Earlier this year, I was given an advanced look at beta firmware with the Neato D7. Inside this beta firmware was support for Siri Shortcuts. You might be asking yourself: why do I need a vacuum cleaner with Siri support? Since I’ve never used this robot without Siri support, I’ll explain some of the ways I am using it.
In my quest to build an entire home with Apple supported smart home products, using a Neato vacuum cleaner was something I never considered until I started to work through it in my head. By enabling Siri Shortcuts support, you unlock a lot of possibilities for automating the cleaning of your room. Instead of launching the Neato iPhone app in order to start a cleaning cycle, I simply have to set up a pre-existing cleaning cycle in the Shortcuts app, and then I can start triggering a cycle right from Siri.
With using this robot vacuum with Siri support, I’ve never had cleaner floors. Ben Lovejoy reviewed the Neato D7 back in 2018, but I’ll add to his thoughts as well. I tried a robot vacuum back in 2014, but we still ended up having to clean with a normal vacuum cleaner to get everything clean. Since we’ve had the Neato D7 in our home, I’ve not had to vacuum a single time. I am quite impressed with how clean it gets our floors, and I am equally disgusted as to what it picks up. Even after two months of use, it’s still getting a full container each time it vacuums.
Since I am not a Shortcuts expert, I haven’t expanded out beyond the basics, but it will be fun to see what the experts at MacStories.net can come up with if they get access to the product.
