Neato XV-14 Battery Issue 0007

[donnoj]

Was going though the menus on my new XV-14 and suddenly got a message "Please press OK to restart. Battery issue (0007).

I tried to back out but hitting ok was the only option. The unit then turned off and inky turned back on after I hit the start button.

Anyone know what this is about?

[donnoj]

Woke up this morning to error 0007...hit restart and it booted back up

Started it for a test run and then 17 minutes in got another 0007 error. Also got an error 0002.

Decided to open the battery compartment and noticed one of the pins on the inside connector was missing or pushed in.

Called customer support and they will be send me a new unit.

This new one will now be my 4th Neato in the last few week.

The first two, XV-21's were purchased at two different Best Buy's. The first one only ran 10 minutes on carpet and maybe 30 or hard. Made no difference when I switched the pet brush for the old style. The second one also had bad run times but also had a messed up control panel...The buttons were wired incorrectly or something (the return button was enter and the up arrow was return, for example). Plus if I set the bin alert to on, it would give me a message that it was turning off.

Frustrated, I decided to order the XV-14 from Costo and give it a try but got battery issue error's right out of the box.

I'm getting very tired of fooling around with these units. The idea I had was this device would make my life a little easier not more difficult.

[Zerxer]

A lot of people have low run times at first with the Neato. You need to have patience with it and give it a 12 hour charge at least and run/recharge it at least 5 times. If you're still getting low battery life, emailing Neato's customer care and requesting they send you a new battery is a much better solution than replacing the entire unit and having to start over with the battery steps I listed first.

I had low run times of only 30 minutes on hardwood too (although longer than 10 on carpets) and Neato is sending me a new battery, although after running it more and more I'm pretty sure this last run it managed to clean nearly my entire living/dining room on a single charge, which it hadn't previously been able to. Either way, having a new battery on hand to play with will be of use, even if I was wrong about having a bad battery due to impatience.

Of course, the battery error you're receiving and the unit you had which had faulty buttons are good reasons to replace the entire unit. But hopefully this post is useful to you when you receive your next Neato and again get low run times at first so that you don't just give up on the Neato name.

[donnoj]

Thanks for the reply!

My first two xv-21's were drained/charged several times (more than 5). One I've used over week. The performance stayed the same.

The XV-14 was charged for 12 hours straight on the advise given in some forum topics. Others with XV-14's say they were getting 60 minutes out of the box and a bit more later. So I was curious to see if there was a difference. Unfortunately, because of the broken pin I'll have to wait until the replacement arrives.

If the run times stay low there is now way my 1700sq place is getting vac'd automatically with 3 suspended recharges. I'd have to get a second robot or just be happy with the kitchen, dining and living areas daily.

[glnc222]

As far as miss-wiring the menu switches, this is physically extraordinary, as the wiring is a printed circuit board which if incorrect would affect large numbers of units and be almost certainly detected by the mfg. There are no wires to be crossed by hand assembly. Wonder what the text of error 7 is, as it is not listed in the documentation, and all msgs display a text description. Best Buy has a generous return policy for refunds instead of multiple replacements.

[donnoj]

Yes, I'll be returning the XV-21 to best buy as soon as the replacement XV-14 is delivered.

In the meantime, I use it to clean one bedroom at a time by hitting start and closing the door. Unfortunately, because of the battery, I can only do one bedroom at at time between charges. It's actually quicker to just vacuum them manually. My hope was to just have it scheduled daily and come home from work to a freshly vac'd house. Maybe my hopes were too high.

[yakky]

Neato QC is as bad as Roomba navigation. I too had a bot with bad batteries. Finally got a good one and really like it.

[mfortuna]

There is nothing wrong with roomba navigation. I am perfectly happy with the way my roomba works. Please don't compare Neato QC with the roomba, they really have nothing to do with each other.

[yakky]

There is nothing wrong with roomba navigation. I am perfectly happy with the way my roomba works. Please don't compare Neato QC with the roomba, they really have nothing to do with each other.

Yes, nothing wrong with a drunken sailor bouncing off the walls. Sorry, after getting a neato, you might understand.

[Jubo]

I got both but I still don't understand Roomba still rocks.

[mfortuna]

There is nothing wrong with roomba navigation. I am perfectly happy with the way my roomba works. Please don't compare Neato QC with the roomba, they really have nothing to do with each other.

Yes, nothing wrong with a drunken sailor bouncing off the walls. Sorry, after getting a neato, you might understand.

The roomba cleans just as well as a Neato, many reviews state that fact. I don't care if it bounces off things. I have a Mint with fancy navigation and if I run it after the roomba it picks up almost nothing. Also the roomba has some advantages (just as the Neato has its advantages). The ability to go under items the Neato won't (a sofa with a skirt for example) and modular easily user serviced parts.

Please don't tell me to get a Neato. I completey understand how it works and what its failings are. But you don't see me posting negative and sometimes completely non-relevant posts about it.

With that said, please start up a new topic if you want to discuss this further, we are getting off-topic from this thread's subject.

[donnoj]

I finally got the replacement XV-14 from Neato. I let it sit on the charger about 6 hours and sent it to work in my master bed and bath. This room has been the most difficult for two XV-21's I tried earlier this month, typically they lasted about 10-15 minutes before needing a charge leaving 1/2 to 1/4 of the area uncleaned. Very annoying and not very practical. I am, however, happy to report the replacement XV-14 finished the entire area and still had about 1/2 the battery charge left.

An interesting note, this XV-14 is the noisiest of the bunch of Neato's I've tried in the last month. This thing sound like a Sherman tank rolling out to the battlefield and looks like it too. It moves with purpose and seems to speed up and slow down as needed to overcome various terrain. It's also the fastest.

Instead of trying to clean my entire house, like I had tried with past Neato's, I think I'm going to focus on one room at a time until several charges/discharges are achieved. Once the battery has been discharged and charged fully 5 times I'll attempt the full house and see how it does with the 3 suspended cleaning routines.

I'll report back with my results in a few days for those who care.

[donnoj]

Several days of charging/discharging completed. This is supposedly needed to optimize the batteries so they can be charged to maximum capacity. The unit also sat charged against its base station for long periods of time (12 hours or more) overnight. During the day I would run it in my carpeted bedrooms with the door closed until it needed a charge and repeated the process sever times a day for several days.


Today I wanted to test how much of my house it could clean automatically with 3 suspended recharges. I removed as many obstacles as I could practically, like turning chairs upside down on tables, so it would have mostly straight runs through each room. I also closed off all doors to the carpeted bedrooms and installed the pet brush and filter. The robot had access to my kitchen, dinning, living, long hallway and bathroom. All these rooms have laminate or tile hard floors.

I hit start and timed each cleaning run. It complede all rooms in two runs at just over an hour total cleaning time. Run 1 = 45 minutes before suspended recharge. Run 2 = 20 minutes. Not quite the 60 plus minutes per run I've heared other people getting but doable. I plan on scheduling it to run daily while at work. I will have to neato proof the rooms, close bedroom doors and put up charis before leaving.

The bedrooms I plan on doing one each day manually when I get home by shutting the door as maintenance. Once a week the whole house gets vacuumed and dusted with my dyson.

I am amazed at how much household dust is generated daily. The day prior to running this test I had vacuumed with my dyson and mopped. After letting the neato loose its bin was between 1/4 and 1/2 full. No pets by the way. I can see how helpful this device can be to run it automatically daily.

It would be nice if it could do the whole house every day though. I'm actually considering removing the current medium ply wall to wall carpet in the bedrooms and replacing it with low height stuff, possibly carpet tiles by Flor or something similar. This way I could get by with one or two neato's doing the whole house daily. I might even be able to cut back on manual vacuumes with then dyson to every two weeks or possibly once a month. I'm also suspicious as to how much dust is retained by the wall to wall carpet verses carpet tiles. With wall to wall the carpet is tacked at the edges around the perimeter of each room and has a pad in between the carpet and the floor. This "floating" setup seems to allow allot of dust to fall through and bt trapped. Because carpet tiles are denser and stuck directly to the floor dirt and dust doesn't fall through, I thinks it would stay at the top layers so it could be extracted easier by the vac. Just some ideas...

[yakky]

There is nothing wrong with roomba navigation. I am perfectly happy with the way my roomba works. Please don't compare Neato QC with the roomba, they really have nothing to do with each other.

Yes, nothing wrong with a drunken sailor bouncing off the walls. Sorry, after getting a neato, you might understand.

The roomba cleans just as well as a Neato, many reviews state that fact. I don't care if it bounces off things. I have a Mint with fancy navigation and if I run it after the roomba it picks up almost nothing. Also the roomba has some advantages (just as the Neato has its advantages). The ability to go under items the Neato won't (a sofa with a skirt for example) and modular easily user serviced parts.

Please don't tell me to get a Neato. I completey understand how it works and what its failings are. But you don't see me posting negative and sometimes completely non-relevant posts about it.

With that said, please start up a new topic if you want to discuss this further, we are getting off-topic from this thread's subject.

Mighty tall pedestal you are standing on.

[mfortuna]

There is no need to be insulting. As a moderator and a contributor I feel I need to get this thread back on topic. We are both guilty of being off-topic.

[a4refillpad]

Decided to open the battery compartment and noticed one of the pins on the inside connector was missing or pushed in.

Could you possibly remember which pin was missing or pushed in? I'm trying to diagnose a similar fault with another bot right now which does not have warranty?

[donnoj]

It was one of the 4 pin battery connectors. I don't remember which pin it was but it should be easy to check by removing the the battery cover and checking to see if one is pushed in when you remove the battery connector.

By the way, my new one has been giving me trouble....battery issue 0004. I'll be calling customer service soon. When they send out a new one it will be my 5th Neato. Two XV-21's from Best Buy that I ended up returning and a 2nd replacement XV-14 (Originally purchased from Costco).