REASONS TO BUY
Great at corners
Edges
And hard floors
Navigates well
REASONS TO AVOID
Average at carpet
Little harder to use
Neato D5 Connected Review
Not quite the best out there, but it has a lower retail price
The Neato Botvac D5 Connected.
Credit: Neato
By David Wise ⋅ Senior Review Editor ⋅ February 10, 2017
Contributions From: Austin Palmer
RELATED: The Best Robot Vacuums of 2026
Our Verdict
The Neato D5 is a fantastic vacuum, but didn't quite perform well enough to topple the throne of its older cousin, the Neato Botvac Connected. This model earned the second highest score out of the bunch, and did well across the board — although we found it was a little difficult to use and didn't clean carpets as well as we would have liked.
Our Analysis and Test Results
You can control your robot through Amazon Alexa or Google Home, depending on your smart home setup.
The Neato D5. Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Room Navigation
The D5 successfully cleared thresholds between rooms, and could usually drive over thicker cables, like a laptop power cord without becoming stuck or entangled and displaying an error. However, it was a much different story when it came to skinnier cables or cords, as shoelaces, tassels on rugs, and the drawcord from a set of blinds would entangle the robot enough that it required aid to continue cleaning.
The systematic cleaning method of the Neato vacuums quickly and efficiently cleaned the room. Credit: Jenna Ammerman
The D5 cleans in a very ordered way, running a perimeter along the edge of the room and then doing the remainder with a systematic, back and forth pattern. It will also dock and recharge, then resume cleaning if the battery becomes depleted. This allows the robot to do a good job at cleaning both large rooms, which it would subdivide into smaller chunks, and for cleaning multiple rooms. It also does a decent job at navigating around furniture, though it might take it a little while to escape the tightest squeezes and can be a little rough on your furniture in the process.
The Neato models will do their best to maintain a lawnmower, back-and-forth pattern, but have to do some interesting maneuvers to navigate around obstacles in their path. Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Carpet Cleaning
This model successfully collected all the rice on the shallow carpet, skipping only a few grains that were deeply embedded in the crevices of the fluffier carpet. It performed about average in collecting flour from the surface of both carpet styles, but did quite poorly in extracting flour that had been rubbed into the carpet.
D5, I think you missed some... Credit: Austin Palmer
However, this is typical of most robot vacuums, as they aren't really intended for deep cleans, only frequent surface cleans. The D5 did great at collecting all of the oatmeal, only leaving a single flake behind. It did quite terribly at our large particle test, only barely picking up a single Mini-Wheat on fluffy carpet and neglecting all of them on the shallow carpet.
Still missed some. Credit: Austin Palmer
Hard Surface Cleaning
This model picked up every Cheerio that we laid out on the test grid, and collected about 95% of the flour. It did about average at collecting Mini-Wheats, and a great job at collecting oatmeal.
Corners and Edges
The rotating side brush proved invaluable on this test, doing an outstanding job at collecting rice, approximately getting 77% of it. It also did a solid job on hard floors and carpet with flour, only leaving some in the corners of the testing pen.
The D5 initialized and ready to clean the robot pen. Credit: Austin Palmer
The D5 did well, though it left some flour behind in the corners. Credit: Austin Palmer
Pet Hair
It did a great job at picking up hair on the hard floors, though we did notice that some hair became tangled up on the bristles of the brush. It did a little worse on the carpet, with the robot picking up a decent amount of hair, but the majority of it was on the brush rather than in the bin.
A decent amount made it in the bin...and tangled up on the brush. You would probably have to clean the brush daily if you are using this to pick up after your furry friend. Credit: Austin Palmer
Ease of Use
For this model, and the D3 Connected, Neato moved a lot of the control and adjustability to the mobile app. While this does have the added bonus of being able to remotely command the robot to start cleaning, it also limits you to needing your phone to discover what error message is occurring, or to set a schedule.
The app is the main way to control the robot. Credit: Jenna Ammerman
While you can still perform some functions on the device, such as starting cleaning, the one-button interface makes it difficult to do much else, as it requires remembering a sequence of holds and presses on the single button. This robot is easy enough to set up out of the box, and requires identical regular maintenance as the other Neato brand vacuums: Clean the bin and filter off after each use, replace the filter every 1-2 months of use.
Value
This robot isn't a particularly good value, as it has a relatively high retail price. Rather than paying a premium for the best, you pay about $100 less for a small drop in performance for the D5.
Conclusion
The D5 is a great pick for those who want a good product for slightly less, rather than paying for the best of the best. This also is a good pick for those that are comfortable with their phones, and have it on them at all times, as this group will find the shift of control to the mobile app a trivial problem.`
—David Wise and Austin Palmer
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