Neato cloud shutdown

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Owners of Neato robot vacuums lost cleaning schedules, remote start, & no-go zones when Vorwerk phased out the robots' cloud service during the fourth quarter of 2025. Vorwerk had promised at least five years of cloud service when it closed Neato in 2023, & retained a 14-person team in Milan to secure the infrastructure. The machines still clean, but only after someone presses the button on the robot, which starts a full-house run. Italy's competition authority opened an investigation into two Vorwerk subsidiaries on April 23, 2026, & Vorwerk extended an exchange program offering a free Kobold VR7 to European customers who bought a Neato since May 2023 & actively used the cloud features.

Cloud shutdown

Neato published an announcement titled "Announcement - 6th Oct 2025" on its support site on October 6, 2025, & emailed customers a parallel notice. The email obtained by The Verge told the recipient that the robot would no longer have access to cloud services, which were being phased out during Q4 2025.

Without the app, owners cannot set cleaning schedules, start a vacuum remotely, or assign no-go zones. Room & zone selection stopped working alongside the cleaning routines. The machine still has a physical control, which Gizmodo described this way:

The only way to set the vacuum to run is by manually pressing the physical power button on the machine, so the device can mindlessly bounce around between rooms for a bit.

Neato's announcement named no shutdown date, listed no affected models, & enumerated no lost feature. Its "What This Means" section carried a single line, Protection first: We are now phasing out Neato cloud services, while a "What Has Not Changed" section listed the surviving warranty, the manual button, & the support site.

Neato's October 6, 2025 announcement ties the cloud phase-out to cybersecurity standards, compliance obligations and regulatory frameworks that have advanced since 2023, and puts under What Has Not Changed the line Simply press the button once to launch a full house run.

Affected models

Neato's server-status page lists two groups of robots whose servers have been shut-down: the D3, D4, D5, D6, & D7; the D800, D8, D9, & D10.

Neato's server-status page lists two groups of robots, the D3, D4, D5, D6 and D7 and the D800, D8, D9 and D10, each followed by the line The servers have been shut-down.

Background

Vorwerk Group, the German company behind the Thermomix & Kobold brands, acquired Neato Robotics in 2017. Vorwerk announced the closure of Neato on April 27, 2023, saying the company had not achieved the economic goals it has set itself for several years. Neato itself ceased operations in May 2023, the month after that announcement, according to Vorwerk's exchange-program page.

The closure announcement carried commitments. Spare parts & a repair service were guaranteed for at least five years, & Vorwerk said it would staff a team to ensure the security of the infrastructure of Neato's cloud services for at least five years. That team was the 14 employees in Milan. 9to5Mac read the promise as covering the MyNeato app through 2028. The cloud service was phased out during the fourth quarter of 2025.

Vorwerk's press release closing Neato said it was taking over a 14-person team in Milan to secure the Neato cloud infrastructure für mindestens fünf Jahre, for at least five years.

Neato's own revenue figures show how little was left of the business by then. Vorwerk's 2025 annual report books Neato Robotics under discontinued activities at 8.5 million euros in 2022, 3.8 million in 2023, & zero in both 2024 & 2025, with average employee counts of 148, 38, zero, & zero across the same years. Vorwerk told The Verge that Neato Robotics was an independent company within the Vorwerk Group that ceased operations in 2023, & that Vorwerk chose to continue the Neato cloud service voluntarily after the closure.

Vorwerk's response

Neato's announcement attributed the shutdown to changed external requirements:

Since 2023, cybersecurity standards, compliance obligations, and regulatory frameworks have advanced significantly. Under these new conditions, the existing cloud infrastructure can no longer be maintained in a reliable and future-proof way. Updating this environment would not be technically meaningful, nor would it ensure the level of quality and sustainability our customers can expect.

The announcement named no specific regulation. It added that the decision was not made out of convenience or incapacity & framed the shutdown as protective, citing a duty to protect your privacy, your data, and your safety in what it called a fundamentally shifted technological & regulatory environment.

Vorwerk spokesperson Michael Weber gave The Verge a statement, added to its report on November 3, 2025, describing what owners retain:

Neato robots will continue to function in manual mode. Normal functionality is therefore ensured. All existing warranty and service obligations remain in place, and our customer service team is available to support customers during the transition.

Decision against open-sourcing the software

Weber said Vorwerk considered releasing the software & decided against it:

Before reaching this decision, we assessed options such as open-sourcing parts of the Neato software stack. However, the substantial efforts required for IP unbundling and transition, the clarification of all legal aspects in combination with existing hardware still under warranty, and the overlap of technologies with Vorwerk applications make this approach not feasible at this point.

Vorwerk told heise online the same, adding that it did not rule out an open-source release in future.

Local control after the shutdown

Home Assistant told users that its Neato integration would stop working entirely:

Vorwerk announced the upcoming shutdown of all neato cloud services. Because of this shutdown, the integration will no longer be able to control any neato devices, and will thus stop working.

Two open-source projects restore local control: OpenNeato uses a small ESP32 board wired to the robot's debug port; fang has the owner connect an ESP device, the ESP32 included, & parses the robot's data from the serial interface. OpenNeato bridges Botvac models over a serial connection & serves a web interface with a scheduler, manual driving, & a live map, described by its author as needing no cloud, no app, no account; it supports the D3 through D7 & states that the D8/D9/D10 are NOT supported because those models use a different board with a password-locked serial port. The fang project groups the robots into four generations. It lists its fourth generation, the D800, D8, D9, & D10, as Sadly not yet supported, stating that those robots use a different board, chip & firmware, & that we cannot interface with these directly. OpenNeato describes itself as an early beta; fang says the project is in a development state.

The fang FAQ, answering whether the Valetudo cloud-replacement project could work on Neato robots, points to the robot's firmware:

The hardcoded IP address is not a problem for the Neatos but the SSL certificate pinning is, unless there is a way to disable that, is found or a firmware without the SSL certificate pinning is released, a cloud replacement for the Neato robots will never be possible.

The fang repository's front page states that the project has found a way to make the Neato connect to a custom server & is working on a custom app, described as coming soon.

Consumer response

Alexander Schöcke opened a petition on openPetition in October 2025 titled "Vorwerk need to stop destroying working hardware! Keep Neato Robotics cloud alive!", addressed to Vorwerk Group. It asked Vorwerk to reverse the decision, publish the firmware & server source code, or build an integration with an open-source platform such as Home Assistant. The petition had collected just under 4,700 signatures by March 10, 2026, was submitted to Vorwerk on March 19, 2026, & stood at 5,456 signatures with a status of partly accepted as of August 9, 2026.

Italian regulatory investigation

Italy's Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), the national competition authority, announced case PS13069 against Vorwerk Management s.r.l. & Vorwerk Italia s.a.s. on April 23, 2026. The authority said it acted on consumer complaints received between November 2025 & April 2026.

The authority set out the conduct it is investigating & the provisions it cited:

The companies appear to have shut down the Neato robot cloud services, causing the device to lose its essential functions and thus hindering consumers' ability to use it. According to the Authority, this conduct may amount to a misleading and aggressive practice, pursuant to articles 20, 21, 22 and 24 of the Consumer Code. This is because shutting down the software systems of a device that is otherwise still in full working order, radically changes the nature, features and value of the product, hindering consumers' ability to use it.

Italy's competition authority opened case PS13069 against Vorwerk Management s.r.l. and Vorwerk Italia s.a.s. on April 23, 2026, saying that shutting down the software systems of a device still in full working order radically changes the nature, features and value of the product.

Officials carried out inspections at the premises of both companies the day before the announcement, assisted by the Special Antitrust Unit of the Guardia di Finanza, Italy's financial police. Vorwerk said it would cooperate fully with the authorities. The case was also reported by ANSA & by Milano Finanza.

Kobold VR7 exchange program

Vorwerk issued a press release on April 24, 2026 announcing that it had decided to extend its voluntary exchange program to Neato robots bought within the previous three years. Neato's support site set out the terms:

Customers in Europe who purchased a Neato robot since May 2023, following the announcement of the company's closure three years ago, and who actively used the cloud features, will receive a free, current Kobold VR7 robotic vacuum cleaner in exchange for their Neato device.

Vorwerk attributed the program to customer feedback, saying it takes the feedback and concerns of Neato customers seriously & had examined what could best be done for customers after the cloud services were discontinued, while stating that the robots remain functional and can be used manually even without these services. Vorwerk described the program as a voluntary measure by Vorwerk without any legal obligation. The German press release puts this as ohne Anerkennung einer Rechtspflicht, without acknowledgement of a legal obligation. Eligible customers are directed to contact Neato customer service to check eligibility.

The exchange terms give a free Kobold VR7 to European customers who bought a Neato since May 2023 and actively used the cloud features, and call the offer a voluntary measure by Vorwerk without any legal obligation.

Neato announced no new products after the D10 arrived in 2020. Writing in derStandard, Georg Pichler set out the consequence:

Dabei gibt es aber einen Haken: Diese Offerte gilt nur für Neato-Roboter, die nach der Schließung des Unternehmens im Mai 2023 erworben wurden. Da die letzten Modelle unter der Neato-Flagge im Jahr 2020 vorgestellt wurden, dürfte der Kreis der Austauschanwärter ausgesprochen überschaubar sein. Wer seinen Roboter im April 2023 oder früher erworben hat, geht leer aus.

Pichler wrote that the offer covers only robots bought after the May 2023 closure, & that anyone who bought in April 2023 or earlier receives nothing.

See also

• Google Nest thermostat smart features disabled
• Weber terminates June Oven app
• Futurehome Smarthub mandatory subscription fee
• Planned obsolescence
• Right to repair

External links

• Neato announcement of October 6, 2025
• AGCM press release PS13069
• openPetition campaign