Neato Robotics - XV-11

10-12 years ago, I had a pair of Neato XV21s. They were fine. They were much better cleaners than my Deebot X1 Plus is. My Dreame D9 Max however, picks up better than the XV21s did, but I'm not totally wowed by how much better, so I don't think it's a lot. . I would hope that if you're talking about ones that are above the $200 mark, there would have been significant improvements since then. I can't find the specs on my old ones, but the D9 Max is rated for 4000 Pa, the X1 Plus 5000 Pa .. The X1 Plus's suction is *terrible* though in comparison to the D9. So I guess specs aren't everything. I had a Neato D8 that only lasted about 6 months (and the company offered to replace it, even after they had folded, but I couldn't find my receipt) that was rated for 2500Pa, and it was much better than the X1 Plus, too. With models out there exceeding 20k Pa on the top end, I'd hope there are improvements in the last decade!

No, they don't. We have 5 Neatos and they are great. Even our original XV-11 is still running daily, around 15 years later. Granted, it needs a bit of love (and oil) now from time to time, but it's easy to fix.