NEWARK, Calif., July 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Neato Robotics®, a Silicon Valley company that pioneers new technologies and products to free people from household chores, today announced the appointment of Nancy Nunziati as vice president of marketing and Allen Hollingshead as vice president of sales, Americas. Both executives will report directly to CEO Warren Flick.

As vice president of marketing, Nunziati will lead marketing strategy development and execution, product marketing, branding and corporate identity, company and product positioning, advertising and public relations, and internal and external communications for Neato Robotics. She is responsible for driving global demand generation, retail product and packaging design, and all online and social media properties.

In his role as vice president of sales, Americas, Hollingshead will oversee the sales team and channel marketing programs for the Americas. His responsibilities include account penetration, distribution and overall growth.

“Nancy and Allen will each play pivotal roles in driving demand and sales for Neato Robotics products through our rapidly-expanding channels of distribution around the world,” said Neato Robotics CEO Warren Flick. “They both have outstanding track records and decades of experience in growing the value and market share of numerous leading brands.”

With more than 25 years of experience working with technology companies, Nunziati has developed and executed dozens of creative and dynamic marketing strategies and programs. Her management experience ranges from early-stage startups to multi-billion dollar global powerhouses, such as Cisco and Logitech. She worked with Logitech for more than a decade in various roles, including director of Internet marketing and e-commerce; senior manager, customer satisfaction; and various product marketing management positions. Other brands she represented include NETGEAR, Dolby Laboratories and Palm/HP. Nunziati also worked on pro-bono marketing projects for non-profits through the Taproot Foundation. In addition to her extensive technology marketing experience, Nunziati has recently worked with several up and coming musical artists to produce a music video and an award-winning album. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Hollingshead is a dynamic leader with extensive marketing, sales and general management experience. During the last fifteen years, he has generated more than $3 billion in revenues and driven significant margin and market share growth for several global business leaders. Prior to joining Neato Robotics, he served as senior vice president of international sales and business development for Sensio, Inc., a privately-held international home kitchen appliance company that designs, markets and manufactures products for the retail consumer products category. He expanded its private-label business for large retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kohl’s and JC Penney’s, as well as core branded business across all retailers.

Between 1995 and 2009, he worked in various senior management roles for Hamilton Beach Brands, including more than 12 years as vice president, consumer, global commercial sales and international consumer sales and marketing. Hollingshead earned his Master of Business Administration degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Arizona State University. He also completed executive management programs at Harvard Business School, University of Michigan and the Thunderbird School of International Business.

About Neato Robotics
Neato Robotics believes it is possible to create robots smart enough to perform household chores as intelligently and efficiently as a human. Neato is dedicated to improving consumers’ lives, allowing them to spend less time cleaning and more time with family and friends. Neato is driving innovation with products like the Neato Robot Vacuum that are smarter, more powerful, and more effective than anything previously seen on the market.

For more information, please visit www.neatorobotics.com

When I told people that I’ve been testing the newest Roomba vacuum this week, I got a variety of reactions.
“A robotic vacuum is like an electric shaver,” one friend said. “It does a good job but it doesn’t get super close.”
“Never trust a man who thinks using a Roomba is cleaning,” an editor warned.
“Seven hundred dollars?” another person said. “Will it make its way to the fridge and get me a beer, too?”
The Roomba, for those not familiar with the product, is a disc-shaped, robotic vacuum cleaner that zips around your home and sucks up the dirt and dust in its path. The newest model includes some features — a slightly updated design, a remote control, extra replacement brushes, and three cone-like towers that set boundaries for the ’bot — that had to be purchased separately with some earlier models.
But, to my friend’s point, the Roomba is pricey — at $700, it’s a hundred dollars more than the Roomba 780, and $270 more than the Roomba 564. By comparison, Neato Robotics’s newest robotic vacuum, aimed at pet owners, costs $429; while Evolution Robotics makes a floor-sweeper called the Mint Plus that retails for just $299.
It’s fitting that iRobot, the Bedford, Mass.-based robotics company that makes commercial and military robots, is touting a “wireless command center” with this latest Roomba — a really fancy way to describe a remote control.
The Roomba 790 had almost free rein of my apartment’s floors this week while the place was being painted. While it did a decent job of vacuuming my place, I found there were few features that justified such a high price point.
IRobot suggests initially charging the Roomba overnight, but after two and a half hours on the charging dock, my Roomba 790 was good to go. The vacuum uses built-in nickel metal hydride batteries, which can be replaced if they weaken over time, but, for the most part, the consumer doesn’t have to deal with batteries.
The Roomba 790 can run for one hour to three hours before needing another charge. In my experience, it never sputtered and died during a cleaning cycle, since the Roomba smartly docks itself on a charger in between cycles.

Each cleaning cycle varies, depending on what kind of floor you’re running the Roomba on and how dirty the space is. For example, the Roomba’s first session in my two-bedroom apartment lasted about 50 minutes, while subsequent cycles were much shorter.
My Roomba had a mind of its own. It bounced off walls, barrelled its way into different bedrooms, plowed through piles of shoes, wasn’t afraid to look under the bed, and eventually found its way out from under a chair. Sometimes, when I pressed “Dock” on the remote to return the Roomba to its resting place, it took about five minutes to finish cleaning and get back to home base. At other times, it would return to the dock in about a minute.
My apartment is so small that I didn’t really have to use all three towers to create boundaries. I did, however, place a couple near the two bedroom doorways, thus successfully preventing the Roomba from going into those rooms (and making a bigger dent in my messy shoe pile).
When the Roomba finished a cycle, it made a triumphant little noise, as if to say, “Look, Ma — no hands!”
While the Roomba 790’s path to cleanliness at times seemed random, iRobot says the Roomba is designed to cover the same areas over and over again, with the belief that cleaning multiple times is key to getting a cleaner floor. And to that point, iRobot says, it more realistically mimics human behavior, as we often vacuum over the same area twice.

The Roomba uses a combination of software and optical sensors on the robot to read the area in front of it, and then chooses from more than a dozen programmed behaviors to decide how it’s going to tackle that floor.
Also, like earlier models, this Roomba has a tiny brush that sweeps from side to side as it is sliding around — like the tail of a horseshoe crab.
But the 790 definitely didn’t pick up everything on the hardwood floor. It left behind or entirely ignored coins, pieces of Styrofoam, and some dust tufts in hard-to-reach corners.
That’s where the remote control came in handy. Using that, I could easily direct the Roomba to pick up items it had missed; I could press “Spot” to instruct the Roomba to focus on a specific area. However, guiding and following the Roomba with a remote led me to believe I could do a better job myself if I just had a regular old vacuum in front of me. And it kind of defeats the whole idea of a robot vacuuming the house while you’re gone.
I could also schedule the Roomba for a cleaning. In my test, it started when it was supposed to, and returned itself to the dock when it was done.
I then placed the vacuum on a carpeted area. The Roomba is supposed to automatically adjust by lifting itself a little higher when it transitions from a flat surface to plush carpeting. The Roomba did a pretty good job of picking up obvious particles on the carpet.

After a few good runs, the Roomba was ready to be emptied. I simply turned it over, squeezed the plastic section where the dirt and dust had accumulated, removed it and emptied it into the trash.
In my case, there was such a lopsided ratio of hardwood-to-carpet that I wondered if a floor cleaner geared toward hardwood and tile floors might be a better ’bot for me. IRobot makes such a product: the Scooba, which, at the high end, currently retails for $500. Evolution Robotics makes a competing cleaner, the Mint Plus, which both sweeps and cleans.
I ran the Mint Plus after the Roomba was done vacuuming, just to see how it works. The Mint is square-shaped and much quieter than the Roomba. When the Roomba was running, I couldn’t make a phone call without explaining I was testing a robot. When the Mint was careening around in the kitchen, it sounded like a light-footed, curious cat.
But the Mint, which took a more methodical approach to cleaning, was also a little bit lethargic. Each of its sessions lasted about 10 minutes — making it more efficient, but not necessarily more effective.
For a whopping $700, I was hoping that the Roomba 790 would clean up every dust bunny, every last strand of hair, and in a super-intelligent way. So, while the robots may someday take over the world — and robotic cleaning certainly has its hassle-free benefits — this one’s not taking over all of your domestic duties just yet.
If you’re sold on what the Roomba can do, and like the idea of putting a robot vacuum on a schedule, a cheaper model without all the accessories might do the trick.

I’ve said it many time before but I have a strange obsession with vacuums.
I look at vacuums the way some men look at cars. The way some women look at clothes. I don’t know what it is but my entire house could be cluttered and messy but if I have clean floors I’m happy.
As far as obsessions go, it’s fairly harmless and actually might be helpful, specially in a house full of people with allergies.
This sign adorns our foyer:

Nothing fancy, one day I hope to have it made into an actual sign.
But it illustrates my obsession with clean floors.
It’s this obsession that led me to be fascinated with the Neato Robot Automatic Vacuum. You mean a vacuum that doesn’t require you to push it around the house? Hello, this is the holy grail for vacuum obsessed folks like me.
Needless to say, I was extremely excited by the opportunity to get to test one out.
Neato Automated Robotic Vacuums are real vacuum cleaners, not simply floor sweepers that push the dirt around and suck up some of it. Neato vacuums clean up all sorts of dirt and debris from carpet and hard floors, and it does it automatically with a touch of a button or by programming it to vacuum on a schedule. The Neato does it all without any help from you including returning to its base to charge when it is finished. The only thing you have to do is empty the collection bin.
Take a look at some of the additional features of a Neato Robot:

The Neato XV-21 is specially designed for pet owners and allergy sufferers.
Description
New! Neato XV-21 Automatic Vacuum Cleaner is specially designed for pet owners and allergy sufferers. With the most powerful suction of any automatic vacuum cleaner, the Neato XV-21 picks up dirt, debris, and even the toughest pet hair. It vacuums your floors so you don’t have to do it.
The Neato XV-21′s special filter retains more than three times the amount of fine dust particles of standard filters, which is perfect for those with allergies.
A new bristled brush improves the pick-up of pet hair, dander and fibers.

Setup and assembly:
The Neato XV-21 requires no assembly. It comes with a base/charger, a roll of boundary marker, and an original style vacuum brush (no bristles) in addition to the already installed pet hair brush. Setup requires finding a proper location for the base unit, plugging it in and allowing the Neato to charge.
How to use:
The Neato Robot is easy to use. You can follow the instructions on the small screen to start the vacuum or you can set it to schedule at a specific time or day. You can also stop it at any time and send it back to its base. Once the Neato completes the vacuuming it will return automatically. The boundary marker allows you to set certain areas off limits for the Neato in case there is an area or room you don’t want it to enter in its cycle. It will keep going from room to room until it finds itself back where it started.
If you want to clean just a small area (4′x6′) you can position the Neato centered and facing the area to be cleaned and select “spot clean” and it will clean just that small area.
The Neato uses laser based tracking and positioning and maps the rooms locating walls and furniture. The map is constantly updated as it vacuums to ensure it doesn’t miss a spot. It is super smart and senses stairs and does not fall down them.
How it performs:
I was pretty impressed by the Neato XV-21. It’s smart and actually cleans very well. It moves slowly and methodically covering every inch of the floor. It picked up a lot of dirt and a lot of dog hair. I feel confident my floor is clean after it vacuums.
I really like the idea that I can do other things while the Neato does the vacuuming, but it doesn’t eliminate my work all together. Because I am not there doing the vacuuming, I have to do a cursory walk-through of the house to make sure there is nothing it will suck up that will clog it or break it such as a doll with long hair or water from the dogs bowl that dripped all over the floor. But really this is such a short exercise that it’s a small price to pay for having your floors cleaned while you get other things done.
Also, while the dirt compartment does seem to hold quite a bit for its size, it is nowhere near the size of a traditional vacuum. This means you have to empty it frequently and the unit doesn’t seem to indicate when it is full while in use. I wish the unit would stop and beep when the collection cup was full. There is an indicator light that claims it will turn from green to amber when full, and the screen is supposed to tell you it is full but the unit does not stop, it will keep running even though it is full. Plus the indicator light stays green and I do not get a full notice on the screen when the cup is full.
The noise level of the Neato is pretty great. It’s much quieter than my regular vacuum.
The Neato does very well between rooms, over thresholds and on small bathroom rugs. It doesn’t get stuck, even if it seems like it might, it manages to get itself corrected. I also like that it cleans under the beds and tables without me having to move them.
Finally, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that you can actually tell the carpet was cleaned when you look at it. It leaves those streaks that leave you feeling satisfied and sure your carpet has recently been vacuumed.

One annoyance I have found is that on manual use, if the unit runs out of charge, it returns to the base but doesn’t give you the option to pick up where it left off. When you schedule cleanings, however, the unit will stop to charge and return to where it left off to complete the cleaning.
Overall I give the unit a thumbs up. Simon, however, keeps letting it run over his tail and more than once has stood up with it attached, so he is not a big fan. Toby follows it around like it is another animal and is intrigued by it. I wouldn’t use it for full blown cleaning of an entire house with dogs if you haven’t vacuumed in a few days or so. I would probably vacuum with my regular vacuum then set the Neato to perform all my future daily maintenance because of the dirt collection volume.
See it in action:
The video below was taken as I told the unit to return to its base (sorry for the dogs barking). It’s fairly long but gives you an idea of the speed and smartness of the Neato XV-21. Please note that it hadn’t run a full cycle so you will still see some stuff on the floor.

Where to buy:
You can purchase the Neato XV-21 on Amazon.com for $429.99 or on the Neato Robotics website.