Neato’s range of robotic vacuum cleaners are fast picking up fans around the world, and helping to clean up their dust. Laser guided, the Botvac D75 is the baby of a new 2015 range for the family, but still has all the features you’d expect of a smart home cleaning system.
At its price, the D75 (see here lowest pricing) is generally less than its bigger brother the new D80 or D85, and it comes with a few less features, but should still be an excellent addition to any smart home.
Overall, the Botvac D range features a new brushing system for reduced noise, among other improvements.
The D75 is a white model with a black bin lid, it uses those lasers and its clever D-shape design to guide it around your rooms, under furniture and into the darkest corners.
It weighs in at a hefty 9lbs, is 12.7-inches long, 13.2-inches wide and 3.9-inches deep, but can still get under beds and settees to winkle out well hidden dust and hair rafts.
Key Features of the Botvac D75
Reformatted Brush System: Aside from laser guidance, and who doesn’t want to boast about that when it comes to home technology, the Botvac D75 offers a spiral blade brush with edge cleaning to get rid of most dust and hair.
There’s a cleaning tool to help get any tough crud out of the unit and boundary markers to keep it away from areas you don’t need or want cleaning.
Decent Battery Power: D75 comes with the company’s standard filter and a 3,600 mAh NiMH battery. It will auto recharge and auto-resume when low on power, so you won’t find it dying in the middle of the floor.
Laser Guided Mapping: The laser system helps create a map of the room that the unit can smartly figure out the most efficient cleaning method for each room. On its rounds it will fill up the 0.7-liter bin, which you lift out from above for a rapid trip to the bin, before the D75 can resume its work.
Pros of the Neato Botvac D75
Auto-Scheduling: The Botvac D75 can be scheduled to operate automatically at times convenient around the house, when everyone is out, when the dog is being walked, or when the weekend is over.
Whatever your settings, if you see the need for a quick clean, just press the big blue start button on the top, pop it by the mess and it will clear a square area around that location.
Laser Navigation Generally Works: The scanning system will avoid bumping into your furniture or valuables, or you can use boundary markers, magnetic strips that will mark certain rooms or areas of a room off limit to the bot.
Auto-Recharge: Once it needs power it makes a beeline back to base and will wiggle back onto the dock to charge up before setting off again.
Beefed Up Suction Power: Even in the D75 version, cleaning is excellent, with the device offering excellent suction.
A new SpinFlow system offers a decent jump on last year’s models, and it could probably blow most other brands into the yard. Just keep the bin, and the brushes clean and it should maintain a high level of efficiency.
Cons of the Neato Botvac D75
Noise: The D75 may have powerful suction, but that does mean it is rather noisy. These new models are a little quieter than previous editions, but are far free the peace and quiet we generally think of in a smart home.
Sure, that’s why you can program it to run when you’re out, but when you first test the unit, it does seem disconcertingly noisy.
Still Bumps Into Furniture Sometimes: Despite the lasers, it can hit the odd bit of furniture, and anything delicate may get knocked off by the bulk of the cleaner, so be careful to keep an eye on the D75 during its first few missions and cordon off any suspect areas.
Watch Out for Small Toys! You might definitely consider cordoning off any children’s rooms as it can happily eat up quite large pieces of toy. On the plus side you can give your children a stern warning that the robot cleaner will come to eat their toys, if they don’t tidy up.
Still a Smaller Dust Bin Compared to Traditional Vacs: Finally, as with most robot vacuums, the bin is still a bit on the small side, half the area of our traditional old upright.
That means it makes more sense to run daily runs, but that could help wear it out faster, which I guess is something the makers would want to sell more parts and accessories.
Final Recommendation – Is it Worth it?
You are paying a lot of money for a robot vacuum cleaner, so you want the best, and the D75 nearly fits the bill. But since you’re paying all that money – if you have a pets or just a busy house, then an extra money for the slightly beefier D85 might make sense.
Ultimately, though, you get one of these to make your life easier, and the D75 is one of the best in the business. It smartly cleans rooms and knows what to avoid, with perhaps the odd knock along the way. Check out this listing for the latest deals on the Botvac D75.
As long as you keep it clean, it should perform well, but we’d still like to see more than a one-year warranty (six months for the battery), which suggests Neato doesn’t have much faith in its power unit, or is just looking for regular consumables sales.
To that end, the unit is easy to break down, install a new part and get it up and running again. Overall, this is a great new entry-level model to the Botvac range with superior suction to most rival brands.
Yes, it could be quieter and, yes, Neato, could be less miserly with the warranty, but once you have a D75 rumbling around your house, the joy of seeing all the dust gone when you come back is a great feeling, so much so you might want one for each floor so you don’t have to lug it up and down the stairs.
If you already own a Botvac, then unless it is on its last wheels, there are no massive benefits to upgrading, but the D75 is sure to impress newcomers to the world of the smart robotic vacuum cleaner.
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