Neato Robotics - Botvac D3 Pro

I can get behind the idea of buying a vacuum that is already cloud free with the features of valetudo vs buying on to convert if that was the argument that he wanted to make but one of these two things actually exists today. I would make the argument that the one OP is suggesting exist too though they are much cheaper than what is being suggested, there are some really cheap robot vacuums out there that are IR controlled and I have very mixed opinions on mapping features. The old neatos with the mag strip no go zones were reliable, the mapping ones have been hit or miss and really create missed spots for me.

Maybe I am odd man out but I don't need maps, the only cloud or connected feature I really care about is being able to start it from home assistant when I leave the house, preferably when I leave with the dog too. Seriously, maps and my shark losing the map has been a bigger issue than my olllld neato that just mapped every time and used the mag strips for no go areas. That can be done with even IR on the really cheap vacuums from china. My house isn't big enough to or enough hard surfaces to warrant a mop. So you're not looking at getting an upcharge on me. You need to cut the price. I already have broadlinks in a lot of rooms so I can send the stop command too

Mine delivers tomorrow, so yea this was exciting. Coming from a Neato Botvac D3 sooooo yea should be insanely different.

Damn? So glad i sold my connected, some years ago. D3 is smiling and just works fine in another part of the house.

late to the party but i bought a Neato Botvac D3 back in 2017 and i still use it to this day. i've replaced the battery once and the filter a couple of times but that's about it EDIT: nevermind i just read that Neato went out of business haha shame

damn maybe i got a unicorn but mine is still in use, literally used it yesterday! the app still works great too

I think most companies have realized that features sell. Self emptying, mopping, fancy cameras, etc. are easy things to market. Raw cleaning performance is NOT sexy and apparently most consumers don't really care about it. The **one** thing that a vacuum cleaner needs to do and most companies just don't bother because ADHD consumers are so easily distracted by flashy features. I have a Neato D3 botvac and of course the company is long gone and so I have been shopping for replacements for a few years now. Every 6 months or so, I will read new reviews here or watch a Youtube video that will convince me that xxxxx model robovac is the best ever. I will buy it (often spending well over $1000 each time), then do a basic cleaning test. I have measured the amount of debris my Neato picks up every day for years and have a good baseline for how much dirt my household makes every day. I use a gem scale and weigh the bin before and after emptying and it is fairly consistent every day. So I do the same with the new robovac by weighing the new bag/bin and then weighing it after every run to track how much it picks up over time. I have yet to find one that can pick up more than about 1/2 the amount my ancient Neato does. The mapping, apps, etc. are way way better on the new models. The new ones are faster and quieter and don't get stuck.... a million improvements over my old Neato! But the ONE thing I need them to do well, they all suck at. As others have mentioned, CFM, sealing, and airflow are the key to effective dirt pickup. These are hard things to measure and market and even if you did manage to make a fancy graphic explaining how your robovac has the best cleaning performance, most people won't read it. People like simple numbers and feature lists which make comparison easy. I really think all the review sites and Youtubers are bought and paid because I have purchased nearly every robovac that VacuumWars has recommended and every single one failed my basic test. Even though the reviews said the new model has the very best cleaning possible, just look at all the graphs and numbers! Yeah, well a basic scale doesn't lie. I have given Dreame, Roborock, iRobot, Eufy, etc. a fair shot. I measured their performance over the course of 2-3 weeks and average it and if it can't even pickup as much as a busted old robot from 10 years ago, I'm gonna return it! My house isn't large, it's almost all hard surfaces, and I have only a few pets so it's not like my usage is particularly difficult or unusual. I just got an email that the Neato servers are finally shutting down. This means my scheduled daily vacuum won't run and I will have to actually hit the button to make it run. I don't want to do this because I like the vacuum to run on a schedule while I am out of the house during the day. So I am now looking to spend a lot of money to try the newest and best models available.... I am pretty sure it won't be great, but what choice do I have.

Hi all, I wanted to share a bit of my experience with robot vacuums, as i've been testing some new models recently and struggled to find the perfect fit for me. Sorry for the very long post :) Hopefully some people will find it interesting! # A bit of history first, as I've been owning those machines for the last 18 years: \- It all started with a **Roomba 541**, kind of an antiquity now with its random bump-and-go navigation, but working great at the time and I kept it a few years. \- Then when the "Lidar" models were raising, i replaced it with a **Neato**, I'm not sure of the model, maybe the D3. Navigation was indeed impressive coming from the old style Roomba, but after a week I noticed that the edges of my rooms was visibly dirty. This models didn't have any side brush and clearly the D-shape main brush was absolutely not picking up dirt at the edges. I was quite disappointed and returned it. \- As I was very happy with the first Roomba and disappointed by the Neato, I decided to go back to iRobot and bought the way too expensive **Roomba 980.** It did a very very good job at cleaning, navigation was clearly not on par with the Neato (as it was a VSLAM navigation), but it did the job and i also kept it a few years. \- Then a new brand emerged, it was called **Roborock** ;) I got the **S5 Max** and it was my first robot vacuum/mop combo. It was absolutely great, so great i even upgraded to the **S7** when it came out. Also a great robot, navigation was very good even if it bumped into many furnitures given its simple IR front sensor. I also got the auto empty dock when it came out a few weeks later, also great, leaving the dustbin and the filter perfectly clean every time. # So happy with the RR S7, but... I kept these robots a few years too, but here it is: the S7 was the top of the line when I bought it, and only a few weeks later, Roborock released the Routine feature... on some lower end new models (Q5/Q7 I think), without releasing it to the S7. I kept resentment towards Roborock since that, as my top of the line model was purely deprecated in a few months, got almost zero updates after that, and never got the Routines. # And here we are in 2025 me being thrilled to see all those new tech on robot vacuums and thinking about upgrading to a model with a fully automated dock. And that's were it become complicated as many of you already know... Being a bit angry with Roborock after the S7-non-update-gate, and seeing that they are on course to release 15 new models every year, so probably not updating and supporting them on the long run, I decided to try another brand. # To understand my choices, here are the most important things i was looking for: \- **A perfect navigation**, and I mean, **perfect**. I have **very high expectations** on this, and I know most of the people will not agree with me as a robot doing its job is "good enough", but I really am obsessed with it (and I'm not saying I'm right), like i can't stand an almost 1k€ robot to even seems to get lost, or touch anything. \- **I love the tech**, and I'm very interested in the sensors and the way the robot navigates and avoid collision. I was eager to try new sensors replacing the traditional Lidar turret for navigation, but of course i was not sure it was going to work well, as well as structured lights, tof and other fancy tech. \- I expect the **auto empty to work perfectly** and the bin to be clean, **as well as the filter** \- **Anti tangle brush** \- **A detergent tank** in the station, i don't want to add that to the water myself \- I want it **white**, I can't with the black robots and especially with the washboard being black, it's impossible to see if it's clean or not \- **I don't want a roller mop** for some reasons, from the maintenance to the complexity of the hardware, or the (imo) bad edge and corner coverage # Things i don't care about: \- Threshold capacity: i don't have any \- Carpet performance: I have only two small carpets \- The ability to leave the mop pads at the station: i never vacuum and mop at the same time I'm probably forgetting things but those are the main kpis. # 1st try: Mova P50 Ultra After watching like hours of robot vacuums reviews and videos, I decided to go with Mova and bought the P50 Ultra + optional detergent tank + tricut brush. I bought this one and not the P50 Pro Ultra because the Pro Ultra was too high to go under my kitchen cabinets. Bought it for €600. To be fair, it was working okay, but: \- Navigation was not so great, it was regularly turning in circle like it needed to position itself quite often, sometimes at the end of a job I noticed on the map that it forgot one or two furnitures legs. Nothing serious but as i explained I have very high expectations on that regards. \- Collision avoidance was good, it was very cautious and the structured light was doing a good job, way less bumping than with the RR S7 (which is expected), but still some bumping \- Also the dustbin was never perfectly clean after an auto empty, the filter was definitely not, and I also noticed some dust getting trapped around the dustbin auto empty port. Defintely not a good design. \- The auto cleaned washboard was great however, always staying clean without having to manually clean anything except the filter from time to time In the end I decided to send it back: i wanted a better navigation and i was very interested by the Starsight system of Roborock. But again, I was still not sure about RR... # 2nd try: Mova P50S Ultra and that's when i discovered the Mova P50S Ultra which was using (apparently) the same system and sensors as the Saros 10R. Bought it for €799. It was a nightmare: i think the hardware was good, with the same auto empty flaws than the P50 Ultra however, but the software is just crap imo. It was bumping into furnitures the P50 Ultra was avoiding correcly, taking forever to clean, and just seemed sooooo dumb. It also has a small wheel at the back that was bumping into the floor when the robot go on a carpet, making a horrible sound everytime. Returned it the next day. At that time I thought: you know what, let's trust RR again... # 3rd try: RR Saros 10R and I bought the Saros 10R for €850 (black friday). New mistake! \- Didn't like the color (but i knew it beforehand), however the glossy dock was really horrible with fingerprints \- The removable washboard seems like a dated and inefficient design when compared to the Mova washboard which i liked a lot \- Auto empty not great, filter still not cleaned well \- It did a bit better at navigation and collision avoidance than the P50S Ultra with the same sensors so definitely a better software, but far from perfect, and it was still bumping some furniture, and bumping hard! I was so disappointed... I sent it back. # So what do we do now So you're thinking what the f, he sends every thing back and that's true, I was a bit tired of this. That's when i heard about the **DJI Romo** that just came out in Europe. I was instantly sold by the navigation they promised, I looked at many videos, including chinese ones as there was few videos in europe at the time, and mostly by influencers that don't know nothing about robot vacuum. At that time i also considered the **Narwal flow**, but i didn't want the roller mop as I said, plus i found the navigation pretty bad (by my standards) in the videos i saw. However i give them credit for designing/engineering something different: dock design, dustbin design, omnidirectional wheel... some things are clearly made differently compared to Roborock/Dreame/Mova... That's also what I liked about DJI, they seemd to have designed something different and I liked that. Also I thought that maybe - just maybe - given their reputation, they will support the robot longer, update it and not launch 15 new models in the next couple months. But only time will tell. # 4th and last: DJI Romo S I bought the Romo S version as i was not ready to pay the crazy amount they ask for the transparent one. To be honest the regular price of the S version at €1299 is also way too high. I bought it at black friday for €799 which was a correct price imo. First one arrived with a broken wheel - with all the robots I bought, I'm not surprised I finally got a bad unit! Sent it back and DJI sent a replacement the next day, **very efficient customer support**. I'm now using it since two weeks and it's been absolutely great, I'm finally so happy with my robovac! \- **Navigation has been flawless**, really meet my expectations: it's just perfect. On a video I saw, i heard that it was "like it's flying on the floor", and I can't agree more. It never need to reposition itself, the lines are perfectly straight, it never miss a furniture leg. Plus it's using the solid state lidars that i was looking for (two rgb cameras + 4 lidars on the front, one lidar on the back). \- **Collision (and obstacle) avoidance is also absolutely great**, it doesn't touch a thing where the Saros 10R and Mova P50S where bumping. Also meet my expectations. \- There is a **mesh prefilter protecting the filter** in the dustbin, I think Narwal does that too. Thank you! The filter stays way more clean. \- The dustbin/auto empty design is way better i think, very different design, **it's emptying perfectly** without leaving any residue in the way to the dock. \- The washboard design is reminding me of the Mova one, very good, stays clean, with the bonus of not having a filter to clean, again a different design than on the other brands. \- Vacuuming performance has been great, as well as mopping, no complains on that \- Sure **the app misses some features**, but nothing that has troubled me, we'll see if they update it in the near future, I surely hope so. The app design is very polished with beautiful animations, I like that. \- And... **it's cute**, I don't know, I just like the overall design and in particular the front sensors which give it a sort of "cute animal" face. \--- I'm of course not writing all this to say that this one is the better one for everyone, **but it is for me** and I know i don't have the same expectations as many. It's been truly tiring to try all those models and to see that the **high end models, costing so much, has become so bad on some aspects.** Hope this will be useful for some people, and happy to answer any question regarding the DJI Romo as there are not so much reviews and videos out there for now! **If you read it until here... congrats and thank you!** I'll probably update later as i surely forgot some things. And I'm french so sorry for my english :) Some pics of my Romo: https://preview.redd.it/tpb8tx3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a92cb8ab943256dfac585ce4c0afd2154b63a80b https://preview.redd.it/pka2bu3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=251c90f6a46b2c5c9b78ff98282e477157cdf1c3 https://preview.redd.it/ycrxtt3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66067595033a0dc97d9029020f02ab297776a64c https://preview.redd.it/dzljfu3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2f7e3853572ccd188e74d2fc3df8e11408cde6d https://preview.redd.it/vk96xt3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2a1624ecbd5fb4f13971d1ccccf34c8bdb9b5a3 https://preview.redd.it/7vz1zy3de85g1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1348971e762a83e1e574f0c318134b19c4509bb0 https://preview.redd.it/w0ug0u3de85g1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f527bcec9e4c84810f4fc2e18d32e70dd2ef8d9e

I have a d3 as well. I'll have to keep an eye on this

A used Neato D3 through D7. Should be on eBay for almost nothing since the cloud was turned off. They still work if you push the button and they have lidar. If you push the button and it doesn't start cleaning, open and close the dust bin. The dust bin reminder was cloud based so you wouldn't realize they are waiting for someone to check the dust bin.

I run 11 Neatos 90 minutes 5 days per week in our house while we swim in another part of the house. Been doing it for 10 years. Not always the same Neato's though they are very repairable and I've made many repairs on them through the years.

Neato was the first with lidar. It was D shaped so it got edges and the aggressive brush was full width. Unfortunately it was over engineered like they were building a rocket ship with all kinds of sensors to make sure everything was working perfectly and sometimes sensors went bad throwing an error stopping it from running when it was perfectly fine. Company was purchased by a German company that destroyed it and they went out of business 2.5 years ago but kept the cloud servers running until recently. They can still be used manually by pressing the start button. But lots of features are gone. We use 11 so they are all done while we are swimming. We are retired and don't want to listen to them running for 8 hours per day if we just ran 1 per house level.

My D3 and D7 are still going. I left the scheduled programs on and we’ll try not to move them around the house here on out.

Open to suggestions as to what to buy. We had Neato BotVac D3s in the house and one day they just, stopped working. They literally turned off the servers after changing the app and said our vacuums were no longer supported. WTF? They worked great! I love planned obsolescence.