Neato XV-15 robotic vacuum cleaner

Until very recently the Roomba, made by American Company iRobot, has had the robotic vacuum cleaner market all to itself.

But last year Samsung released its two Navibot cleaners and now Neato Robotics, another American firm, has brought its XV-15 to the UK. Click here to read our review of the iRobot Roomba 780, the new competitor to the XV-15.

This small, compact cleaner is exactly the same as the earlier XV-11 except for the colour. It's about the same size as the Roomba cleaners, just over 12in wide. Rather than being circular it's slightly D-shaped, and a little taller at around 4in. That's partly because of the small ‘turret' that sticks out of the top, which is used for navigation.

The video on this page shows the Neato XV-15 in action, albeit speeded-up. We shot it partly with a 'night-vision' infra-red camera to show the tracks made by its lidar. Click here to see it in high-definition.

The Neato XV-15 uses a technique called ‘lidar' or laser rangefinding, to get around the home. A device inside the turret fires out an infrared laser – the pulses from which the Neato uses to track where it is in relation to other objects.

It was easy to set up, with a foot-wide ‘dock' that needs to go in a corner somewhere. This kind of cleaner is only useful for one floor of a house, though it will detect the edge of the stairs and not fall down them. It comes with a thick strip of material that's used to block off areas – cut a strip off and paste it across the floor of a doorway and the Neato bot won't enter. It's slightly cumbersome, though, as the strip is quite conspicuous. An extra roll costs £22.

It comes with an internal dust filter and a small dust box into which all the rubbish is sucked. This should be cleared after each clean, according to Neato. It's not a big chore, although the dust filter must be removed to open the box, and at this point a small cloud of dust puffed out, as happens with other bagless vacuum cleaners. A replacement dust filter is supplied, and extras cost £15 for four.

The laser detection worked very well – the XV-15 took a few seconds before each clean to scan its area, and compared with the Roomba models, which take a relatively zig-zagging path around rooms, the XV-15 took simple paths that avoided duplication. It was able to sense and move around, without hitting, circular objects such as a plant pot.

It was therefore able to do most rooms quite quickly, and it ‘learns' what a room looks like for the future. When the layout changed it wasn't fazed, however, it just started again. The squared-off front allows it to get close to edges, but while it glided over one rug in the living room, another in the bathroom got scrunched to one side. And you can't leave anything lying around – loose shoelaces or cables will get dragged around the house.

No cleaner of this type can be used to replace a full vacuum cleaner – for a start it only clears dust at ground level and only relatively small particles. Because of its size it can't get into tight corners and nooks; the sucking vents at the sides did their best but you'll still need to use another cleaner or a duster to get the rest. The manual says as much – the XV-15 is designed to take some of the hard work out of cleaning, but not all of it.

There's a screen on the top which can be used with the control buttons to set a schedule - it can clean once a day, every day if you wish, or just one or two days a week, and it can clean each day at a different time if that's more convenient.

It was quite loud in use, although it was less loud than many full-sized vacuum cleaners. There are good light, screen and sound alerts for the status, and it backs neatly into the dock when it's finished.

The video on this page shows the Neato XV-15 in action, albeit speeded-up. We shot it partly with a 'night-vision' infra-red camera to show the tracks made by its lidar. Click here to see it in high-definition.