Neato XV-21 Pet & Allergy Automatic Vacuum Cleaner
- Neato XV-21 Pet and allergy automatic vacuum, charging base, boundary marker
- Features: Powerful cleaning system specially designed for pet owners and allergy sufferers
- High performance vacuum removes all kinds of dirt and cleans all floors: carpets, rugs, hardwood, laminates, tile, and stone
- Schedule automatic cleanings while you’re away via simple user interface
- Automatically returns to charging base when vacuuming is concluded
Neato XV-21 Robot Vacuum Cleaner 945-0041 Vacuum Cleaners
List Price: $ 791.76
Price: $ 339.35
The combination of an upright vacuum’s beater bar with robotics,
Startup was fast; I just plugged in the dock to an wall A/C outlet, brought the robot near the dock, and discovered that the robot’s batteries charge wirelessly. Very cool.
After fully charged, I pushed a button on the robot, and it proceeded to clean one floor of my house, requiring several re-charges (it automatically returns to base when it needs to recharge).
The robot is very user friendly. It tells you when it needs its dust bin cleaned, its brushes unclogged, when it is blocked, etc. It emits chirps to tell you when something is amiss.
It is much quieter than a conventional corded upright vacuum or a central vacuum that has a power beater bar. Turn the TV on the volume a little higher and you can watch TV while it works.
As heavy as the XV-21 is, it isn’t as heavy as an upright vacuum nor as bulky as the hose and attachments for a central vacuum system. So it is easier to carry up and down stairs to clean other floors.
I bought the robot because I don’t wear shoes in the house and was tired of stepping on crumbs or food scraps in the kitchen. The robot keeps the kitchen floor clean, and does just as well in other parts of the house.
Some things to keep in mind:
– Allow for plenty of clearance between the base and and any obstacles. The manual says 3 feet; I’ve had better luck with 5 feet. Otherwise the robot will have trouble returning.
– The beater bar is very effective, and on a new carpet or rug it will be picking up lots of carpet fibers. This requires frequent cleaning of the dust bin. The first time you use the robot on a carpet, I suggest pausing the robot once in a while to inspect the dustbin, and empty if needed.
– Related to the above point, I wish the passage way from the beater bar to the dust bin was wider; hair often gets clogged in the passage way. I have found that this problem diminishes as the robot cleans a floor each time. Frequent cleaning is goodness.
– Place your base as close to center of the floor the robot will be vacuuming so that it has a higher chance of finding base when it is done, or it needs to re-charge. Note that the robot does not get a “fix” on the base until it swings by the base on a cleaning run, so this is another reason to aim for center.
– Whenever the robot gets stuck or can’t find its way back, if a human doesn’t attend to the problem after a few hours (such as when setting the robot to vacuum a large area over night or while at work), the battery will drain. The robot will then forget the time of day and how much of the area it vacuumed. In addition, after bringing the robot to the dock, I’ve yet to master the trick for getting the robot to reliably sense the dock and start charging.
– Yes you need to pick up off the floor stuff like socks that might get jammed in the brush. Well dirty laundry belongs in a washer or bin, so think of this as discipline, at least until engineers invent a robot that picks up laundry. That the robot drives you to keep your house tidy is a good thing.
Despite the above, providing both minimal supervision over the robot and cleaning its dustbin between charges or cleanings together beat vacuuming manually. Overall, I think the robot does a better job than manually vacuuming since the robot is designed to clean every surface it can see and access. You can be doing something else, whether it is another chore that engineers haven’t yet figured out a robot for (e.g. vacuuming stairs), or something fun. And it is simply fun to watch the robot do its thing, whether it is setting up for a series of parallel cleaning runs, finding and turning corners, avoiding obstacles, extricating itself from a tangle of chair legs, or returning to home base.
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|After 7 months I STILL LOVE THIS LIL MACHINE,
I’ve been meaning to write a review on the Neato XV-21 pet vacuum since I got it but never got around to it. It’s been 7 almost 8 months since I got him and I still love him its the best household appliance I have ever gotten and that includes my kitchen in stand mixer which comes in at a close second. Now for some details:
I got Neato because I fractured my back and could not push the vacuum around or sweep easily. I would recommend him ( yes mine is a he yours might be a she but you’ll have to get to know yours to find out. Ask nicely and maybe it will tell you.) for elderly or disabled people that have issues with those kind of tasks.
I have 5 yes you heard right FIVE Pug dogs. If you have a Pug you know they shed enough fur each week to make up whole new Pugs, my husband jokes that that is how we’ve ended up with 5 they keep multiplying via furball reproduction.
My house is 4200 square feet give or take. It’s all either hardwood floors or porcelain tile I have NO carpet or throw rugs so can’t speak to how it would do on carpets. My layout is mostly open concept but is divided among 3 floors. The main floor which neato does every day is about 2400 sq ft. Neato does an excellent cleaning all of it. It does take about 3 charging cycles to do the main floor but that is okay with me he basically does about 800 square feet per charge. To do the other levels I simply carry him to that floor set him down and start him up and off he goes. On those levels he of course can’t get back to his charger on his own so I put him down in the middle of a room so I can find him easily once he has finished and is asking to be charged up. Yes I lost him one day when i forgot I had carried him upstairs so learned leave him right in the middle of an easily visible room. I have him run EVERYDAY seven days a week for at least 2 cycles but mostly 3 so he can do the whole main floor or the other 2 floors combined.
I love neato BUT he does have his quirks and somedays his nickname is dumdum but here are a few things I have discovered that help and or that you might have to do to help him out at times.
1) During the winter when he was doing most of his cleaning in the dark I found that after about a month he started getting really stupid and chirping, bumping, circling and acting like a complete idiot. I swear he got dyslexic there for awhile attempting to turn right and go through a wall rather than left through the door. BUT I realized it was like his internal map of the house was getting corrupted. I think he has a harder time in the dark and if he cleans in the dark week after week with no daylight or lights on his internal map gets jumbled especially say if he encounters changes like say Christmas decorations that he has to account for. I solved his issues by making sure at least once a week to let him clean during the day this seemed to keep his map updated and his brain clear.
2) He has only tumbled off a step twice once right after we got him and then just this week, it was maybe a 4 inch step and he survived with no issue other than maybe his pride. My husband said the first time he did it was because he took one look at five Pugs and tried to make a run for it. To solve this problem I just gently clean his drop sensor with a q-tip, the manual tells you where and how it takes 30 seconds and he’s all bright eyed and chipper ready to get back to work.
3) he hated my breakfast nook and consistently got hung up around the table until I made a slight adjustment by sliding the table out a few more inches from the wall. That tiny change which did not affect the room or table made all the difference and now he zips around in there with no issues.
4) my living room furniture was a hair too short for him to go under so simply bought a set of those rubber glides and put them under each leg. You can’t see them, neato gets under them now and a bonus they don’t slide around so much on the wood floors anymore.
5) I had to gather up all the cords dangling around my entertainment console because he kept finding that one tiny cord that would pull all the others free. I think he’s very smart and felt up to the riddle of unwinding all those cords my husband had other opinions. All I had to do was get some of the plastic zip ties bundle the cords up and shove them behind the console. On a good note it looks way better than before and neato is happy as well. Easy thing to solve.
6) locating his charging stand or should I say “bedroom” since he also sleeps there. My homes layout did not works for it to be right in the center what with everything being open there simply were no wall or outlets. I also did not want him to be the first thing people saw when they came to visit. I put him along one wall in my breakfast nook. It’s about 3 feet from either corner and has about 4 feet in front of him from the table, most of the time he…
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|Love this vacuum,
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!
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