by stainedsteelinc » December 3rd, 2012, 7:32 am
Well, to be honest, my favorite feature so far has been the allure of a true "set it and forget it" robot.
I'm a professional computer engineer, and a while ago (read: at least a year and a half) I did the rounds with Neato. When I first read about it, I was so excited I bought one the same day. Open floor plan woes, wide door room detection problems, dirty corners(!), RPS errors, snapped wheel spring clips, bad wheel drive motors, melted charging contacts, a very unusual vacuum current detection problem, and even a dive down my staircase...twice...convinced me I had gotten excited too soon. After 6 months of trials, and 7 replacement robots, I took Neato's offer to refund my money instead of send yet another new robot. I also got to know the Neato staff pretty well.
I just spent half an hour chatting on the phone with the overnight neato customer rep who told me some interesting things that I haven't seen mentioned here yet:
-Firmware 3.1 release has been pushed back to at least Feb 2013
-Firmware 3.1 will be released at the same time as the Mac updater software
-New colors are coming! She "didn't know" what the new colors were, but when I wondered out loud if they would be a let down after the crazy purple-on-white surprise of the XV-21, she told me not to worry about being let down. Bright pink with sparkles or deep forest green with rhinestones here we come! Haha. She just laughed when I requested, yet again, that the clear-top debris bin they used in the promo videos be released to the general public.
-As before, any warranty replacement you are sent restarts the 1-year warranty period. Go Neato for keeping customer's interests above profit margins. I am really happy to see this hasn't been chopped to limit bottom line erosion from future defects.
Now with firmware release 3.1 around the corner, new colors coming out soon, and many hardware, manufacturing and software fixes, I am yet again getting excited. So like I said above, my favorite feature has been the hope that I feel when I think about that crazy new rainbow colored Neato coming...always "just around the corner"... promising to make everything better and my house perfectly sparkling clean.
However, I must say that back in grounded reality, my favorite feature is the way the Neato has a personality, especially with my dogs. I have a pug who is very stubborn, and will not move when he decides to sit down. Its awesome to watch the Neato realize my pug has obstructed its way, wait for just a second (I know its analyzing, but I like to think of it as a polite gesture to give my pug the "right of way") and then zoom around my pug. Its one of the most amusing things I have seen from any of my robotic household helpers.
Anyway, I've prattled on long enough. Anyone else going to chime in?
I graduated college and got a full time job plus a marriage. All projects on permanent hiatus.