Should I buy? Neato BotVac Connected or Roomba 980

[Gator113]

I'm really having a hard time deciding between the Neato BotVac Connected & Roomba 980. I've scoured the internet reading or watching every review I could find. I'd really appreciate some help with some input on which might work better for my situation in your opinions.

Let me preface this with I can buy the Roomba 980 for roughly the same price as the Neato Connected.

The home is one story. Tile minus the bedrooms which are textured carpet. I'd say it's a mid-pile carpet. I don't have any black carpets or rugs. The darkest color carpet in my home is burgundy on some area rugs, etc. I don't have any chrome furniture or anything that I believe the Neato would 'ramp' up onto. I have a few furry friends and two of them have long hair that sheds.

Is reliability a concern with the Neato? I've seen a few people claiming their durability is questionable but not with much info to assert their claims. Neato seems to have cheaper parts which is a plus. The cnet review that did a pick up test seems to show the Neato as the clear winner in terms of what it picked up but does anyone know if they only did one pass with the 980?

Am I missing anything?

[jdong]

I think you've covered everything. Long hair in shedding pets make me think Roomba 980, because the AeroForce extractors are a lot easier to clean with pet hair. I think it's somewhat hard to judge reliability since both the 980 and the Connected are brand new units. We can theorize based off the past, but right now I think it's too soon to say anything conclusive. I don't believe in brand loyalty / trends, I believe in analyzing the reliability of each product by itself. Even the smallest change in a product can ruin its reliability reputation.

On the other hand I feel like tile is a surface the Neato would clean better. I've had relatively good experiences with the 980 CHM compared to the 880's when it comes to picking up small particles off hardwood floor. They never advertised this change, but the CHM seems to drop closer to the ground on the 980 versus the 880. But without a doubt, the Neato's floor-contacting brushes / bars would have a better chance at agitating thin debris on hard surfaces, particularly between tile grooves where I doubt the Roomba can get much suction.

I'm kind of on the fence here. On another note, I somewhat disagree with the CNet and various other cleaning performance tests. You've probably seen the testing I've done on this forum between the BotVac, 980, and 880. There's a HUGE uncontrolled variable in how long each robot spends vacuuming when you command it to do "one cycle" of a small confined testing space. The testing videos I've seen are not terribly standardized.

[Gator113]

Thanks for the reply. I think I saw your review but I'll go check it out to make sure. I agree on the testing and that's why I questioned their method of testing. If the Roomba 980 has to make two passes I'm not really sure that's a huge deal to me as long as the job gets completed properly.

I guess I spoke too soon. I don't think I'll be able to get any discount on the Roomba 980, unless anyone has a suggestion, but I can actually get the Neato Connected for around $560. While that's quite a price difference I still want to know which would work best for my situation. I'm a person who likes to buy right, buy once, etc.

I do have another concern with the Neato. It seems that the Neato won't overlap it's cleaning pattern, is that right? If so, should I be worried about dog hair being blown to a cleaned piece of tile?

[ramibnet]

I also want to decide what robot to buy...

I think the most importat is:
Vacum preformence (is it cleans good? floor? panels? carpet?)
Maneuverability (I don't want to come back and see the robot stuck and didn't did his job!)
Carpet friendly & preformence (I need it to clean my carpets as good as it can!)

Looking for people who had tried both of the robots (and don't get paid by their companies )
I saw vic7767 had tried both of them, so.. please replay (:
Anyone else is very very welcome to reply !

[vic7767]

Yes, I do have both the 980 and the Botvac Connected. Both robots perform and clean OK. The bottom line for me is that the Botvac construction is not friendly to the owner that wants to have the ability to perform simple maintenance like a side brush replacement, drive wheel replacement or brush motor replacement since there is absolutely no modular maintenance design whatsoever. I favor the ability to replace parts that fail instead of having to depend on a backup robot to obtain parts from due to common failures like drive motors, Lidar motors, and the side brush and then experience a very difficult time during disassembly and reassembly.

[VoronServer]

2nd month with BotVac Connected daily cleaning - so far, so good. No Error 3000 or such. It seems vacuums w/o protective tape on the screen perform better (tested? refurbished? review versions?).

[rival81]

What do you mean 'protective tape on the screen'? What screen, the lcd?

[vic7767]

What do you mean 'protective tape on the screen'? What screen, the lcd?

Yes, new models are shipped with scratch protection over the LCD screen. Refurb models do not have this scratch protection.

[Gator113]

I ended up purchasing the Roomba 980 a few days before Christmas from BB&B with a 20% off coupon. Been running trouble free. Wish they would add some features to the app but it's been running great. I wish they would add an ability to pause the job via the app but send the 980 back home to charge. Say, I come home and I'm eating lunch it would be nice for it to charge while paused instead of just sitting there only to charge in 20 minutes. When I let it do a few of the carpet rooms it takes quite some time in between battery charges, etc. Navigation certainly could be better but I don't have any problem with how it handles my house. I have been plenty pleased with my purchase.