New Addition to our staff of Domestic Robots!

I HATE cleaning floors. Because of this, I have bought into just about every floor cleaning gimmick out there (up to and including microfiber dust mop slippers). Several years ago, I got an iRobot Scooba, which has been great for mopping, but since there's water involved, it tends to get done far less often than I would hope. It also will only do one room at a time, as I have somewhat tall trim pieces on the floor of my doorways.

So, thanks to several Macy's gift cards and a 20% off coupon, Sean and I bought the Neato Robotics XV-11 vacuum off our wedding registry. Its design is slightly more sinister looking than the Roomba, but it boasts a beater brush, impressive amount of suction, the ability to climb over floor trim pieces, and an eye (Robot Positioning System).

After charging it overnight, we gave it a test run this morning. The first thing I noticed was how it saw obstacles coming its way and smartly avoided them. It did get caught on a few power cords behind the sofa that I had missed in my attempt to clear the floor for the robot, and I had stupidly forgotten to put down the black perimeter marker around the cat's bowls, so there was a minor emergency when the neato knocked over Pixie's water bowl. Luckily, I witnessed it happen and rushed over with towels and dried the neato (and the floor).

I was very impressed at its ability to clean a room, and then proceed on to the next room. I was less impressed with it insisting on getting stuck under my dresser multiple times, and it insisting that it needed its path cleared when it was in the middle of our bedroom floor. However, I told it to go to bed, and it wheeled its way back into the living room and to its charger without incident.

Watching this robot find its charging base is pure joy. It just backs right up into it and there you go.

I was amazed and somewhat horrified at the amount of cat hair in its bin after the cleaning cycle. I've scheduled it to vacuum just about every other morning, so hopefully the amounts of cat hair will decrease as the apartment becomes cleaner.

Neato's first scheduled cleaning is tomorrow morning. I'm curious to see how that works out.