This thread, incident, reveals yet another software detail missing in vacuum robots.
Apparently the Neato fails to dock, mysteriously giving up right in front of the dock, so close to finishing, because of a faulty indication the dock is already connected. If the robot bothered to integrate data from the lidar it would see that it is not docked, and should show an error message. Yet such a message does appear if trying to shut down the computer, finally revealing the faulty circuits, because not permitted when on the dock (apparently not handling the switching of power supply fully enough to shut down there, perhaps too expensive a complication in circuit boards for such an obscure situation).
The mysterious failure to dock when right in front has been reported several times and I observed it once here. Why give up when so close? That a hardware defect could cause it never comes to mind because one assumes the software is adequate. Another failure to utilize navigation info was when the Neato was stuck under an over-head pinch trap on carpet, where the wheels could slip, and it just keeps going (in one case tearing up treads on a kitchen floor caught under an open dishwasher door). I checked this on a possibly improved later
Botvac by stepping on it, and it would not give up and shut down; no improvement there. The Lidar seems to be a Rodney Dangerfield -- gets no respect.
Yet be careful what you wish for. On the Samsung, the slightest error causes a shut down instead of allowing time to manually release the robot from a trap. It is hard to understand the thinking of these programmers, besides maybe they are not given enough time and resources to thoroughly do these jobs. It all seems a bit casual. Npt acceptable behavior in a major appliance.