It will add some great features to the vacuum. If you own a Botvac D7 Connected, be sure to installed the latest firmware. The more convenient alternative is to buy second and subsequent base stations for each floor you want to robot to vacuum. Each extra charging base, however, costs about $40. But there’s a caveat: You’ll need to move the charging station to that floor the first time you have the robot vacuum it-and every time thereafter, placing it in exactly the same spot-so the robot knows where to return to once it’s finished. If your home has multiple levels, you can create independent maps for each level.
I created one for my home theater and called it “Media Room.” Now I can instruct the vacuum to clean the Media Room, and it will move from its base station directly to that room, vacuum it, and then return to its charging base. You’re now able to designate any area on the map of your home that the vacuum creates as a discrete zone. Neato introduced Zone Cleaning with an October update, and improved that feature substantially with a December update. Updated Decemby executive editor Michael Brown to report additional features Neato has added to the Botvac D7 Connected via firmware updates.
Ultimately, we each must solve that conundrum for ourselves, but we can say that the Botvac D7 Connected is an object lesson in “you get what you pay for.” On the other hand, there’s a heart-stopping price tag that makes you question just how much that convenience is worth. The Neato Botvac D7 Connected represents the best and worst of robot vacuum technology: On the one hand, there’s cutting-edge features that let you perform one of the most-loathed household tasks while barely lifting a finger.