Be Lazy, and Let Your Neato D6 Robot Vac Clean Up for You

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Be Lazy, and Let Your Neato D6 Robot Vac Clean Up for You

Back in 2016, I reviewed my first robot vacuum, the Neato Botvac Connected. And then the Neato D6 arrived at my doorstep. At that point, I knew not all vacuums are created equal, even if they are from the same company.

Be Lazy, and Let Your Neato D6 Robot Vac Clean Up for You

Over the past two years, I’ve still been using various Robot vacs to spot clean my home and saying that it’s a privilege is NOT an understatement. I’ve been super privileged to test out different companies take on being lazy and pressing buttons to clean your home, but the Neato D6 is on a whole other level from their competition.

Be Lazy, and Let Your Neato D6 Robot Vac Clean Up for You

To put it frankly, the Neato D6 is the vacuum you need in your home if you have a pet or a spouse that sheds hair like trees shed leaves in the fall. Designed specifically to pick up those little odd specs on your floor that you tend to have on your socks as you’re vacuuming while walking in circles around your room, it comes with a bigger brush to pick up more items and a better filter to hold more particles. If you have allergies like me, this is a huge thing because robot vacs more specifically go into those areas that you otherwise forget about, including under your couches, coffee table, and under your bed. In the past three months, the Neato D6 has not only terrified Sparky to the point he hides under our covers when it’s finding its way around our home, but it’s picked up more dog toy fluff than you could ever imagine.

Paired with the Neato app, you connect the D6 to your home’s WiFi (hopefully after charging it overnight before use, per Neato), and after setting up, you’ll get about 2 hours and 20 minutes of battery. While the D6 initially had to die and return to the charger in order to figure out the mapping of my home (due to changing elements like furniture rearrangements, a Christmas tree, and a curious dog who initially barked and growled at it), the D6’s mapping capabilities might be better than my last three Uber drivers. One caveat is it’s not too fond of cables and cords, so make sure to get those off of your floors ahead of time or else the D6 will sit in position until you physically get off of the couch to reroute it.

For home dwellers, you’ll be happy to know that the D6 does recognize stairs, and it can easily travel between hardwood floors and carpet which is great news. There is also a “Zones” feature that allows you to create “no-go” lines for the Neato D6 to not cross. All you have to do for this is draw lines on the virtual map so it can avoid things such as your pets crate, a shoe rack, or bathrooms where mats are loose and can be caught up throughout the day if you choose to schedule a cleaning while you’re at work.

Using the app, Neato can give you summaries of how good or bad it’s cleaning is going, tell you how full it’s bin is, but more importantly, it has connectivity to Alexa, IFTTT and Google Assistant allowing you to create the task of cleaning your floors no matter where you are with a simple command.

Now the most important question: Is the Neato better than the Roomba? Yes. Should you purchase it? Absolutely. Will it automatically dock itself when necessary? Yes. Do you need to manually vacuum still? Yes.

You have to remember, the Neato D6 is not a do-all handheld vac, but more so a companion, spot checker. So if you’re the type to vacuum heavy one day every few weeks, the Neato is for you. If you have bare floors and want to just be able to pick up the things periodically this is for you. More importantly, if you have a pet, outside of a physical vacuum, this is probably the best robot vacuum that will make sure your four-legged friend’s shedding (both body and toys) will be picked up… even in corners.

For more information on the Neato D6, head over to their site.

Source: manufacturer supplied review unit

What I Like: Simple to set up, iOS app, Zone cleaning is genius

What Needs Improvement: Nothing

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About the Author

Greg Alston
Diehard Apple fanboy, and lover of all things tech. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Greg enjoys spending time with his wife, family, and friends, live sporting events, good bourbon, Tetris, and pizza. In that order.