iRobot

Reviving the thread for a long term consumer reports update. Ha.

Neato number three got the dog fur around the LIDAR motor spindle problem last week. Disassembled tonight and cleaned it all out. Thinking about creating a little screen to shove in that area to keep fur out of the spindle.

Reassembled and awaiting enough charge on the batteries to see if he can "see" again. If not, I'll break out Neato 2 "Darth" (he's the black one) and swap batteries around until he runs well and shelve Neato 3 (who never got a name) until I order another motor.

This seems to be the only significant design problem other than the bearings wearing out in the beater brush and that's just a beater brush replacement time frame anyway.

Batteries last about a year and a couple of months running daily. There's plenty of cheap sources for upgrade packs that have higher capacities and those are highly recommended. It'll run longer before sneaking off to the base to recharge.

The unholy amounts of dog fur these two neatos on separate floors pick up is amazing. That enough finally gets inside and around that spindle where it shouldn't go, isn't much of a surprise. Both dogs are shorthairs that shed constantly and it wouldn't matter how much brushing we did, they'd still be filling the neato boxes daily.

So in all, still a great value and wouldn't want to be without them. Neato 1 grabbed another Apple charge cord that was hanging down off of my headboard and only managed to wrap that one around the beater bar and go into abort mode. Neato 3 before he went blind mangled a different one that got left where it shouldn't have been. They love eating lightning connectors.
 
No go on the clean out. Another dead LIDAR motor. Guess I'll be doing more surgery on him tomorrow and Darth is coming out of the closet.
 
I really like mine. 3 guys in the house cooking and messing around the lace gets dirty quick. Roomba cleans 3 times a week.
 
Denver: ever get the Battery Issue (0002) error? I get that every couple days and it asks me to press OK to reset the battery. Unfortunately the error resets the time and scheduling.
 
asechrest said:
Denver: ever get the Battery Issue (0002) error? I get that every couple days and it asks me to press OK to reset the battery. Unfortunately the error resets the time and scheduling.
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I don't think 0002 but I did have some battery issues with Neato 1 (known as "Nintendo" for his color scheme). (That one is also a slightly older model with a real on/off switch located inside the dust bin box near the upper left when viewed from the front. Later models did away with the switch and moved it into firmware and a "power off" menu option for extended vacations or storage.)

Looking over how they do their battery charging system and thinking about it, I realized they run the logic board off of only one of the batteries. I tested this a bit but never found the isolation diode, but the behavior matches up. The other is either paralleled or in series for the drive wheel power and the vacuum motor. I didn't look at the voltage markings on the vacuum motor when I had it open, but it doesn't matter for this thing I noticed...)

What I realized is that if the battery for the logic board is the weak one of the two, and the other is stronger, it appears to really freak out the poor things.

Swapping the batteries between the compartments is a simple solution that took care of it for a while until the relatively "harsh" charging system eventually destroyed both to a point where run times fall below 30 minutes. At that point, battery replacement is required.

The charge circuit is cooking them slowly, frankly. I'd prefer a slower charge rate and longer between runs, but the designers didn't want the thing finishing a charge from yesterday morning's scheduled run, in the evening, and doing pass number three. (They only do three passes before parking for the day, so if the run time is getting shorter you notice that they don't cover the entire floor before shutting down for the day. I usually managed this by simply closing doors to rooms that got little traffic.)

These things would benefit from a higher density lithium ion pack and a much smarter charge circuit, but it would add considerably to their price. They don't treat these other packs very nicely. High current discharge and they heat up pretty good, and then right into a high current charge cycle. Great way to kill them over a course of about a year.

But give it a shot. Swap the two batteries between the compartments and see if it helps.

If yours has the menu option of "new battery", punch that button after you reinstall and stick him back at his charger base and turn off any upcoming schedules in the next 12 hours or so and let it get a full charge cycle.

You may find the battery errors go away for a while (months).

You may see erratic behavior like dying when running -- since it needs to recalibrate the charge cycle in order to know when to head back to the base -- if you don't tell it it has a "new" battery. On the old ones with the power switch I believe there wasn't a menu option but disconnecting and reconnecting both batteries triggered a recalibration.

If you haven't pulled the batteries out before, those molex connectors are tight. Get a good grip on the connector and not the wires and tug with some reasonable force and they come apart. Don't use a long puuuuulll they'll just stay connected. For the same reason give a good hard push when you reconnect. I had one not quite making contact completely after a battery replacement and I kept finding Neato 2 sitting at a bump or other obstacle it had to run over, acting dead until he was touched. Just picking him up was enough to flex the connector back together.

Had me scratching my head for a couple of days until I opened the battery compartment to see if I had a bad wire and pushed on the molex and it seated fully.
 
Thanks, nice writeup. I don't have the Nintendo scheme but it's similar because I do have the dedicated on/off switch. I got it through a Walmart deal, and actually I did get the extended warranty deal for $30, so I'm wondering if I should first file for battery replacements. I like tinkering but I got the warranty plan for a reason after reading that the Neato was a poor seller for Walmart and many of them had been in the warehouse for a long time, so maybe I should get a new set of batteries.

IMG_20151017_162253.jpg
 
That looks like a newer one with the smaller LIDAR head.

Maybe they fixed my pet hair problem and did that part better. Shrug...

On mine the battery compartments don't have and seals or anything to discourage taking them off. Just a couple of screws on each.

Further disassembly you'll find those paper covers over a couple of screws and I assume messing with them voids warranties.
 
Are you guys using these things on carpet or hardwood floors? I always wondered how well they would do on carpet.

David
 
flhrci said:
Are you guys using these things on carpet or hardwood floors? I always wondered how well they would do on carpet.

David
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We use ours on carpet, hardwood, and tile. It works great on all, but I think it works especially well on carpet. It gets so much dirt up -I was so impressed when I started using it (and pretty grossed out by what had been in the carpet. It even leaves vacuum marks, though they are zigzagged, since the thing doesn't go straight back and forth.
 
flhrci said:
Just saw on CNET that Neato has a new robot vacuum cleaner that is connected to an app . $700 though. May get one some day.

http://www.cnet.com/videos/editors-choice-neatos-connected-cleaner-sweeps-up-the-competition/

David
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Nice!

The larger dust bin and the Lithium Ion battery are the sellers on that one. Who cares about the app? And Eco mode? Screw that. Warp speed only, always. Always more dirt and dog hair to pick up around here.

May have to watch for those on refurb. $700 is ridiculous.

Wish they had done something with the scheduling software. Frankly I'd love a setting that just runs and charges and runs and charges between a set timeframe and never continues a cycle outside of that timeframe. That'd be perfect. Even with a full dust bin it'll still pick up some stuff.

The app would also be more useful if it had some hints as to where the bloody thing went missing when it got caught up on something. At least which room. It's annoying to go play hide and go seek with the robot sometimes when someone leaves a pair of shoes somewhere and it eats a shoelace and stops. Or it gets caught in a corner it has cleaned a million times.

Cool on the battery and dust bin though. Don't know why they made the dust bin shiny or see through however. The thing is always covered in its own dust from working at 2" above its own vaccuum.
 
Necropost alert!!!

Anyone have any experience with the Samsung robotic vacuums?? I'm considering getting one. The big selling point for me is it's ability to know where it left off. I have roughly 3400' of floor space and the patterns of the Roomba/Neato products make it unlikely that they'll get it all.
 
Reminds me of this..
 

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Think of all the lovely Latina house maids that have been displaced by the Roomba.
 
I have purchased 3 of the Neato series robots. We have two in our 3 bedroom apartment (after girlfriend and I combined households), an XV-11 and XV Signature Pro. I purchased one for my grandma just before her hip surgery.

We have primarily carpet. She primarily has tile/hardwood. The robots all work great on all the surfaces. The batteries in my XV-11 ended their useful life, so I replaced them with Li-ON packs. They work GREAT. The only thing I'm envious of is the larger bin on the newer units, as we have a dog that tends to fill up the bins on their pass... BUT the Li-ON Neato can do the entire apartment on one pass. The other can do about 80%, then finish the other 20% after going back and charging.

I prefer the Neato vs the Roomba, because the robots plan out their route around the room using LIDAR, not random bumping, so they're quicker. I think the motors are stronger in the XV-11 and Signature compared to comparable Roombas too.
 
All three of my Neato's are grounded right now for maintenance issues. They simply don't stand up over the long haul to tons and tons of fine dog fur. It gets inside and wraps around the axle of the LIDAR motor and kills the motor.

But they run for about a year before they kill it and they keep stuff nice and clean throughout that timeframe, so I figure out what's broken and repair them when I have time.

One right now needs a new "belt" for the LIDAR also. I've also had the roller bearings on the beater bar fail on one and of course batteries eventually need replacement.

They have some intrinsic design flaws but then again, we have a dog that sheds enough to fill two Neatos a day. Don't think they're designed to keep up with that forever and it's pretty impressive that they manage to do so for as long as they do.
 
AH!. Good point. I have had one end of the beater bar's roller bearing fail. The stupid little brass bearing inside seized up. No LIDAR belt issues. But that looks like an easy fix from some of the online stuff when it comes to pet hair.
 
ircphoenix said:
AH!. Good point. I have had one end of the beater bar's roller bearing fail. The stupid little brass bearing inside seized up. No LIDAR belt issues. But that looks like an easy fix from some of the online stuff when it comes to pet hair.
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It's a lot of screws to get to it. It's about the most buried item inside and also the most prone to fail. It'd be spiffy if Neato would make the whole LIDAR head removable in one shot without disassembling the entire robot in a future version.

It could easily be bolted on top with four screws and no need to tear the whole thing open to get at it.

Of course I poked right through their silly tamper resistant tape covering the screws inside that void the warranty after I saw what they charge for a flat rate refurb and that the parts inside that fail generally run about $5 on eBay at first, and now all available via Amazon. Ten minutes with a electric screwdriver saves over $100 every time.

I ended up with three units and usually I'll repair the "out of service" one and have two in service awaiting a breakdown. Then I just swap the units and the broken one gets repaired and put on standby. I'm just behind on them so all three are busted at the moment. I'll have to do an hour long session and get all three back operational sometime soon.

Part of why I'm behind is I had to repair the real vaccuum cleaners. Both needed all their belts replaced and other TLC. It threw the schedule off. Ha.
 
Might have to get me one of those Neto ones for my upstairs carpet.

Good review on Amazon and I love the picture of the nice vacuum lines


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/reviews/B007JOJ9QQ/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_btm?ie=UTF8

"Very nice machine, outperforms the Roomba 500 series by far
ByStefanon July 20, 2012

I bought this vacuum robot a few days ago and i keep it busy to see what it really can do. It is cleaning about 3000 sqft of tile and laminate flooring. Very nice to see right at the beginning was the mapping of the room. The machine first starts the vacuum and brush, turns on its spot and then slowly drives around the boundary of the room. If it is a large room, the robot decides to clean it in sections. Very nice is that the robot does not clean the areas in random motions but in a sweeping motion, going back and fourth with a nice overlap and usually does not bump into any furniture. The operating time of 1 hour seems short but the mapping of the room and the calculated sweeping cleaning keeps the machine pretty efficient. However recharging in suspended cleaning mode is around 2 hours.
The vacuum suction power seems to be way stronger than i have seen from my 551 Roomba, with a strong airflow exiting the rear of the machine. However, the Roomba has, as the XV 21, not left any (or much) dirt behind. The XV 21 is by far not as noisy as the Roomba.

Pro:

Gets more cleaning done in 1 hour than a roomba

Cleaning brush is 50% wider than the one of the roomba

Not as noisy as the Roomba

Mapping of the room, sweeping cleaning motion, no random cleaning

No bumping into obstacles

Returning to the station after the batteries are exhausted and returns to the room and the exact location in the room, where it stopped cleaning after it is recharged and continues its cleaning (it does recharge 2 times, meaning there are 3 consecutive cleaning cycles).

Easy cleaning of the dust bin, no messy pulling of the dirt bin from the robot. The bin is located on top of the machine and is easy to clean out

Con:

Only 1 hour of cleaning and 2 hours of recharging (my Roomba recharges faster), so a full consecutive cleaning of 3 hours of the XV 21 takes about 7 hours total.

No side rotating brush like the Roomba has, so it cannot clean the corners

The Pet dander filter needs to get cleaned more often, the dirt bin is not nearly filled and the robot is showing on the display, that the filter needs to get cleaned

Conclusion. If i had to buy a Neato Robot again i probably would go for the XV-11 as i believe that i really don't need this allergen filter element. In fact i already ordered the regular filter of the XV-11 for my XV 21, as i believe that they provide me with enough filtration for my use. Pet and Allergy Vacuum Cleaner may sound very good but i believe if you really want great cleaning of your carpet, then you may want to go with a regular vacuum cleaner instead. I cannot see any battery driven vacuum cleaner being as strong as a cord powered vacuum cleaner with, lets say, 1000 Watts.
I only bought the XV 21 because it comes with a beater/brush combination, unlike the XV 11, which comes only with a beater drum.

I hope this review was helpful to the readers
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The complaint about the corner brush is a moot point as far as I'm concerned. The tiny Roomba side brush is only going to be effective on hardwood/tile floors, and even then probably not very much use. It's just a tiny sweeper brush that doesn't do much. The Neatos added this later... for no reason as far as I can tell other than Neato did it, so they did to in order to justify a 400 dollar price increase.

Neither vacuum is going to get into corners very well regardless but Neato did come out with an update (after this review, I guess) that changed the cornering behavior of the neato. Before it would round off corners... but after the updated software, the robot would use the square nose to its advantage and actually plow straight ahead into corners, stop, back up, then turn. The beater bar/brush combo brush is far superior to the regular beater bar of the original XV-11. I got the filter/brush kit to put into my XV-11. I have no clue if the filter actually does anything worthwhile, but whatever. There's certainly no downside to it other than eventually it'll get plugged up despite whacking it on the side of the trash can vigorously whenever you empty it... and even then you can hit the filter with a crevice tool on a regular vacuum and it'll clean the filter right out for reuse pretty much forever.

And before I get the "well then why bother with a robot vacuum if you have a regular one anyway!?!?!" According to Neato (and probably Roomba) the robot vacuums are supposed to be SUPPLEMENTS to regular vacuuming. Not replacements. The performance on the Neato for sure is enough to replace your regular upright for regular vacuuming, but it won't help you much for large stuff like cleaning up after a Christmas tree. The robots will also leave about a .5 - 1 inch gap along walls where the brushes won't reach. I think the new Neatos do a better job of that... but at twice the price, I'm not sure you're getting double the value.
 
Spend more time cleaning out tiny robot vacuum receptacles than it takes to drag out the human operated Hoover, which does a better job anyway.
 
paflyer said:
Spend more time cleaning out tiny robot vacuum receptacles than it takes to drag out the human operated Hoover, which does a better job anyway.
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Not really. It's just part of my morning coffee routine anymore. They keep things decent for a week or two and then you bust out the "real" vaccuum and run it.

And this is with two shedding dogs, and living at the end of a dirt road where "dusting" is good for about a day and you change the furnace filter monthly because it's completely full. In a cleaner non rural setting I suspect they'd stay ahead of the dirt for a month or more.

We can usually tell when it's time to do a full vaccuum by the condition of the staircase, since nobody makes a robot cheap that does stairs yet. Haha.

By the way XV-11, XV-21 whatever, they're all the same until you get to the new model with the bigger dust bin, and I doubt even those are much different but I don't have one here to take apart and haven't got one so haven't looked up the usual YouTube videos. The beater bar for the old ones is available online.

The "special" dust and allergen filter is too and it's really not anything but a slightly thicker material filter. If you're buying the old model, buy on price. The parts are easy to swap and cheap if you need a beater bar and the filter thing "pet and allergen" is mostly just a gimmick.

In fact, if you order a refurb from Amazon from the factory (they sell them there from time to time) you might get the original, you might get the "pet" version, you might get any of them. They just stuff all the accessories in a box and you get all of them. I got one of the black ones once don't that and for next to nothing, price wise. Those were sold retail for higher. I've disassembled all of these old models and there's literally no difference inside.
 
Update on Neatos, they die. Well they die if you run them 365 days a year. And have dogs that shed.

Most common failure is the LIDAR head's motor fails. Neato website will tell you to blow off the dust on the LIDAR lenses when the error messages that the robot "can't see" start, and then offer a $250 swap for yours to get a refurb. It's crap. The fur got inside and jammed the rotation of the LIDAR enough that the cheap motor failed. Trust me on this one.

Meanwhile, direct from Hong Kong, the LIDAR motor you need is $2.35 free shipping. You'll just have to snip two wires off of the dead motor and solder them on to the replacement. Reversed polarity, too. That scares most people away, and makes me smile. Two bucks and 20 minutes.

Tore down all three Neatos this weekend to work through the error messages and get whatever I could working by scavenging parts from one until either one or two worked. Got two working.

Have another LIDAR motor on order from China and will probably add another so I have an on-site spare. They take about two weeks to arrive with free shipping.

One of them is having a sensor issue I haven't figured out yet, but a kind eBay seller sent me an entire internal wiring harness out of a totally dead one for a few bucks a while back, if I ever feel like spending a couple of hours replacing the entire harness. He even left a couple of the sensors attached.

So that one is the parts robot right now. It works but it behaves a little erratically when it's trying to track straight. And the other two are happily back to doing their daily vacuuming routine. One needed a massive internal cleaning and unjamming of the roller brush motor gear and belt, along with swapping a better set of batteries into it than the ones that were in it... the other needed a new LIDAR head motor.

Next upgrade will be to test out the protected lithium ion battery packs that someone made for them. They just destroy the NiMH packs they come with. Too high a current draw when running and way too high a current during charging. Slowly eats capacity until they're useless. I've disassembled a pack that did that and the individual cells were just fried. Not even a smart pulse charger could get much out of them.

All three were down with various issues for a couple of months and the crud they're getting up out of the carpet (which is regularly vacuumed with a real vacuum) still just amazes me. They'll be doing this for a week with full dirt bins of dust and dog fur until it settles down.

Love it when they're running. And now knowing how to get ahold of parts for them cheap and work on them? Way better than dealing with the ripoff artists at Neato. One was bought new, the other two were refurbs sold via Amazon for way cheaper than new, and now I repair them with parts ranging from $2.35 (most common) to about $40 every two years for a new beater bar, since that's proprietary.

And... even there is hope. Folks have figured out a source for real ball bearings for those instead of the brass bushing they're built with -- so the next dead heater bar will be an order for a new one and an order for aftermarket sealed ball bearings for it -- and we'll see how long it lasts.

Surprised nobody has sourced a better motor for the LIDAR yet. For $2.35 you definitely get what you pay for.
 
denverpilot said:
Update on Neatos, they die. Well they die if you run them 365 days a year. And have dogs that shed.

Most common failure is the LIDAR head's motor fails. Neato website will tell you to blow off the dust on the LIDAR lenses when the error messages that the robot "can't see" start, and then offer a $250 swap for yours to get a refurb. It's crap. The fur got inside and jammed the rotation of the LIDAR enough that the cheap motor failed. Trust me on this one.

Meanwhile, direct from Hong Kong, the LIDAR motor you need is $2.35 free shipping. You'll just have to snip two wires off of the dead motor and solder them on to the replacement. Reversed polarity, too. That scares most people away, and makes me smile. Two bucks and 20 minutes.

Tore down all three Neatos this weekend to work through the error messages and get whatever I could working by scavenging parts from one until either one or two worked. Got two working.

Have another LIDAR motor on order from China and will probably add another so I have an on-site spare. They take about two weeks to arrive with free shipping.

One of them is having a sensor issue I haven't figured out yet, but a kind eBay seller sent me an entire internal wiring harness out of a totally dead one for a few bucks a while back, if I ever feel like spending a couple of hours replacing the entire harness. He even left a couple of the sensors attached.

So that one is the parts robot right now. It works but it behaves a little erratically when it's trying to track straight. And the other two are happily back to doing their daily vacuuming routine. One needed a massive internal cleaning and unjamming of the roller brush motor gear and belt, along with swapping a better set of batteries into it than the ones that were in it... the other needed a new LIDAR head motor.

Next upgrade will be to test out the protected lithium ion battery packs that someone made for them. They just destroy the NiMH packs they come with. Too high a current draw when running and way too high a current during charging. Slowly eats capacity until they're useless. I've disassembled a pack that did that and the individual cells were just fried. Not even a smart pulse charger could get much out of them.

All three were down with various issues for a couple of months and the crud they're getting up out of the carpet (which is regularly vacuumed with a real vacuum) still just amazes me. They'll be doing this for a week with full dirt bins of dust and dog fur until it settles down.

Love it when they're running. And now knowing how to get ahold of parts for them cheap and work on them? Way better than dealing with the ripoff artists at Neato. One was bought new, the other two were refurbs sold via Amazon for way cheaper than new, and now I repair them with parts ranging from $2.35 (most common) to about $40 every two years for a new beater bar, since that's proprietary.

And... even there is hope. Folks have figured out a source for real ball bearings for those instead of the brass bushing they're built with -- so the next dead heater bar will be an order for a new one and an order for aftermarket sealed ball bearings for it -- and we'll see how long it lasts.

Surprised nobody has sourced a better motor for the LIDAR yet. For $2.35 you definitely get what you pay for.
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PM me with the actual bearing info. The stupid brass sleeves are worthless.
 
The thread is excellent. Based on the positive reviews here on the Neato, I bought a Neato Botvac connected, the LiOn battery was the big seller for me.

Gort is extremely thorough and on carpet and engineered wood floors he does an admirable job. The newest upgrade to the software has a map of where he has cleaned in the house (and where he is hiding) which is a bunch of fun.

The Ultra Performance filters work very well but fill up quickly, so how to keep the little bugger happy and keep him from "please clean my filter" and failing to finish until serviced I have come up with a process. The filters are not cheap and if you consider them a consumable, not a great idea. They do a very good job of pulling a lot of dirt and dust but clog.

I bought a some extras and use compressed air to blow them out when I get a few stacked up. A quick shot of compressed air and they are as good as new ( done outside is of course a good idea).

I am a geek so being able to launch Gort from the Iphone is just a first world luxury and the message from Gort as he trundles back for a recharge or that he is "mission complete" is very satisfying when I am upside down changing vacuum filter socks or main vacuum filters in Pipers and Cessnas.

I would love to meet the engineer that designed those systems and that they still exist in the newer planes is a tribute to the Cessna / BandAid cartel.
Thanks again for the advice.
https://www.neatorobotics.com/robot-vacuum/botvac-connected-series/
 
patrick wentworth said:
The thread is excellent. Based on the positive reviews here on the Neato, I bought a Neato Botvac connected, the LiOn battery was the big seller for me.
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Yeah, I'd like to go up to the Botvac Connected series but as you can see, I keep rebuilding the XV-11/12 series stuff so cheap, I can't justify the much higher price tag on the newer ones. The one feature you mentioned would come in handy is a map showing where the robot managed to get lost, or at least which room.

Sometimes you wander the house looking for both of them on days when you see the docking stations are empty when you get home, and they are often found in interesting places or positions where they wedged themselves and gave up.

I currently have various old batteries hooked to the fancy charger I use to recondition various ham radio batteries or at least see what's wrong with them, measuring their capacity with charge/discharge cycles. Since the XV series uses NiMH and pushes them WAY too hard, if the bots run 365 days a year, you're over the rated life of the battery packs by 165 days each year. They slowly crap out and the robot dies before making it back to the charger.

There's a few folks claiming to have built 4400 mAh packs from lithium cells who've supposedly put the necessary individual cell charging safety circuits inside them and they rate those for about 800 cycles. But knowing what I know about charging lithium chemistry batteries I'm very leery of trying those without knowing a little more about how they're balancing cells, etc. They sound like a house fire waiting to happen. Two other options there -- some very late XV series were sold overseas and have lithium charging capability on their motherboards which can be activated by sending a specific text string into them via the USB port.

Supposedly this was because a rebadge of them in one foreign country came stock with lithium battery packs and they hid the charging behavior. Older motherboards don't have it supposedly. I think I have one bot with a new enough motherboard. I haven't dug into it.

The newer models of course, come with very high Ah lithium pack compared to the NiMH packs of old, and that would be nice. They're still going to die, but they'll behave a lot more consistently over longer timeframes.

I've thought about hot-rodding one of them by building additional NiMH batteries into all the available interior space over the motherboard in the rear and adding those to the ones in the battery compartments just to see if not beating on them so hard (heavy current draw) would help them last longer. The code supposedly stops at some arbitrary amount of power used anyway, so more capacity won't necessarily mean longer run times. It's just be easier on the cells. Could also glue a battery box on top of the LIDAR head if you didn't care if it couldn't go under furniture. Ha. It'd be ramming it into stuff all the time, though.

So far, all packs start to show problems in capacity at around a year and a half. So I have two full sets of packs for each robot and half of those are pretty dead. They're the ones undergoing testing and reconditioning charges right now to see if they'll come back to life a bit.

Someone mentioned the air filters -- yeah, they're generally useless on all of them. All it takes is a single run in our dust bowl prairie house to completely clog them. As mentioned, air from the air compressor once in a while "fixes" it just fine. And they pass enough air through them covered in dirt, that the vac works fine. I hardly bother replacing them anymore unless they get damaged/torn.
 
Just moved into a new apartment with hardwood floors. Was thinking about getting a robot vacuum, but I was wondering how they did transitioning from hardwood to an area rug and back again. Do they bump into the edge of the rug and turn away? Are they able to climb over the edge?
 
Sluggo63 said:
Just moved into a new apartment with hardwood floors. Was thinking about getting a robot vacuum, but I was wondering how they did transitioning from hardwood to an area rug and back again. Do they bump into the edge of the rug and turn away? Are they able to climb over the edge?
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Depends on the height of the rug, but ours make the jump okay. Sometimes they bump and then turn a little and go up sideways but they get there on all but the deepest plush bathmats. They also do fine with area rugs tossed on carpeted areas as long as the rugs don't have any tassels to tangle in the beater bar.

The issue might actually be that if you have a lot of hard flooring there's bots that will "mop" or at least kinda spray and squeegee which might be better than vacuuming. We still swifter the tile stuff even though the vacuum bots drive over it. They don't do much on the hard surface. They'll grab larger gravel or dirt and any wayward doggie kibble but the hard floor area isn't really "cleaned" by them. Just the carpets.
 
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