I ordered the D5 connected after watching probably 50 online video reviews and reading a lot of website information on the latest robot vacuum tech available. I opted for the Neato line because of the advanced room mapping and methodical cleaning that is promised. I wanted the D5 because it offers the best cleaning power and filtration for pet hair and allergens without going for the top of the line unit. So far, good choice.

I want to give a quick summary of my situation.

I have two large dogs. 1 Great Dane and 1 Pointer mix. The both shed quite a bit and it has been a hassle to say the least to keep up with vacuuming the dog hair. I could literally vacuum in the morning and it would need another go over later in the afternoon. I have a Dyson D17-Animal Upright so getting the hair up is not a problem... it's having to lug out the upright constantly that's an issue. After a recent couple of large gatherings at our house, I told my wife I plan to purchase the robo-vac to help keep up with the dog hair.

So, the unit arrived (3 days earlier than the estimated delivery... Woo-Hoo!!) I un-boxed it and quickly got it setup on our wifi Network (downloading the app on the phone this only takes a few minutes to be up and running). I immediately noticed that the bot had about 76% charge already but I let it top off for about 1/2 hour before I ran it the first time. Now... I have to say, I had vacuumed in the main area of my house... lightly... with my Dyson earlier in the evening as I had some people over to watch a movie.

After it had charged about 30 minutes, I decided to let it go on a test run to see how it worked. Well, as I have said, I watched a lot of video reviews and comparisons of these units so I was basically aware of what to expect... but... you just can't appreciate how intelligent this thing seems to be until you actually watch it in action. I'm a computer programmer and I have done board level development and some robotic programming... even in industrial... so I can appreciate the nuances that go into an AI algorithm. This is very impressive. I have a very odd shaped living area to begin with, but it is really cluttered with a lot of furniture, dog bowls, tv table stand... etc... We didn't really do a lot of setting up our house for the bot before running it the first time. I just wanted to see how it would handle things as they were. Well, it quickly scanned our family room and then began edge cleaning and working in sections cleaning one area at a time until it cleaned: Family Room, Dining Room, Kitchen, Living Room, Main Bathroom and a small hallway. It was really interesting to watch some of the subtleties of how it covered the floor (it would literally skip a small spot which at first a thought was an issue... but it would return to that one spot later and clean it after completing some other task. It knew it missed it... but had to come back to it).

When the cleaning was done and it returned to the docking station to charge, I removed the bin to see what it manged to pick up. I was absolutely shocked... the bin was stuffed completely full of dog hair, dust, dirt and other debris. I couldn't believe my eyes. Where the heck did it find all this as I had just done a light vacuuming earlier (see pics). I started walking the area checking to see if it had missed anything major and was again stunned to see how well it cleaned. I should also mention, we have hard floors throughout (tile in the main living area and laminate in the master bedroom) so I didn't test it on carpet. Other than a couple of spots where it wasn't able to get to the dirt because we hadn't moved the furniture to optimize it's cleaning... it didn't miss anything. I also want to mention, it cleaned 570 square feet in about 56 minutes. When it started the cleaning, it was at about 85% charge. When it finished, it was at 52% charge. The battery life is very impressive.

My son took it into his room the next day and did a 1 room cleaning. He was shocked how much dirt and hair it picked up from his room. I guess we don't realize how dirty our floors get until we see it.

Couple of things to note about the setup and unboxing:

1 - The wifi setup is a little confusing as the app automatically connects to the robot then asks for YOUR wifi. Initially, I was confused and thought it was asking my to find the robot to connect to but couldn't (the online videos show it doing that way). They must have changed this in a firmware update.

2 - All of the online information says you must use the included USBTG (usb tether) included with the unit to upgrade the firmware. This was not the case. Apparently, the latest release of firmware is now OTA (over the air) capable so the robot upgraded right over the app / wifi. Nice.

3 - This unit does not include any spare filters or brushes (side brush). They are on replacement reminders in the app, so you'll likely want to order some replacements before too long.

I currently have this unit scheduled to clean my main living area every day except Sunday at around 2:30 PM. We will have to see how it holds up from a maintenance standpoint and I will likely update my review with more information in a couple of months with any maintenance tips / concerns. I also should mention, I was an early adopter in Robot Vacuum technology. My first unit was one of the early Roomba vacs about 9 years ago. At that time, it was more of a gimmicky... nice to have techie thing that wasn't really practical. With the new technology and efficiency of what's available today... these are viable appliances in your house. Won't replace the manual vacuum. But I won't be needing to pull it out more than once a week and probably less than that.

12/14/17 Update - This robot has been cleaning my main part of the house at least 5 times a week since I got it. Other than a few minor glitches (getting stuck a few times) it has kept our house so much cleaner than it used to be... with the two big dogs. But... the main reason I wanted to post this update. I just received a notification today... the D3 and D5 (which I have) just got a firmware update... they now support the area cleaned map like the Botvac Connected (shows an actual map of the area that was cleaned that the robot detected after the job is done). It doesn't show a live update like the Xiaomi does, but this is an awesome update!! :) very cool. This way, I can see if the robot was seeing anything weird when it cleaned. Image of the first cleaning map is included (see my pics below).

12/23/2018 Update - After less than 1 year, sadly my Botvac D5 started acting oddly and would navigate erratically and report bizarre cleaning maps. It would get lost in the middle of the room and run out of battery without returning to recharge. I contacted support and after about 2 months of back and forth sending the unit in for repair, Neato determined the unit should be replaced and they sent me a new Botvac D6 upgrade. So, in general, I'm still happy with Neato because, although the process was a little frustrating at times, they did support the unit while under warranty (warranty had almost expired). I wasn't thrilled with the repair depot that they instructed me to send the unit to. It's in Texas / US and I looked the location up and it's a 3rd party repair center. They were not very helpful as they didn't package my unit very well when returning it and they never sent me anything regarding what was diagnosed or repaired with the unit. I did inform Neato of this in case they wanted to keep track of how their contracted repair centers are performing. So far, very happy with the D6.

Ive had this Botvac for about a month. I purchased one of the more expensive connected versions with a supposedly bigger battery because we have a ~2500 sq ft house with all hardwood floring and tile in the kitchen/bathrooms with no carpet except a few rugs. So far I am VERY VERY disappointed in this purchase (mostly because this was purchased to make my life easier and less stressful and it has failed massively in that regard). Within our ~2500 sq ft house we have 2 bedrooms, with a shared "jack & jill" bathroom that are closed off, effectively cutting the space down from a 4 bedroom 3 bath to a 2 bedroom 2 bath. The battery on this botvac doesnt last long enough to clean the rest of the house without having recharge at least once, if not sometimes twice, even though the product details state anywhere up to around a 3000 sq ft house. Thats my first gripe with it. 2nd, this thing gets stuck ALL THE TIME! And I dont mean it gets stuck on carpet, it gets stuck in places it should NEVER get stuck. I bought a Neato because it supposedly scans & "pings" the surrounding area during its cleaning but it got stuck on one of the legs of my La-Z-Boy recliner and I dont mean that it got stuck as in it tired to drive over it, I mean it got stuck as in it kept bumping into it, tried to course correct (at one point FIVE times) and then proceeded to get stuck again. I relocated it at least a foot away and it resumed attempting to run into the base of the chair. It got stuck two more times following this same pattern. I have this running during the day when my wife and I are both gone to work so that we can come home to a clean vacuumed house, the entire point of the purchase. I also have a huge issue with the boundary markers. We have a large shag carpet rug in our living room, which I will preface I do NOT expect the neato to even attempt to clean, its too thick and tall and I dont want it to even try that. That being said I took the 13ft of boundary marker, which IMO is way too short for a product that is specified for a 3000 sq ft house and should have included at least 20 ft if not more given the price of this vacuum, and I placed them underneath the edges of the shag carpet rug. The neato still attempts to drive up onto the carpet, i dont know if it is actually stopped by the height of the carpet or if it somehow is triggered by the boundary marker, but reviews and forum posts state that the boundary markers have to be placed on top of the carpet or not underneath. That being said I dont want to have boundary markers on top of this tall carpet as they will never stay put, will get caught on the regular vacuum or will simply be in the way. Also I dont want to have a boundary marker stuck out on hardwood floor because it looks like a giant roll of tape unrolled onto the floor which is an eyesore to have. The connectivity of the device is great, its easy to use and operate and when it works (insert massive eyeroll) it cleans wonderfully but so far I have had it running monday wednesday friday and it has yet to finish cleaning a single day without notifying me that it is stuck.So the simply fact that I cannot let it run on a schedule and come home to it having cleaned my home makes it pointless, I dont want to have it run while we are home when I would literally have to babysit it (because whats the point of that, should just use my regular vacuum at that point) and I have other much more important things to do with my time. I will attempt a firmware upgrade to see if that fixes any of the issues but as of right now this botvac is headed for a return because it has not lived up to its claim to fame and is absolutely not worth the pricetag. If a Neato rep sees this I will GLADLY change my review if they can assist me but as of right now I can wholeheartedly say this product is not something I would suggest to anyone.

Update 4 (2 years in):

I would downgrade my rating to 4 1/2 stars, if I could. For this price point, I expect the botvac to maintain its WiFi connection when in range. The D5 repeatedly drops its connection to WiFi, even while it's parked on its base, 6 feet away. This happened with our first unit, and now with our second. Many other reviewers have experienced this problem, as well. Sometimes, the unit randomly reconnects; sometimes it stays disconnected for months.

This is an annoyance because reconnecting to the network is tedious.

Another problem is that Alfred frequently gets stuck under two of our pieces of furniture, a bed and a couch.

That said, we still love Alfred. He dutifully trundles around the house at 5:30 AM and finishes about 90 minutes later.

Whenever Alfred passes on, we'll try the top-end Roomba. Each robot vacuum has its quirks, but Roombas seem to be further along in development.

Update 3 (1 year in): Dear 'Sucka' (our first D5 botvac) bit the dust after just shy of one year with us. His motor began to fail, and he eventually could mo longer move. The failure occurred during the warranty period, and Neato sent us a brand-new replacement, who now bears the name 'Alfred.' He seems to work better than Sucka ever did, though we were very happy with Sucka. We now have some very thick wool rugs, though. Alfred can navigate them, but we must empty him at least once during his trek through the house. I suspect that the rugs will produce less fuzz as time goes by. No robot vacuum could hold that much fuzz, so we don't hold this extra maintenance against Alfred.

Three cheers to Neato for unflinchingly honoring their warranty!

Update 2 (3 months in): The D5 is the single best household appliance purchase we've ever made. With two minutes of effort on our part each night, the D5 keeps our floors clean and fur-free. Though he used to be able to clean the entire house without stopping, he now needs to recharge about 80% into his run. That's actually amazing because he trundles back to his base, recharges for about an hour, then picks up where he left off. He's only experienced two problems in his time with us. First, twice he's gotten stuck when one of our cheap flimsy rugs with a rubber bottom rolls under him. Second, one time he got confused, believing that he was trapped in the hallway with his base. He only cleaned the hallway that night. A strange occurrence that never happened again.

Update: The online feature works fine now. After completely resetting Wi-Fi on the Botvac, it only loses signal in the back of the house (where the signal is very weak). Little 'Sucka' cleans our entire house, except the bedrooms, every night. I just dump the full dustbin each morning, clean the filter, and that's it. The house stays clean. It's wonderful!

We have 3 dogs, 2 cats, and a houseful of fur. Try though she might, my lovely bride could not keep up with our well-loved furball-makers. So much fur, so little time.

Enter the D5.

Unpacking was easy, and the instructions were clear.

I plugged in the charging base, turned him on, and set him on the base. While he was charging, I downloaded the Android app for my phone & the Apple app for my iPad. I completed the setup for the D5, naming him 'Sucka' in the process.

When he arrived, I had let the fur build up for 10 days or so. Also, I cleaned up all the dog toys, small objects, and loose rugs, but I left all the chairs in the dining room on the floor, creating quite an obstacle course. He's noisy, but not obnoxiously so. We sleep through his cleaning routine with our bedroom door closed.

He cleaned the entire house (2,000 square feet) in a little over an hour. It took him a while to navigate through the maze of chair legs, but he did it.

I realized later that he had not picked up very much dirt and fur near the end of his journey because his dustbin was full. The next time I stopped him mid-cleaning 5 times to empty his bin. Leaving him 10 days' worth of fur was not a fair test. Even our Dyson requires emptying when faced with that much fur. Once he was 'caught up,' he could clean the whole house on a single charge without stopping to empty the bin.

I programmed him to run every night at 1:30 am, and he's had little trouble since. Once, he got stuck on a rug we'd left crumpled in the hall, and another time he got trapped between my recliner and it's odd-shaped ottoman. Each time I just extricated him, and he trundled away to complete his mission.

He cleans under every piece of furniture he can fit under, too. Nice.

To clean a single room, just carry him into that room, push 'Start,' and close the door. When he's done, put him back on the base.

The online aspect of the D-5 is wonderful - when it works - which is only about half the time. You can start, stop, dock, and check settings online, from anywhere, but Sucka randomly drops the internet connection about half the time. The problem is worse when he's farther from the router, but he's also lost connection when only 6 feet away. A quick check of other reviews revealed that many others have experienced this problem. Hopefully, updated firmware will rectify it. I recently reset the botvac's Wi-Fi connection; perhaps that will improve the Wi-Fi difficulties.

Despite the spotty Wi-Fi, the D5 gets 5 stars. Our main goal was for the D5 to remove pet fur from our floors every day. It cleans better than that, though, based on the amount of dust and dirt I empty from it each morning. It's pulling some deep-down dirt, too.

It doesn't clean carpet as deeply as our Dyson upright vacuum, but I didn't expect that from a battery-powered machine. It's close, though, especially since the D5 vacuums the entire house each day. The repeated cleaning has everything looking - and staying - cleaner. There's even less dust on the furniture.

I selected the D5 because it can stop cleaning when the battery gets low, return to its base to charge, then pick up where it left off. However, it's never needed to. The D5 cleans the entire house on a single charge.

We've had the D5 for about a week now, and thanks to Sucka, it looks like my lovely bride will only need to break out the Dyson about once a month or so. That has been a relief to her.

The D5 wasn't cheap, but, if it lasts 4+ years, it's well worth the price.

After receiving the wrong model Botvac they shipped out the correct model pretty quick. I have been using it every day for about 6 weeks now and we love it. With a dog that seems to shed constantly and 3 women with long thick hair that gets everywhere my wife had to vacuum almost daily to keep up with all the hair. Our interior floors are hardwood and tile with a couple of smaller rugs, the 3 season porch has a low pile rug. The Botvac handles it all no problem. I set it up to run every day when foot traffic is low. it runs at the scheduled time even if it's not connected to the app. For whatever reason it disconnects from the app every 2 weeks or so but like I said it's not a big deal because it still runs.

It does get stuck if I don't I don't take 2 minutes to put the strips down and move some wires out of the way.

The vacuum picks up everything. I was surprised how strong the vacuum is. It really gets the smallest grain of dirt up to smaller sticks ( the dog dragged a branch into the house and chewed on it which left little pieces of wood everywhere).

One thing that surprised me was that you don't need the magnetic strip to block stairs, it recognizes the floor ends and turns around.

A couple of things I don't like,

The magnetic strips tend to move when the vacuum runs into it unless you have both ends braced against furniture or a doorway or something.

I don't like the filters which have a plastic screen covering the filter (which looks like thick paper) and traps really fine dirt inside the filter and you can't clean it out which is why you have to pay for new filters every month. My filter lasted about 3 weeks.

The Bot does not get all the way to the wall or in corners it can't get closer than a 1/2 inch or so, despite its efforts.

Even though you don't need the vacuum connected to the app after you configure the schedule I still find it annoying that I have to remove the bot from the app and add it again which usually takes about 10 mins to get it to connect and its the only way to find out what the messages from the bot are when it stops and starts beeping. Also, the bot can get stuck in some hidden spaces like behind a couch or under a bed and I don't actually follow it anymore so it can take some time to track it down. I would like to see the app have a location alert to help you find the bot once it gets stuck, but the botvac would need to be connected to the app for that. The app really feels like an afterthought

Overall I am happy I purchased the unit as It has cut down the daily manual cleanings to just once a week. Everyone in the house did like it at first but the novelty of it has expired and everyone but the wife thinks its a pain. If I were to purchase a new unit I would get a Samsung due to the better edge cleaning that it has.

I love this vacuum. I've had it for over 9 months now, I didn't want to write a review right away because I wanted to give it a real test and after this amount of time, I can give a real review.

A little background on my house, I have all hardwood on my first floor with 2 area rugs - one of which is a thick pile and one is a medium pile. My second floor is all wall to wall carpeting except for vinyl in the bathrooms and laundry room. I have 2 cats and a dog, they all shed. I also have 2 boys, who just turned 6 and almost 4. There are a lot of crumbs. I run the vacuum upstairs during the day, while we're downstairs and downstairs at night when we're in bed. I pick up the cats' water bowl and I also pick up and shake out bath mats, etc. A tiny bit of prep work so this guy can do his job. Totally worth it. The bin is full every time it runs with dust, dog hair, Legos, coins. It picks it all up. I will include a picture of our thicker pile rug, as well as a Lego man that was picked up.

It does require some maintenance, as with anything. Every Saturday, I take 5-10 minutes and vacuum the inside, the dirt bin, I take the roller brush out, and vacuum all throughout there. I change the filter once a month. You may be able to do it less often if you don't have as many pets, etc. I bought the cheaper ones on Amazon, I think I-clean is the brand. I very occasionally will also take some canned air and spray around the circle on the top where the "eyes" are. I will do that if it seems to be getting confused, getting stuck in weird places or saying it's finished when it's not. Once I spray and clean the eyes, it's back to new. I've only had to do this twice in the 9 months.

I used to have tumbleweeds of animal hair along all edges of my floors, not anymore. I used to have a cleaning service and was able to get rid of them, and I always say it's because of this vacuum! It goes completely under one of my kid's beds, not the other (because it's too low) but that's ok.

You also need to understand how this thing works, it cleans in sections, so it will do the border of a roughly 15x15 foot section and then go back and forth in beautiful lines in that area and then it will move on to the next area. It will keep doing this until the whole floor is cleaned. My OCD is calmed with straight lines. I would not be able to handle a random pattern. It works in the dark. It works on black flooring. It can get itself unstuck most of the time. When it's climbing onto my higher pile carpet, it will attempt to climb on straight and then it will back up and approach it at an angle. Amazing to watch. It doesn't go under my chairs because when it does, it normally gets stuck. But when I want a really thorough clean, I just pick up the chairs and stools.

The app sucks after the latest update, but the vacuum works very well. I can start and stop it with the app and love the cleaning map (that wasn't available on this model when I first got the vacuum, but they updated the app to include it and I love that). But I always put my phone on airplane mode at night, and it used to just tell me in the morning that it was done cleaning, but now (after this latest update) it doesn't tell me unless my phone is connected at the time that it finished. It's really no big deal as it's still cleaning whether my phone is connected to it or not. And that's more important to me!

Overall, I don't think I could live without this vacuum (maybe that's an extreme statement, but maybe not), because my house is finally clean, all the time. The animal hair doesn't get a chance to build up. Very satisfied customer! And yes, I paid full price. I'm not lucky enough to get things for free. If this broke tomorrow, I would with certainty buy it again! But I hope it doesn't!!

Update: 4-6-2019: I've had this almost 2 years now, and still love it. Now that neato has updated the software, I never get errors that it's not connected. I also don't have to pick up the cats' water bowl because I can create the virtual no go lines. I have to give it to neato, when they update, they give the older vacuums all the newer features. How many companies do that? The app works great now, and I love that I can create the floor plan and draw a no go line. Still really happy with this vacuum!

Update: 2-7-2021: My little friend lasted over 3.5 years before losing suction. I am so sad. This thing was a lifesaver for me. It always came back full and was awesome at climbing up on my rugs and cleaning them well! I recently ordered a mop/vacuum robot from another company and it keeps my hard floors spotless, but it has so much trouble getting up on my rugs, so I don't use it for that. Anyway, I contacted Neato's customer service to go through some troubleshooting steps. They unfortunately didn't change anything, but customer service took care of me and I just ordered the D7. I'm excited for it to show up soon!

I've had a Neato D5 for 15 months. I give it 2 stars - here's the bad and the good that led to this rating.

The Bad:

1. During the 15 months I had 2 different D5 robots. They both lost their minds. The first one just started refusing to clean after working beautifully for 4 months. I would press the button to start, and it would do nothing. It was charged, it just wouldn't respond. It also refused to connect to wi-fi at this point, even though it had been connected fine for the months before that. After troubleshooting with Neato support, they sent me a brand new one. This one lasted longer - 11 months. Then it also lost its mind and just stopped working. It also wouldn't recognize when it was docked (this was not a battery issue in this case, it was the unit itself that malfunctioned).

2. The wi-fi connection needs some work. The first robot connected and stayed connected for 4 months before its mental meltdown. But the second D5 was fussier about our setup, and didn't like seeing our fast wi-fi band on the same network name as the slower wi-fi band that it was using. It would connect, but then drop shortly thereafter. Note that it is very common for the same fast wi-fi network router to also support slower (and older) frequencies. Nor did any of our other devices have a problem with this. At the advice of Neato support, we set up a second wi-fi network with a different name that only supported the frequency the Neato D5 needed. (Luckily, we had an old wi-fi router sitting around that we could use for this purpose.) This fixed the "issue", but we really shouldn't have needed to do this.

The Mixed:

1. It uses a roller with a couple of lines of bristles. This is great for picking up fur and hair, and it does a very good job at this. Unfortunately, it is also great for picking up smaller cords or wires, and tassels or socks or fabric dog toys, or... well, you get the idea. They also must be cleaned frequently, especially if there is someone with long hair in your home.

2. The D5 is pretty persistent about getting into tight spaces, and over or around obstacles. It has no problems with things like thresholds or other unevenness including things like thick extension cords. However, it is not always as adept at getting back out of these places. It gets stuck, and I received a "stuck" message on the app, and it beeps and beeps. Often it would get itself unstuck before I walked over to rescue it. But it gets stuck often enough that I never felt like I could run it unattended.

The Good:

1. The Neato D5 does an excellent job of cleaning everywhere. It's path doesn't exactly look like what a person would do, but it's not random, either. It's great fun to watch, and when it's finished, it has covered the entire space.

2. The dust bin is a nice, large size. This was very important to me because we have pets and pets shed.

3. It does a good job in picking stuff up from different surfaces. It did a really good job on the tile floors, a good job on the carpet, and a decent job on throw rugs that weren't secured to the floor. It would sometimes leave the throw rugs disheveled or folded, but I don't fault the robot for that.

4. The app works nicely when the robot is connected.

5. Support was responsive, and readily replaced the first unit after troubleshooting indicated it was faulty.

Bottom line: This is a useful robot when it works. If you're willing to spend its price every year for a great robot, it might be the one for you. Even if you have an experience similar to mine, Neato support will replace faulty robots under the 1-year warranty, so you'll get at least 12 months of service. That might be worth it for you. It's not for me; the price is too steep as an annual charge, so I'll be looking elsewhere for my next vacuum robot.

******EDIT 14 MONTHS LATER******

Last July I had my first problem with my robotic vacuum, Steve would simply refuse to go out. Customer service was emailed and after 16, yes 16, back and forth emails and troubleshooting, the vacuum was declared dead. Neato Robotics happily sent me a new vacuum. Meanwhile...I bought a Roomba 980, even though it ranks less on suction tests etc. Fast forward to 7 months later and guess what? Neato Botvac once again refuses to vacuum. Just rev's up and shuts down. So I email customer service, who takes 5 days to respond and we have started the troubleshooting pattern again. While I commend the vacuums strength in cleaning, having a product that fails every 6 or 7 months is unacceptable. My original Roomba 980 is still going strong(though only 7 months old) and I just bought a second one for the second floor of my home. Poor Neato, if he is able to be repaired, will be living in the basement to vacuum, where all bad vacuums should go.

****************************************I have waited a long time to buy a robotic vacuum. I felt confident asking for one this Christmas from my family, as they are very good at finding the best. When I opened the box I realized it was a not a company I was familiar with. I was quick to set up my botvac though, and connected it immediately to my internet. The app was easy to download and install on my phone and even easier to understand. I was hooked from the start on the app. The idea that the vacuum could tell me whats going on with it is amazing and it WORKS!

I have a 12 sided house with no square rooms, and it is open concept. We have 1 dog (golden retriver) and 1 cat that both shed. There are hardwood, tile and area carpets, 3 of the upper level rooms have wall to wall carpeting. Despite all of this Neato has had no trouble at all cleaning all of the rooms. The botvac has not fallen down any stairs and shifts from floor surface to new surface with no trouble at all. It has become stuck in the odd corner and quickly sends me a message on the phone to rescue it. I am frankly amazed at how well it cleans and how much it is getting each time. I have been letting it go every morning, on auto clean for the main level, and moving it to other levels in the home later in the day. I am already considering getting a second one for our lower level (family room/mud room/guest/bath).

The botvac is very persistent and we have made use of the magnetic marker in order to save the train set from it, along with the dog bowls. I highly recommend having extra marker on hand, as I already have found a need for it.

Overall Amazing Product!

I have to agree with many others here, the new Neato D5 is a winner! This is the first robot vacuum system we ever owned, so did a lot of research and talking to others that owned competitive brands. We chose Neato since others mentioned their brand was round, so had a problem getting into corners and doing a good job. Neato is a D shape, so has corners that fit to clean. Others mentioned their brand would either go randomly across the rooms, or miss areas 5 inches away, and never come back to get them. Neato has NOT missed one spot yet for us.

We attribute the great cleaning coverage of the Neato D5 to the excellent programming and laser mapping this unit has. Though you can't see the laser, you can see the unit sitting and turning to map out the room and area. Plus, it remembers the areas that it traveled, such that when it comes by them again, it will automatically turn to do an overlap. It maneuvers itself graciously around table legs and chairs. It goes under our dining room set of many chairs and legs and manages to get around all of them, and it knows that they are there. If the laser doesn't pick it up, the very sensitive edges on the unit will very lightly touch the object, then remember it's there, and go around it.

As an example, we forgot about a tall thin ceramic vase we had sitting on the floor. A slight bump would knock it over. We saw the Neato coming toward it, and thought that's it, it's going to fall over. But NO, the Neato slowed down coming up to it, gave it a very gentle touch, and went in a circle around it. We were now very impressed and didn't worry after that. We also have a solid heavy square edged stainless steel table bottom, between 1/2" to 3/4" thick. It stopped when it came to that and couldn't go forward to get over it. Did that stop it? NO! It tried a couple times, realized it couldn't go forward, backed up, turned to an angle, then lifted it's one wheel taller, and went right up on it and continued to clean.

Speaking of wheels, there are two main drive ones on the Neato. On bare floor, the unit sits low to the floor, but when it comes to bumps, rugs, edging, etc, it moves one wheel or the other, or both, to a different height, then keeps on going. We thought for sure the unit was going to get itself stuck a few times from the situations that it got into, but, no again. The unit figures out how to get out of a jam. We watched it get into tight spaces like a maze, and sure enough, it's smart enough to figure how to get itself back out. Though there's a Find Me icon in the App on the smart phone, we haven't had to use it. It just kind of takes care of itself. We don't worry about it.

The App that you can load on your smart phone lets you set schedules, start and stop it, provides you with cleaning statistics, tech data, battery power, etc. We found the unit battery will at least go two hours, and if it hasn't finished cleaning (depending on size of the area), it will shut of it's vacuum, and find it's way back to it's base to charge. Never bumps into anything on the way either, it knows where it needs to go. As mentioned by another reviewer, it will go up to the base going forward, slow down, turn itself around, then slowly wiggle backwards to ensure it makes a good contact. It will then charge, and when done, leave again and go right back to the exact spot it left off to finish cleaning. The App provides status of everything going on if you want to know.

Since we have pets, if the vacuum filled up and needed emptied, that's not a problem either. You can tell it to remind you to clean bin at an interval you choose, or, if you forget, and the unit bin gets too full, or even if the brush gets tangled or needs cleaned, it will stop and signal you, and even send you a message from the App to let you know. If you want to clean just one room, all you do is sit it in the room, press Start, and close the door. When it's done, it returns itself to the exact spot you placed it and shuts itself off. If you have an area with no door, or a section where you don't want it to "cross that line", Neato provides a magnetic strip you can lay across that section, and the unit will not cross it.

Sorry for the ramble, but you can tell we're impressed with the Neato D5, and are very glad we chose this brand over any other manufacturer. We haven't found anyone else that has a unit that can do the same. Instead, they tell us what theirs can't do. So are we pleased, definitely Yes!

This is an amazing little robot. I have 1 white Balinese cat and black hardwood floors. We constantly have fur tumbleweeds after every 4 days on our floors and so much dust/dander that shows on the black wood. This botvac is so effective it looks like I polished my floors! I don't know if it's the filter, or the brushes, or what, but I have a Dyson and it does not get the same results. I would have to use my Dyson + mop my floors with a shining solution to get the same look. We have 1400 sq ft split between two floors. Each floor takes max 45 minutes and it does a thorough job. No issues with it in the first couple days. We will have to use the magnetic roll in 2 areas so it doesn't get stuck under the coffee table (the robot is 1cm too high for it but it still tries to get under it since nothing is hitting it's bumper) but other than that it works perfectly. It also has no problem to watch out for the stairs when it's working on the upstairs floor and I've seen it work in the dark. I also find it the perfect size to get under the majority of furniture. As far as rugs go, we have 1 medium pile thick rug and it works fairly well on it. It does slow down a bit on the rug, but i don't think that's a negative since it sucks quite a bit of dirt out of it.

Update May 2020:

Connection issues ,floor plan load issues in conjunction with the getting stuck issues, it works about half the time. I will not buy another one.

Update Jan 2020:

My love relationship has become a love-hate relationship that is quickly deteriorating. I've had it almost a year and I cannot run it without it getting stuck 50% of the time. Forget scheduling it to run automatically. You need to be home to liberate it otherwise the battery will drain and you need to start all over. It is super annoying. I have many no-go lines for trouble areas where it gets stuck but it still finds new places to get stuck.

Original Review:

I will start by saying that after a rough start, I LOVE my Neato! I say rough start because it took a while for the app to prompt me to apply the firmware update to my Neato. I waited several hours while it charged, but tried my first mapping run before the update. Big mistake. It spent 15 minutes trying to jam itself under my couch, completely scratching the top, before the app finally offered me the firmware update that includes the better navigation and the no-go lines! Once I applied the update, it worked like a charm! Neato was great about it when I explained the situation, and is sending me the new dustpan I requested (most of the scratches are on the dustpan cover). Anyway, I selected the Neato D5 based on a lot of research and based on the following factors. It has the laser guided navigation, app-controlled no-go zones, and as much (actually more) sucking power than the top of the line Roomba, but for less than half the price (I got it on sale). Plus, I prefer the D shape for getting into corners, and the bigger brush. Reason I chose the D5 instead of a higher model, is it has the same suction as the D6 and D7. The only features I am missing from the higher models is extra battery life (which I don't need), a different brush (which can be bought separately), and the ability to go to a specific room to clean (I compensate by adjusting my no-go lines). The D5 was the perfect balance for features and price, and in my opinion the best value for money! As for how it compares to a real vacuum, obviously not as powerful as a full canister vacuum, but even after only a few days between vacuums, it manages to pick up quite a bit of dirt (second pic) - not even sure where it all comes from! I don't have pets, and I don't cook, so no big messes... In summary, I highly recommend the Neato D5! It is a total game changer when it comes to my weekend chores.

Edit: Forgot to add, in Canada, Amazon does not have the Alexa skill for the Neato, so you cannot control it with Alexa unfortunately.

I bought this in 2018 and have since moved to a condo with a husky. I keep up on most maintenance but recently, the « empty dirt bin » error won’t go away, despite cleaning all of the sensors multiple times with compressed air. I suspect that the problem is that the latch on the filter broke off inside the device and is causing an error. I think it broke because of a pebble that I found inside the hole where the latch goes. Which would explain why the bin kept popping up a little for the last 3 weeks.

I have been running it twice a week for the last year and I think it’s just done. It does work on high pile but not against dog fur carpet (see rug a few hours after a clean) . Crumbs yes, fur no. It is pretty loud but I normally run it when I’m out of the house which is sometimes a problem because it likes to get stuck on my rugs sometimes. It isn’t great for corners and the fur and hair (I have long curly hair) really gets stuck on the brush.

Do I regret my purchase? Not really. It was wonderful while it worked, despite the wifi connection being weird. But was it worth it? At the original purchase price (with tax) of $750, it’s as if I paid $15 a month for a robot. Not terrible but I would have like it to last more than 4.5 years.

We have carpets on 2 floors of our house. I can't get over how well the robot does getting them clean. I've tested on the entry way as well where there is alot of salt build up in the winter and the d5 gets it all.

The mapping out and coverage of the cleaning area is spot on. And the d5 always makes it back to the dock.

Basically once we set the schedule we do the have to worry about it except to empty the bin and some light cleaning of the brush. But that was more at the beginning. Now it just maintaines once a day and that is very light work.

Over all I'm extremely pleased with my purchase. Buying a second one to keep our basement clean.

An update: after a couple months use.

Still no regrets. We have 3 of them now. One for each floor of the house and we love them. No problems at all.

It's eating up the dog hair without hesitation. I can't get over how great this product is.

Ive owned roomba and some lesser known brands none of them could handle the dog hair from our 3 dogs. The neato d5 gets through it all. Highly recommended.

The product does an 'okay' job of removing superficial dust, dirt and animal hair off hardwood floors. When it comes to carpets, it's highly ineffective, as the robot simply does not have the suction power.

Beware, if you leave a charging cable of any variety on the floor accidentally, the robot will absolutely demolish your cable, this goes for thin appliance cables if they are anyway exposed to the neato robot.

The robot is a lot higher maintenance than expected, constantly forgetting it's navigation programming it learned, getting jammed up with animal hair in the main brush, and overall getting stuck in bizarre locations. I also receive constant 'I need to shut down messages' from the robots after they have docked.

I don't know maybe I expected more for a D5 and a D7 and was hoping it would automate more of my life, instead, I am buying spare parts as it thrashes cleaning brushes, unintentionally destroys cables, shoe laces left dangling, mouse & keyboard cables, and even plants if they are partially exposed to the floor. Be sure you have absolutely nothing on the floor or the robot will wreck itself, this includes tiny toys, pieces of paper, etc.

It's a neat concept, I'm still on the fence for the value.

RIP USB-C charging cables, and one wired mouse.