Neato D7 Robot – All Other Robot Vacuums Suck

As my wife could attest, I have become a bit obsessive in my search for the best robot vacuum for our upstairs for daily use. I originally started with the Neato brand with one of their entry level models. They worked “ok” but our upstairs was challenging and their physical magnetic strips you had to lay down for barriers was less than elegant.

The home robot vacuum scene has really heated up over the past few years. Clearly iRobot and Neato are the leaders, but even Dyson put its foot in the ring recently. Getting to the point of this writeup, don’t waste your time with cheap versions of Neato or iRobot (or the litany of other very cheap options available)…and just go for their top of line options.

…don’t waste your time with cheap versions of the Neato…and just go for their top of the line options.

My current fav is the Neato D7 Connected. Neato now has several options in the “Connected Series” but the D7 is the cream of the crop. Neato has always lead the way in laser mapping of a room and its objects, then cleaning in a methodical way, not just haphazardly bouncing around a room until all the floor is covered. For the neatnik crowd, this means pretty straight lines on carpet!

But the clear benefit of the D7 (and other “Connected Series”) is the ability to create a saved map (for up to 3 floors!), as well as specific zones (like our litter box is in our laundry room,) so I have our “Neato de Carewe” return to the “laundry zone” (see yellow circle and shaded area below) at 4pm every day for additional pickup of tracked litter.

The other amazing feature is “No-Go” lines. You can draw out these little virtual barriers for the Neato where you don’t want to go. Like the short little lines on the left in the above picture…those are the kids, guest, and play room enterences. No need for it to go in there and try to suck up a toy astronaut helmet or lego set.

Our upstairs has a long railing that looks down to the Great Room below (see image above with Baja.) This type of railing turns the majority of vacuum robots into a twitchy/jerky robot. Previous “cheap” robots would hit and redirect hundreds of times to each and every one of these spindles, and more often than not, would eventually get stuck and stop in their tracks. So even the best battery capacity would be useless because of this.

Other features that make this Neato D7 robot vacuum my top choice:

• Excellent lithium battery capacity (up to 120 minutes of vacuum time!)
• Turbo boost suction (this is what I use for the laundry/litter room!)
• Integration with Amazon Alexa (for an ad-hoc extra clean via voice!)
• Regular software updates with added features (The extra “zones” feature was recently added)
• Ability to start, stop, schedule, or see where it is via mobile app (as well as get notified if it ever does get stuck…which is VERY rare!)
• And the excellent mapping, zones, no-go lines, and overall “just works and rarely gets stuck” mentality mentioned above

TechDadCO highly recommends this robot! I’d love to hear your comments and experiences with a home vacuum robot, and as always, I welcome questions below in the comments section.

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