In the Lab, the lights are always on.

Silicon Valley’s R&D laboratories are famous for turning big dreams into reality, and The Lab at Neato Robotics is no exception. Transforming a vision into working technology lies at the core of what we do. It’s more than our job, it’s our passion. Neato Robotics is the

Makers of other robotic floor cleaners like to call their products vacuum cleaners. Nice try guys. Their bots are actually brush sweepers combined with tiny support vacuums. That’s how their manufacturers slip the word “vacuum” onto the product. Neato robots are designed as vacuums from the ground up. With a Neato, your floors are being cleaned with a fast compression centrifugal impeller that is ten times more powerful than other robotic floor cleaner on the market.

The Details

Sweepers and vacuums work very differently. A sweeper relies on a bristle brush to pick up debris. The result is that sweepers require frequent brush maintenance to clear the carpet fiber, pet fur and hair that collect in them. If the brushes are not cleaned often, the

sweeper actually grinds debris back into the floor or carpet. With a Neato, the role of the brush is different. The brush loosens debris from the floor, so the vacuum can draw it in to the dirt bin. This method is far more efficient and gives your home a thorough cleaning instead of spreading dirt around.The brush on the Neato XV-11is not bristle-based. It’s comprised of thin, polymer-based blades, the same material found in high-cushion athletic shoes. The blades are softer and more flexible, so they don’t collect hair or fiber the way bristle brushes do. The XV-21 uses a unique bristle/paddle brush. This combination makes it highly effective at picking up animal hair.

Neato robotic vacuums stand apart from all other floor-cleaning robots in the way they perceive the world. Some robots are blind. It’s easy to spot them by the way they crash and bump around the room as they clean. Others rely on cameras that try to make sense of the surroundings, presuming it’s not too dark under the bed. Neato robotic vacuums use focused laser light to measure precise distances of nearby objects. By rotating this laser at high speed, the Neato vacuum quickly builds an accurate map of its surroundings, whether they’re well lit or completely dark. Taking readings at intervals of one degree apart, the laser has a full 360° visibility of its surroundings. The result is that the Neato vacuum builds maps that are more detailed and more accurate than any other consumer robot available today.

The Details

The onboard laser sensor optically collects thousands of distance readings per second, and the robot uses each of these to enhance its understanding of its environment and pinpoint its location. This real-time information makes the Neato vacuum sensitive to any change in its surroundings.

It instantly detects if a person or a pet enters the room and repositions itself to avoid a collision. The laser sensor uses infrared light, so it’s invisible to humans and completely safe. Through innovations in efficiency and sensitive optics, the laser works on very little power. In fact, the light output from the laser is so low that the Neato’s sensor meets all FDA standards to qualify as a completely eye-safe Class I laser.