Love This Vacuum

As someone who has owned many models of the Roomba over the years it was time for another Robotic Vacuum. I have 3 dogs and 4 cats so I have constant fur balls and toy shreddings around my house. I have not been impressed with some of the newer Roombas compared to the older ones as believe it or not the newer versions would get stuck on rugs easier. I did some research since there are now many brands of Robotic vacuums on the market to choose from.

I have tile throughout with occasional area rugs. I got my Neato last night and already I'm in love! Compared to the Roomba, it is smart! it scans my rooms, knows where to go, when it's time to charge it returns to it's base remembering where it left off. All the while it hasn't gotten stuck on anything and it's not constantly banging against my furniture and cabinets. It has suction which none of my roombas have ever had. Already between playing with it last night, and then again this morning I can see what a superior job it's doing at picking up the furballs and toy shreddings and navigating through my house. And as far as cleaning the machine it's a snap compared to keeping the Roomba clean and fit. I think even my dogs are appreciating the fact that it's not constantly running into them!

Absolutely love this vacuum!

Mama's Little Helper

We are in our 70's and age and arthritis have made a few household chores less than enjoyable. Especially wrestling an upright sweeper around. I had been looking at these things for some time and wondering just what kind of job they would do. Finally, I decided to give one a try. I had only heard of the Roomba but just gave Amazon the general search parameters of "Robot Vacuum" I chose the Neato because of the generally good reviews it had. My only concern was our little dog. He, like a lot of dogs, is scared to death of the vacuum. We need not have worried. He keeps trying to get it to play with him. I think he thinks we got him a pet. The vacuum, itself does an excellent job and it only took us a couple of days to learn what areas it had trouble negotiating and change the setup so the vacuum could find it's way through. Now it's completely supervision free and the only thing we have to do is keep it's bin empty. It's even considerate enough to thank you when clean out the bin. During all our 50 years of marriage we often joked about "Bridget," the maid who didn't get her work done. As in, I guess that girl forgot the dishes again, I'll have to do them myself, etc. Now we have a Bridget and while she won't do dishes or windows, she does a remarkable job with the carpet.

XV-21 Great For Office Or Home

As an owner of a small business, we were experiencing difficult financial times. One of the things we cut from out budget was the weekly office cleaning people. Since we lost our cleaning people, the housekeeping quickly started to go downhill fast and got bad after a few months. It was impossible to get any of the employees to vacuum the 5,000+ square feet office, for it was not in their "job description".

Meanwhile at home, we had two indoor cats, despite me being allergic to cats. I had two air filters running 24/7 and did weekly hand vacuuming, but this did little to relieve my constant coughing for the past 12 years. My coughing also continued in the office. My wife was getting really worried and thought it might be more than allergies. My doctor tells me my allergies will get worse over time, not better. And then our last cat finally passed away last month.

I then made the executive decision to have the company purchase the Neato XV-21 for the office (and for me to bring it home for the weekends). Before purchasing the unit, I reviewed for the past few months all the different robot vacuums that are out there before settling on the XV-21. Getting a robot vacuum would solve the problem of getting someone vacuuming the office (and also to do some serious vacuuming at home since the cat was gone).

The features that sold me were that it had intelligent room mapping, methodical cleaning, a true vacuum cleaner, upgradeable firmware, returns to charging station, the two different beater brushes, and the allergy filter.

The first day we got it, it cleaned the office in three charges. We were amazed as we watched it work and how it got around all the office chairs and clutter. The floor plan of our office is a long rectangle and is a rat-maze with all the cubicles. It picked up a lot of dirt, staples, rubber bands, hole punch confetti, and dead leaves. A couple of our visiting clients were also amazed watching the Neato doing its job.

The drawback we quickly found out is the vacuum noise. It is loud enough to make it difficult to hold a phone conversation when it is nearby. It is almost as loud as a hair dryer. Therfore, I have it scheduled to start up 15 minutes before closing time, just to make sure it is operating properly before leaving. I have it scheduled to run every weeknight. In the following mornings, we usually find it back at its charging station. There was a couple time where we found it stuck and it could not get out, but we have since remedied those situations. I leave telltale clues at the far ends of the office almost every evening to see if the XV-21 was slacking off or not in the middle of the night. But each time it cleaned up my "traps". (A great performance review!)

I have taken the XV-21 home and it has done very well there at home. It picked up all the cat hairs / dander to the point I am no longer coughing at home or at the office. We nearly ran it to death when at home. (Remember, I was desperate to stop coughing.) I finally have relief after over a decade of misery.