Neato 2 wish list!

[a4refillpad]

Yes, I had that on the list and agree with everything you said. Wifi is a very desirable addition and most devices are heading this way including fridges and washing machines!
To be honest a number of us buy robot vacuum cleaners for more than the just vacuuming floors. I wouldn't want to admit to the other half that its also a great toy! LOL
Surely I'm not alone in this?
Anyway adding wifi could provide huge amounts of entertainment!

[glnc222]

WiFi can take a lot of power within Neato scales, degrading run time. Something like a wireless keybd interface (running on an AAA cell for months), might be better. Has to be built into the system bd because USB host interfaces (attached to the USB plug output) also power hungry whatever the wireless. The parts are small, complete function com IC's, how game consoles, TV's, printers, cell phones getting WiFi standard. Turning on WiFi in a Kindle though drains the battery much faster.

[a4refillpad]

There are currently chipsets out there that really run on tiny amounts of power. Some wifi chipsets out their can run on standby on 1uA, rx at < 50mA and tx at arounf 200mA. Yes this is extra draw but really compared to other components really small and the overall draw depends on implementation and industry standard power-saving algorithms maximising the standby mode during operation. With very little effort and using a polling method you could easily have the chipset running at the standby draw for 99.9% at a time.
Samsung have demonstrated it working on their production tango models in Korea with wifi control and on-board video even! So it is definitely viable.

[bobo073]

The ability to command the XV-11 to do a full cycle multiple times before moving to the next room (parents of girls know that glitter "pixie dust" in carpet takes multiple passes, even with a standard cannister vacuum).

Bonus points if it could be smart enough to rotate the next cycle 90-degrees from the previous one...

-Bobo

[craigbla]

Alternating the direction is almost certain to help cleaning plus reduce wheel marks as well as provide better coverage since my Neato misses the end of turns with some regularity. I would also use the multiple pass option - maybe it could alternate directions on each pass in that mode.

[a4refillpad]

I think a really simple option would be to run every line twice in both directions or increase the overlap to more than 50% so that everything is in effect covered twice. Would be relatively simple to implement in software as I would expect the existing program to have this either set as a constant or a variable already in the code.

[shyetan]

Bought a xv 25 on Feb 22nd 2013. After using less than 10 days found a black patch developing on the digital screen.
Complained to customer service and they asked me to send back to agent - imagine a brand new machine having to go back so soon - is this normal with neatos? Any one with similar experience.
Anyone am in Malaysia and this machine costs USD983 here - 1 of most expensive around here so was expecting good quality but doesn't promise to be with this bad start

[a4refillpad]

Shyetan, I think you're posting in a wrong thread. This thread is to discuss suggestions for the next version of neato.

[bahamasboy]

I agree with all of the suggestions you've posted and have one more that would really make a difference in my use of the vac. Add the ability to program more than two charge sessions per cleaning cycle!

I have a not-so-open floor plan on my lower floor which creates more "non cleaning travel time between areas" It's only about 1500 sq. ft,, about 1/2 of which is carpeted with fairly thick carpet, and many "nooks and crannies" due to furniture placement which has been changed as much as possible to accommodate the lil guy.

My vac will run for 45-55 mins per charge but it still can not clean the entire first floor on one cleaning cycle. It I could program just one more cleaning cycle it would do the trick for me. As it stands now, I have to start a new cycle in another room and close that door to get my entire lower floor cleaned.

I'm not sure why the currently charge limitation is two since it clearly has the time to cool down between cleanings due to charging time. Thanks for the thread. Hopefully it's being read by Neato.

[shirgal]

Very nice list, i would like to add
- ability to bypass chronic RPS errors and let the Neato revive some more, and continue clean the house with bumper sensor same as roomba until solution is found,replacement,parts,etc.

- Pause Fan n' brush when repassing on cleaned areas, sure enough it does this when going to dock but i have found it on narrow corridors driving from one room to other rooms with fan & brush propelling in full,am i the only one noticed that on XV-21? I must say that my old XV-11/12 seems to do it right.

-Ability to have the battery charge and idle voltage on the LCD screen while on the go as well, might help us determine more deeply what is the battery status without the need to run it under pc in test-mode,
Thios could aid the Neato CS while T.S with customer,
This could also help to reduce battery consumption and need for re-cycling

More wishes to come....

[dochogan]

Thought I would start a dedicated "wish list" thread to help out neato with ideas for their next gen neato.
Hopefully neato would take some of these ideas from their customers on-board.
(quick list I have to kick things off - some of these could be even implemented into current gen!)

Software ideas:

• • option to carry out multiple schedules on a single day.
  • ability to attempt restart/dock automatically from RPS faults and other faults. (rather than wait forever)
  • option to schedule a deep clean (run over same spot more than once)
  • option to schedule a quick clean (run at higher speed)
  • option to "find dock". (neato is one of the few bots out there that requires you to manually dock it)
  • option to clean a single room only
  • quiet/night mode option? run with vacuum on lower power for night or day runs.
  • more imaginative display. (LCD screen is great but really underutilised.)
  • spot clean to perform a "spiral" pattern as well as current pattern for deeper clean

Hardware ideas:

• • Self emptying option (ala Karcher, Deepoo and Samsung)
  • Transparent dirtbin (as per their promo video to see when full!)
  • replacement dirtbin with "quick/easy empty" option for people to empty with handheld or full vac.
  • extend the suction and beater bar to right edge of robot to edge clean properly (possibly better than sidebrush)
  • Wifi or at least some kind or remote start (true home automation!)
  • bump sensor needs to be much more sensitive. currently low objects get moved around a little to much! Maybe some IR sensors too to help out.
  • Softer wheels/castors (my hardwood floors have had a lot of small surface scratches due to continuous repetition the hard plastic wheels) Softer ones would also make for a quieter/smoother operation and less banging noise when the bot falls back down after raising itself to get out of corner etc.
  • upward facing blower/outlet. (not sure why no other bot i've seen adopt this) This would prevent dust being blown around the floor before being captured.
  • Some kind of dirt detection

Please add some more ideas to help them out!

[edited to tidy up list with bullets]

It looks like the majority of these requests are being answered, not by Neato but by Ecovacs Deebot d93:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKCz0bDYHqw

The mobile unit is a near-clone of the XV line, in shape and function. It uses a similar laser based LPS, systematic patterning, etc. It has Ecovacs self-emptying system as an option (YouTube of d76 self-cleaning), has corner brushes. Also, and very exciting, is the mobile app, which blueprints the environment (rooms), tracks and displays the bots exact progress, and allow for virtual walls to by placed, well, virtually, by drawing them on the screen.

This may be my next robovac, unless Neato steps up...my XV-11 is great, but that Ecovac Deebot d93 appears to be, at least from the IFA video, what the next and most recent generations of XVs should be and should have been. XV is starting to show its age, features-wise; there plenty of room left for growth on the XV platform, but I think Neato's relevance risks waning unless significant advances are made from their end.

[glnc222]

Deebot article http://robotbg.com/news/2013/09/17/ifa_ ... om_ecovacs
[edit]

Ecovacs and it's research team is working on a new mapping system that uses a laser and a camera on the front of the robot to discover the world around the device. According to Mr. Qian the new system will be more precise than the currently used laser on the D93. In the quick demonstration he showed how the robot can keep the map of the house and navigate within that map. The robot was sent from one spot to the other and it completed the tasks quickly and precisely. The new robot will be called Deebot D11 and it will arrive sometime in 2014.

Ecovacs company http://www.ecovacs.com/about.html

[edit] Robot Shop is one retailer with an Ecovacs bot outside of Asia. The company advertises it is expanding distribution with the new models.

[glnc222]

Ecovacs is interesting in confirming the acumen of RR contributor's identification of potential improvements from the growing capacities of digital electronics. This company at least sees real commercial possibilities in these possible features.

Yet some of the need for more user involvement could be eliminated if Neato would make some minor adjustments to its design to avoid traps and increase mobility, reducing the need to block off problem areas. As demonstrated in modifications shown on this site, the wheel suspension tilts too much and needs a simple block on the wheel arm extending much below the bottom surface. With this constraint the bottom edge of the bumper can be lowered 1/2" without digging into the floor when the unit tilts, and then engage a lot of low furniture features, stand bases and tubular furniture legs etc., which customers have found problematic. Second, vertical facing complements to the cliff sensors, or at least one in the center, are needed to detect overhead traps of both the front bumper edge and the higher turret top. This can also be done mechanically, but more neatly with a couple more proximity detectors which are not that difficult. Trap detection and avoidance eliminates the need to block off problem areas. If one wants to adjust room contents to clean more area, that can be done separately. Third, the wheels need higher traction from a soft, replaceable tread which might need replacing once a year along with the brush vanes; this would surmount the obstacle of some height transitions which it really ought to get over but doesn't.

None of these things require radical changes to Neato's construction. They can form the kind of incremental improvements which have been noted to be a major part of the advances in Apple products, for example. Maybe with some competition from the likes of Ecovacs there will be more efforts along these lines.

My concern with doodads like the Ecovac is they can be one trick ponies, demonstrating some fancy app software without addressing the practical needs of navigating houses and increasing cleaning power of the vacuum.
I do not particularly care for the heavy reliance on side brushes shown, and with the noted less forward main brush than Neato, which helps eliminate those side brushes. As proven in tests, those side brushes do nothing for cleaning carpets. I suppose they think of mixed content floorings, such as shown in their trade show booth. I like the economy of the Neato as well, minimizing such complications.

It has always been possible to make a fancier robot throwing money at the problem; you could stick an entire iPhone into one, for example, itself costing more than a typical robot. Lidars were available before Neato's was created; the point of their's was lowering the cost. The price suggested for the self-empty Ecovacs competing with Karcher does look significant for that category. It seems to me in the luxury market, once something costs enough to make that only very wealthy customers would use it, another factor comes into play where customers will pay much more for really minor features, boosting prices even higher -- until there is more competition.

[a4refillpad]

Must admit the ecovacs device looks exciting. Maybe their engineers frequent this site and jumped onto posts like this for ideas. Hope they actually end up with something good. If only neato did more than constantly rehash a three year old design with new colours.

[Wing Nut]

Ecovacs company http://www.ecovacs.com/about.html

I hope the Ecovac's navigation is better than their marketing department's grasp of geography. Check the map of the globe on that webpage - they must surely have just let the name arrows rest where they fell ... ?

I did see one of their Winbots working in a store in Hong Kong a few weeks ago. We've a long glass balcony around part of the house that usually gets dirty during a storm, so I was a little tempted. It relies on strong suction to hold itself on the glass and sticky crawler tracks, like a cross between a model dozer and an octopus tentacle, to move about. Works a much like a Mint, only in the vertical. A safety lanyard ensures it can't fall 40 floors to a street below.

Since our balcony glass is frameless on two sides with cat sized gaps, I figured the Winbot might be inclined to run over the edges, lose grip and fall off all the time. Also, even if it didn't, I'd be forever lifting it over to do the other side of the glass, then carrying it to the next section of balcony - 8 in all. Definitely quicker to do it with a bucket and squeegee, so I didn't buy one.

Hong Kong store price was US$400.

[glnc222]

Ecovac's Karcher immitation $600 bot was distributed last year and listed at RobotShop, so they seem able to deliver. The collector vacuum doubles as a handheld, clever design. The mechanism looks very polished and the bin empties from the bottom. At least some design smarts in that operation. The laser model still looks more expensive than Neato, but more features seem to be what users ask about compared to price. It's bulkier than a Neato with a more squared off rear, and won't navigate furniture as well I expect. Space needed for all those side brush motors. Nothing like side brushes to attract the Roomba fans.

iRobot has been showing short TV commercials again, more like corporate image promotions than consumer. Branding I suppose.

[glnc222]

Wonder if the Ecovacs expansion is part of a larger tech initiative reported, the Chinese Silicon Valley (sounds like a tourist attraction with lovely vistas):
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... Highlights
After all, Lenovo's over there, lots of goodies from them.

[frenchie]

2 things that would be nice (software change) :
- display the status of the last cleaning session until the user clicks OK. This would be useful if your robot works when you're not home, and docks after cleaning : you have no idea if the last cleaning session completed succefully or if something happened. For example, it reached the max number of charges and could not finish, or didn't start, because you didn't schedule it and you thought you did (who would do that... ). With this change, you can just click the orange button when you get home and you know right away what happened.
- return the robot to the base when the bin is full and make a sound/keep the light on/flash the light so that you know where it is when you hear it beep, and it's not stuck all the way under your bed waiting, and it's not dropping fluff on the floor instead of cleaning.

[billyw1953]

I got this idea from my old rainbow vacuum cleaner, which by the way is 20 years old and still runs like a champ. The rainbow uses water as a filter so I'm not certain if this is even a viable idea for the Neato. The rainbow allows you to squirt some foofoo smelling liquid into the water which makes the exhaust air smell really nice. When you're done vacuuming, the house smells really nice and fresh. The Neato has a fairly powerful air exhaust, would be something if you could put a deodorant pack somewhere near the filter so as it cleans, the air smells good too. Just spit balling here. Best Regards

[hackztor]

Wifi- So you can map out where you do not want it to clean on smartphone. This can even be just enabled when docked if people are worried about runtime. Then have an option to enable while running so people can get the current status if they want that.