangled up with tasseled rugs, and un-tangle. I recall seeing a video where it rolled up the tassels, detected it, and unrolled them. Unless I dreamed it. :-)

Ah, at least a quote from the Wikipedia page on “Roomba”: The third generation has a release mechanism in the brush deck and will not only pass over tassels and electrical cords, it will actually clean them.

If my first-gen Roomba would stay on a thick area rug because it’s too high of an edge, that’d be good, but it thinks it can handle climbing on and off the rug edge, but it can’t. Perhaps the Neato can.

I just avoided the use of fringed floor things in my place. All cords and cables are tucked away out of sight and reach. ( I own a B&B here in Hawaiʻi so I keep the floor clutter at a minimum. )

I was surprised at the lack of bristles on the Neato. Hairs,sawdust,metal shavings,etc… get stuck in the carpet pile and usually need a little mechanical coaxing to remove. All of my uprights have had bristles to augment suction. Aside from collecting things ( long hairs, thread,etc..) on the spindle, the concept seems to work well.

So far, two plus years of daily cleaning by a Discovery 400 found in a thrift store discard bin has proven to be a worthy investment of 20 minutes and a new battery. Also watching one of Brooksʻ subsumption architecture robots at work is fun. The laser rangefinder / mapping sounds cool but this one has to break down beyond repair first.

Have to qualify Jen’s comments:
““all that maintainence” is less than five minutes of cleaning the brush and the beater bar. The only time it ever gets up past 5 minutes (maybe), is when you have to unscrew the rotating brush to get the hair that tangles around it and stops it from spinning.”
While what Jen says is basically true if everyone in your family is bald, all your friends are bald, and you have no pets, for the rest of us that 5 minute cleaning ritual is more like ten or fifteen. Remember; the Roomba, like a bicylcle, has small motors with a limited power supply. In order to keep your Roomba running at peak efficiency, expect to clean the following after EVERY mission: Dustbin (relatively small), vacuum filter (even smaller), beater brush and bristle brush (which are hair super magnets and will become fouled in multiple places: The brush/bar itself, the interface between the brush and its drive mechanism, and underneath the brushes’ brass bushing bearings), the side brush, the front caster, the side wheels, and finally the front bumper. The hair that collects between the brush and its drive mechanism (not to mention INSIDE the drive mechanism’s gearbox but that’s another story for another day) AND underneath the brushes’ brass bushing bearings are the bigees. This accumulated hair not only dramatically increases the friction that the Roomba’s small motor must overcome (rewhich decreases its run times), but can also render your robot completely inpoerative and potentially damage it. While failing to clean the small vacuum filter won’t harm your Roomba in the same way as failing to clean the brushes, it simply won’t vacuum when clogged.
No, I bought my 560 three years ago as a time saver but quickly learned it’s quite the opposite. If you’re looking for the best vacuum however, that is how I now look at my Roomba.

Have to agree 100% with Dave above. I’ve had 3 Roomba’s over the last 4 years. Although they do a reasonable job of cleaning (I have two dogs), the constant cleaning of the Roomba eventually made me switch back to a regular vacuum (I used to use my regular vac to clean my Roomba!!). Every 2nd cleaning I would have to de-tangle the Roomba. It may only be a 5 – 10 minute affair, but it gets old quickly. I might try the XV-11 simply because it looks like less maintenance. If you’ve got pets, the maintenance on the Roomba will wear you down eventually.

My Neato XV-11 is the most awesome robotic vacuum cleaner on the market today. With RPS technology, to a scheduler it really cleans my house methodically with out missing any spots. I know I sound like an infomercial but all of this is true, it has really good suction power and I never have to be at home to vacuum anymore. Just like the Jetsons Rosie the robot and the robot vacuum, the Neato makes me feel like i’m in the future!!!!!!!!!!!

We so are in the future.

As someone with very long hair, I’m already quite familiar with the problem of brushes getting wound up and needing the hair cut out. It sounds like the Roomba is not for me, then, but would the Neato do okay with very long hair on wood floors? Does anyone have a Neato and long hair? Not just pets–human hair’s a different deal!

I want to get an autonomous vacuum…the only thing I haven’t seen on any reviews or forums (I honestly just began my research, so the info may be out there) is whether or not these types of machines are a significant fire hazard or not. Has anyone had experience with a brush getting caught on anything (low hanging curtain, power cord, tassels, etc) and catching fire due to the motor over heating or too much friction?

I hesitate to leave anything left plugged in when I leave the house, let alone a robot that will be all over the place when I am not home to smell anything burning/smoking.

I’m old,feeble, on fixed income but Desperately need Robotic vacuum. It’s gotten too painful to use regular vacuum. In need of updated reports on Neato. Either dreamed or Thought I saw Samsung competitor. Any info on that?

Get IRobots in Singapore
website: irobotsg.webs.com

Just taking a quick look at the Neato – thanks for the “head-to-head” comparison. DEFINITELY staying with my Roombas – 530,570, and a Dirt Dog. In addition, I’ve given 5 as gifts. Note to Jeanne — Woot.com has these for sale pretty frequently, and if your area is 1000 – 1500 feet or less, the 400 series might be adequate for your needs — it’s also a bit simpler to clean, although it doesn’t schedule. They run about $199, but the 530 remanufactured costs the same on their “outlet” page right now. the Dirt Dog (for outside use) gets garages and porches clean enough to eat on, even at the height of pollen season!)
Good Luck….lovin’ my Roombas in SC

I have three Roombas now an old 4200 that needs a battery and a 530 , plus just picked up a 565 on sale for half price . When I puchased the fisrt one , the 4200 my wife didn’t think to much of it . But after we had it for a while she said she wouldn’t be without one . Then I picked up the 530 , nicer machine . And now a 565 today . I can’t say that I agree with some of the comments that say there alot of work to clean them . I look at it as if I had to vacuum I might be an hour . To clean the roomba takes about 5 minutes . About twice a year I take it apart and clean it really good, that takes about an hour or so . I have three tools to clean it. A cheap comb, a cheap 1″ paint brush and a small pair of needle nose pliers. And as far as taking to long to clean compared to a Neato , so what . We start roomba and go shopping or go to work . Come home and the house is clean. how long it takes only matters if your going to stand there and watch it.

I wanna buy a Neato XV-11 Vacuum Cleaning Robot.
It doesn’t hit walls and furnitures like my Roomba does. this is the best investment I can make in cleaning my house, and it’s only 400$ on http://amzn.to/e8yvk4 .

I see in the review that the Roomba does a better job because it takes longer going backwards and forwards, so with the Neato u could get it to go around the same room twice and still be finshed before the Roomba.

Didn’t see anything here about how the Neato XV-11 handles electrial cords from lamps, stereo, TV, etc. It is important for me to know.
Also need to know if the Neato is available in Canada, where I live.
Anybody know?

My wife and I bought a Neato in November and tried it for several cleaning runs in our large loft. It was quickly apparent that this robot was not going to cut it in our particular environment. I could never get it to spend any time in the central, open portions of any of the living areas. Mostly it would head for either the large couch in the living room area and roar around under it for a half hour or more until it would find a place to get stuck. Or else it would head for the dining area and spend a similar amount of time getting hopelessly trapped among the chair legs. On the open hardwood floor areas it seemed to slide around a great deal (the floors are not especially slick) and could not find a straight line. It never would clean the center of the floors, but clung to the edges instead. Both my wife and I thought it would probably work in an environment that had little furniture, such as a rec room or a home gym area. Furniture and built-in cabinets seem to cause a real problem with the Neato, as do electrical cords. Also, it fell in love with the bar stools and insisted on circling them endlessly until we had to redirect it. Even then it would often head back to circle them again and again. We sent it back.

The Roomba, which we exchanged it for, on the other hand, worked right out of the box and did exactly what it was supposed to do. We have the 570 model with virtual wall/lighthouses and a remote as included accessories. I’ve ordered an additional lighthouse and an Aerovac bin coming soon.

We have four cats so it picks up a lot of fur and a lot of tracked-around kitty litter and does it quite well. Does not bang into walls and furniture as hard as I thought it wouldf — just taps them gently. It does take some brush/bearing cleaning but so far that has not been a big deal. I’m using the special round cleaning tool, a soft pair of computer tweezers for the tight spots, and a surgical hemostat for any tough hair in the bearings (rarely needed). So far the Roomba has gotten stuck once and pretty much never misses a beat otherwise. I watched it untangle itself from a fat electrical cable a few minutes ago. It handles oriental rug fringe without damage to machine or rug.

The Neato seemed like a nice, powerful machine and well-built, but it has a fatal flaw in that it cannot deal with much furniture without getting hung up. Also, I noticed that if you walk in front of it or a cat gets in front of it, the machine is likely to change direction sending it out of its pattern. It also left uncleaned streaks between its passes the few times it actually ran in a straight line.

But because the Roomba spins and goes back and forth it can get around nearly any obstacle and can untangle itself from tight spots (eg., goes between chair legs, cleans, and backs out). We are keeping the Roomba. And the cats are fascinated by it.

Hope this unscientific comparison is helpful.

The NEATO out performs the Roomba hands down. NEATO cleans our house consisting mostly of hardwood floors and some carpet in 30 minutes. We had the Roomba 532 and it would miss areas while it wondered aimlessly cleaning and it would take one and a half hours to clean the designated areas. NEATO is methodical in its approach. Our NEATO does bump into furniture in tight turning areas but does not effect the performance or on-board guidance system to clean the entire area. The only quality Roomba has over NEATO is the amount of sound emitted during operation.

I have a large sprawling home with two very hairy German Shepherd Dogs. Vacuuming has always been a pain, and even with human driven vacuum cleaners, the issue of hair stuck in the brush bar has caused me to remove them on occasion, and subsequently only buy machines with no brush bar. This is why I picked the Neato for my first robo vac, over the Roomba which a friend has. I was lucky enough to get one in Australia – they only arrived here about a month ago. I had vacuumed all the floors just beofre the Neato arrived but set it off on a clean just for the fun of it. I was amazed to empty it FOUR times in its first run. Im a bit of a clean floor fanatic and having just done the floors I was truely impressed at its power (I have a mix of hard floors and carpets) It also manged to get dwon the long halls to the other end of the house which surprised me as its a odd shaped home. It only got stuck once and seemed to negotiate chair legs etc just fine. It got back to base from “the other end” to recharge which I also did not expect. the best thing though was no hair stuck in the mouth/bar of the machine which would drive me insane (takes as long to get out as actual vacumming!!)and I walked my dogs knowing the floor was being cleaned – luxury. I dont think its very loud (not compared with my pet VAX, anyway) and the screen is easy to use, the box is easy to empty and it seems well built and powerful. It cost around AU$600 here but I think it was a good investment. LOVE IT!!

I disagree about it not replacing an upright. This is like the same argument for American vs Japanese vacuums – the American upright vacuum cleans VERY well, but it is very heavy and hard to use, so you only do it once a month or less. Japanese vacuum cleaners are very light and easy to use, but don’t clean as well so you need to clean more often. Robots are along these lines – they don’t clean as well, but if you program it to clean 2-3 times a week your floors and carpets will be cleaner than if you used a typical 1,000hp American vaccuum cleaner once a month.

I can’t comment on the neato, since I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I can say that I really like the technology they put in that thing.

We got a roomba 560 though, and even though the review states that it doesn’t include lighthouses, ours was delivered with 2 virtual walls that can be switched to lighthouse mode. When I look on the american iRobot site, I don’t see the lighthouses mentioned for the 560, so it may be only for the european version. The store pages in the european stores don’t list lighthouses for the pet versions of the roomba (563, 564). See http://www.myrobot.be/Products/Stofzuigrobots.aspx?div=modellen for more details (it’s in dutch, but the specs should be obvious).

With the lighthouses the roomba is perfectly capable of cleaning 2 to 3 rooms very well on a single charge (only ceramic tiles). With 4 children and 2 cats in the house, it’s on a daily schedule to keep everything clean…

If it would die on me, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a new one. I’d love to get my hands on an XV11 though to give that one a try as well.

Got the Neato XV11 and it does a very good job. We have it set to clean every day and it takes two charges to clean our 2650 Sqft home (75% hardwood & tile, rest is carpet). We have 3 dogs and it does a good job keeping the hair out of the carpets, probably because it gets a little bit every day. We still go around the edges with the Dyson every few weeks but really it’s just to get the very edges of the hardwoods more than anything. We did get something stuck up in the brush’s drive belt (possibly hair) and they had to send us a replacement. There should have been a way for that to be done without a unit swap, but they sent a brand new unit when I expected a refurb, and they were very nice to deal with (I’ve heard that Roomba support is not so great but have no first hand experience).

It fills the dirt bin nearly every day, which makes us very glad that’s not building up on our floors. In the 5 days it took us to get the replacement we were surprised how much we noticed not having it. You really get used to having very clean floors all the time.

QQ regarding the Neato. Will it work OK on two floors? i.e. if you let it do downstairs and then carry it upstairs and let it rip, will it still clean sensibly and ideally remember the previous floor for when it is put back?

I would move the charger to the other floor too obviously. :)

Had Neato XV1-11 for a few months. Vacuumed every other day. It works great on carpet with its powerful vacuum. It is a little noisy. However, you can still watch tv while it does its magic. Very happy with the purchase. Does not need much maintainence at all, mainly emptying the dirt bin. Used handheld vac to clean its filter.

Our Roomba 560 recently died after approx. 2 1/2 years’ use, so we have a Neato on order from Amazon.com (due to arrive tomorrow). I think I’m going to like the more efficient cleaning pattern and the less-involved routine cleaning of the machine itself (no bristle brush to get oodles of pet hair, loose threads from old carpet, etc. tangled up in). I really appreciate this site doing a head-to-head comparison of the Neato vs. the Roomba — it gives me a better idea of what to expect.
Our house has 2 floors (like Andy’s, above). With the Roomba, we’d just carry the vacuum upstairs and close the door of whichever room was to be cleaned, and then wait for its “3 happy beeps” (announcing “I’m all done!”) before bringing it back downstairs. Would we have to bring the Neato’s charger upstairs to vacuum the upper floor, or would it just stop somewhere upstairs when it’s done?

i tried reading your website from my xperia x10 but it wasnt visible properly.is your website mobile supported?

While the Neato has a couple advantages, I will stick to my Roomba that I picked up for half the price ($200) at Sams Club. My floors have never been cleaner.

I have a Roomba 560 bought from Hammacher-Schlemmer in Nov. 2010, but was convinced to try an XV-11 by the explanation of its different, superior heuristics. I just got it today (Jul. 8, 2011), and was fascinated by its performance. Yes, it is quite a bit louder than the Roomba. But, Neato’s friendly messages on the LCD panel are far better than the audible messages of the Rooba, because I’m deaf, and iRobot’s support engineer E-mailed back that they don’t accept customer suggestions (!). I suggested that they display the Roomba’s error code in the 88:88 LED time display also, but…

Anyway, the Neato’s heuristics seem better, but it also seems to slow to a snail’s pace on our thick carpet. Our dining room and lavatory have thin carpet, and it’s fast there. They need to sense the carpet thickness, and do a height adjustment for it.

It seems to pick up debris very well, including pet hair. We have two cats, and one is a fuzzy ragdoll. Her hair is often left in tracks by the Roomba, and I saw no such problem with the Neato.

In our bedroom, we have a California king waterbed on a pedestal, and it took quite a bit of coaxing to get the Neato to clean under the headboard. The Roomba does it on its own.

Neato’s manual says that the XV-11 doesn’t like cords, fringes, or blankets that hang down, and I’ve seen it struggle with them. The Roomba just backs up and adjusts. Neato needs to improve critical-error handling on the XV-11 for that.

It’d be nice if the plusses of both machines could be ANDed together, but right now, it seems like an apples vs. oranges choice to me.

Having had more Roombas than I can count and one Neato. My money is going to Neato from now on. We’ve got cats and dogs, the dogs don’t shed, the cats …. well they’re cats. I’m always pulling fur out of the roombas brushes, the Neato, well you can’t tell it’s been anywhere near a cat. EXCEPT that the bin is FULL. The Neato doesn’t slam into everything where as the Roomba has scarred all my furniture and baseboards. I can’t attest to how long the Neato will last compared to the Roomba but I’m lucky to get a year or so out of a Roomba. For the past 4 months the Neato has performed great. It does have an issue with rounded table feet, it likes to climb them and get stuck.

Does anyone have an idea if the laser beams on the Neato would potentially cause concern for pet owners? (ie, beaming into a cats or dogs curious eyes causing harm?)

I have very long hair. Have heard mixed reviews about the Neato and long hair. Has anyone had problems?

Have both, and both clean, but I could never trust the roomba to do more than one room, as it repeatable got so far away, it would run out of battery before it found home. This was using the lighthouse as guides also. Additionally, although the bins are not much different between the 2, the brushes with 2 dogs that do shed, get clogged quickly, although cleaning more often ensures that it shouldn’t happen withing the automated run for one room, but with multiple rooms, forget it, as between the getting lost, it was just as likely to stall because the brushes needed cleaning.

The Neato on the other hand easily handles 3 bedrooms, 4 regular rooms, a hall and 2 bathrooms, and I almost never have to clean the brushes, and it has reliable always found home. This happens overnight automatically, and I think it takes 2 trips, ie a recharge in the middle. With the same regular cleaning, the bin seems to be full everyday when I check, but no worse for the wear. I just upgraded the software, which should improve the dock rate, as maybe 2 times out of 10 it would be by the dock but sitting just out of range. After upgrade, it seems to be better, no misses over 10 runs, ie twice per day.

The pattern for the Neato is so nice, it is easy to see that nothing was missed,and easy to see where a manual touchup is needed. I am very pleased with it, I may get another, as we still have another 3 rooms and a bathroom to do, but alas, we gotta make them a bit more robot(as well as people) friendly first ;)

Nice Review.. Good job. BUT…

Having both machines, AND a Golden Retriever, I have to point out that the XV11 does just as good a job at carpet cleaning as the Roomba in my experience. In fact I prefer the XV11… it gets at least as much dog hair (sorry… but actually seems like more to me). It is easier to empty the dust bin, and the XV11 doesn’t require extra, manual maintenance to untangle hair from the brush and bar.

In short the XV11 is more maintenance free than the Roomba which represents (to me) much more of what the primary attraction of owning a robotic vacuum is, in the first place. The Roomba requires me to continually perform de-hairing choirs…a very annoying and disappointing choir considering the goal is less work… not more.

I own both, and now that the comparison stage is over, the Roomba has been retired to the attic.

OH… And I don’t have all day to put up with a machine indiscriminately running all over my home with no particular pattern to finish vacuuming. The XV11 finishes it’s choirs in about 1/3 the time. Including one 1hour charge the XV11 finishes my home in 2-1/2 hours… the Roomba uses that amount of time in just the two recharges that it takes… add to that almost three hours of actual vacuum time.

Either machine is way cool at first, but over time you will develop a great appreciation for the machine that completes it’s task in less than half the time.

Thanks for the comparison. I have a tried both of these machines. I think the laser precision is a cool attribute when a single one-direction swath is effective, like on a hard shiney surface. However, when vacuuming carpet with upstanding fibers; multiple directions repeated a few times wins hands-down. If you examine the lifting mechanisms on these machines, you’ll notice that the Roomba has two opposing rotary objects, a beater and a brush. These physically toss solid objects into a bin while helping part the upstanding carpet fibers exactly where the vacuum is pulling in the dust from the vibrating fibers. Also, if you have ever had carpet “laid over” to one side by constant traffic, you understand why the rotors have to directionally push the fibers in the opposite direction to lift them. The Rumba’s multidirectional multiple passes fluffs the carpet back to the upright position lifting it in many directions. This is why Roomba does “slightly better” on carpet. I will say this, if you have cats, get the Roomba. The fact that the hair is in the vacuum, is mainly because its no longer on the carpet. If you have ever had to brush off cat hair from a dark pair of pants, you’ll get what I’m saying here. I have two cats, one is black, and my home is 75% (almost white) carpet.

I will say that Roomba manufacturers seriously need to deal with a few issues in sealed bearings and pinch points, but cat hair (or any other hair) requires more than just single pass light vacuuming. Saving time merely limits the amount of effective cleaning time. Multiple directional passes repeated is a feature not a bug in this situation. The fact that this comparison points out Roomba does slightly better on carpet but takes more time simply reiterates the point.

I would say to those who have smooth surfaced areas and possibly firm carpet with light dust issues, go with the XV11. As for Roomba’s issues with hair, sure beats running around and picking it up by hand or pulling out that 40Lb upright every other day complete with the cumbersome pain in-the-butt power cord (the frequency that I run my Roomba). Running said upright vacuum up and down a two story home is really not comparable to pulling hair out of a Roomba. I’m glad Roomba has competition, but they really did get a lot of things right in its design. The XV11 has to avoid patent infringement but have added some good things to the race. Roomba, if you’re listening, best get off your butt and start fixing a few issues.

It’s a pity that none of the current crop of bots emulate the older Karcher robot’s trick of emptying the robot’s dust tank into a much larger one in the base unit.

That’s the main reason Karchers are snapped up when second hand ones show up.

Can Neato climb over door steps?

I in an old house with old door steps, and some of them are about 1,5 inch high.

@Alan Brown there is also Deepoo D76 and just announced Samsung Navibot S with self-empty dock station

Neato xv-11 and Roomba 560 available now in Singapore with local warranty .

Roomba is just a big corporation with a lot of advertising that makes it popular. Neato is more advanced and better value for money. Also brands like Navibob and bobsweep have many more features than even the 7 series of roomba.

One thing that wasn’t covered that I’m wondering about is whether the Neato has dirt sensors like the Roomba so it knows to go over the area again. Kinda important when dealing with what shoes bring in, or under and around the bird’s cage, etc.

I’ve owned several Roombas and have found them to actually clean dog hair better that either my upright or my canister. Actually, they clean better than my maid service, but that’s another problem. The two I currently have are the Roomba professional and my Dirt Dog. Owning two Pomeranians, one light coloured, and having dark blue carpeting, I can attest to how well they work. Also, my Pro model is actually pretty quiet and cleaning the brushes is no big deal since both the models I currently own are fitted with the brushes made for pet hair. Much easier to clean than the early models.

Also, how is the Neato on black surfaces? I’ve heard from others that they’ve had problems with Roombas on these.

One personal comment re iRobot, I am getting the feeling their quality control is starting to slip. The older models like I own seem to be well made but from reading recent reviews re their new models, they seem to have consistent problems, especially concerning the batteries. I seem to remember these being American made in the past but I noticed that the new ones are made in China. Where are the Neatos made?

I have a huge open space living area aproximately 35 feet by 60 feet. Will the iRobot be able to handle cleaning this area at one time?

I like your way of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back soon.

I spotted your blog’s link posted by a friend of mine on Facebook. Thanks for putting useful information on the web. It’s tough to get this stuff nowadays.

I’ve own the iRobot with two IR towers and radio control/scheduler box for 3 yrs now. We have 2 dogs and 1 cat so we use, and clean it, daily on our hardwood floors throughout the house iwith only carpeting in the basement. However, without fail, we had to replace the gearbox every year which cost $40 if you replace it yourself. Hair somehow finds it way around the brush bearings and into the mostly plastic gearbox and jams/deforms the housing until the gears misalign and slip. I’ve been disassembling and cleaning/lubricating this 3rd gearbox every 3 months as preventive maintenance, which only takes about an hour, but is not something I enjoy doing. If this fails again, I will definite give the Neato a try. The random path is effective, but does take way too long which means less coverage per charge. It’s also loud so if you’re home, you want it to finish as fast as it can.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY PURCHASE EASIER :)

Thank you for your thoughtful post!

Help, I live in India, and need to decide which to buy also which would charge on 22V main supply. Any comments would be welcome, thanks

We have mostly hardwood floors, just refinished. Some area carpet. No pets or kids at home. Does either robot scratch the hardwood with their plastic wheels?

John