Quick tip: If you came here just to get firmware with a non-expired certificate, and otherwise know what you're doing, jump to the Firmware download links section. There are firmware images there that may work.
- Table of contents
- Introduction
- Firmware download links
- Motivation
- Update procedure
- Updating faster
- USB OTG Cable
- Factory reset
- Firmware certificates and signatures
- Bypassing certificate expiration
- Firmware version notes
- Feedback
This document contains links to firmware images from the Internet Archive mirror of the official Neato Robotics server for the Neato Botvac D3, D3 Pro, D4, D5, and D7 robot vacuums as well as information on how to install them, including how to bypass expired certificates.
These are the official firmware packages but with the expired certificate replaced by non-expired certificates. The firmware images themselves are unchanged.
If you try the self-signed firmware image, whether or not your robot accepts the firmware, please open a GitHub issue or discussion on this repository to report your findings. As of February 20, 2025, we do not yet know if it works.
| Version | Firmware Date | Certificate Validity | Download |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.5.3_189 | 2019-10-29 | 2025-02-20 to 2125-01-27 | Neato_4.5.3_189.tgz (self-signed certificate) |
| 4.5.3_189 | 2019-10-29 | 2025-02-18 to 2026-03-19 | Neato_4.5.3_189.tgz (precertificate) |
| 4.6.0_72 | 2020-01-27 | 2025-02-18 to 2026-03-19 | Neato_4.6.0_72.tgz (precertificate) |
| 4.2.0_102 | 2018-07-12 | 2025-02-18 to 2026-03-19 | Neato_4.2.0_102.tgz (precertificate) |
Most users should choose 4.5.3_189. See the Firmware Version Notes section below for more information on these firmware versions.
It is up to you whether to try the precertificate or self-signed certificate version. The precertificate firmware has been confirmed to work, so that one can be installed through at least March 2026. We do not yet know if the robot will accept the self-signed firmware. If it does, it will be installable for the next hundred years.
If you are feeling adventurous, try the self-signed version first. If that does not work, use the precertificate version.
These are the original firmware images and signatures, now all with expired certificates. Additionally, as of February 8, 2025, the firmware images are no longer available directly from the official Neato Robotics server, which now returns an "Access Denied" error. Copies remain accessible through the Internet Archive.
| Version | Firmware Date | Certificate Validity | Download |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.5.3_189 | 2019-10-29 | 2024-01-19 to 2025-02-19 | Neato_4.5.3_189.tgz (via Internet Archive) |
| 4.6.0_72 | 2020-01-27 | 2019-03-20 to 2021-03-19 | Neato_4.6.0_72.tgz (via Internet Archive) |
| 4.2.0_102 | 2018-07-12 | 2018-01-17 to 2019-05-11 | Neato_4.2.0_102.tgz (via Internet Archive) |
Neato Robotics, a subsidiary of Vorwerk & Co. KG, ceased operations in 2023. This document is an effort to keep their robots running.
When troubleshooting or repairing a Neato Botvac D3, D3 Pro, D4, D5, or D7, it may be necessary to install new firmware on the robot. The firmware is generally no longer obtainable through the Neato app, even though the app may suggest that an update is available. Resetting your robot may revert it to outdated firmware.
Unfortunately, the official firmware images can no longer be installed directly due to expired certificates. This document provides information on how to bypass this limitation. There are many links to repackaged versions of the firmware images with different expiration dates available online, but generally those are expired now as well.
I created this document to share what I learned while exploring the options to update my Botvac D7 Connected to the 4.5.3_189 firmware after a factory reset reverted it to 4.2.0_102. I found that the app could not update the firmware and all of the firmware images shared on forums had expired certificates. I hope this document will help others in the same situation.
Please note that updating firmware involves inherent risks, including the possibility of making your robot inoperable or "bricking" it. By following these procedures, you acknowledge and accept these risks. If you are uncertain about these steps or their consequences, it is advised not to proceed. The information provided here is for educational purposes only, and the author assumes no liability for any damage or loss resulting from its use.
You may wish to read the Updating faster section below to speed up the install process.
If you are reading this after March 2026 and you need to install firmware with an expired certificate, see the Bypassing certificate expiration section below first.
To install firmware on your Neato Botvac, you generally do not need to press any buttons or perform a factory reset on your robot. You really only have to plug in a flash drive and the robot handles the rest.
First, prepare a USB flash drive:
-
Obtain a USB flash drive and ensure it is formatted as FAT-32 (not exFAT).
Note: You may need to try a couple drives. Some users have said the drive needs to be at least 16 GB (even though the firmware images themselves are under 16 MB). Others have reported problems with USB 3.x drives, with the upgrade freezing during the "copying logs" stage, and suggest USB 2.0 drives. I've had perfect success with USB 3.x drives, myself, but if you have issues, you may wish to try another drive.
-
Create a folder on the flash drive named
RobotData. Capitalization is important. -
Copy the firmware
.tgzfile directly into theRobotDatafolder on the flash drive. Do not extract the contents of the archive; the robot will do this itself.
At this point, I suggest having the robot fully charged and on its charging base. Ensure the robot is turned on. Then:
-
Remove the robot's dustbin to expose its micro USB port.
-
Plug the flash drive into your robot using a USB OTG cable.
-
The robot will automatically detect the firmware file and begin the update process, with the lights on the left flashing rhythmically.
-
The robot will play a sound and reboot once the update is complete.
Note: At least one user had to power-cycle the robot after the robot rebooted to get the new firmware to take effect. If the new firmware does not appear to be installed, you may wish to try powering the robot off and back on again.
In my experience, if I have cleared the log files first (as explained in the Updating faster section), the update process only takes a minute or two.
You would be well-advised to not interrupt a firmware update while in progress.
The next time you open the Neato app, it will inform you that the firmware update was successful. You can check the firmware version in the Neato app or with the free Neato Toolio utility.
When the robot processes an update, whether it is successful or not, it will generally delete the firmware file from the flash drive. This is likely to ensure that when the robot reboots it doesn't try to update itself again. If you are planning to update a second robot, you will need to copy the firmware file back onto the flash drive and start again.
If the firmware file was not deleted, it was likely in the wrong folder or had the wrong name and was not recognized by the robot.
Before installing new firmware, your robot will create a folder called RobotLogs on the USB drive and fill it with things like log files and crash dumps. This can take a long time.
You can use the free Neato Toolio utility to clear these files from the robot. If done in advance, this can speed up the firmware update process.
Connecting your robot using Neato Toolio is outside the scope of this document, however it is fairly straightforward with an appropriate USB cable connected to your computer. Once you have it connected and talking, in Toolio use the "ClearFiles" option under "Tools" and click the second button to clear all of the data. (You may also safely click each of the two buttons in turn if you want to delete the files in stages.)
There is no known reason to keep these files, as they are likely for Neato support to diagnose issues. Deleting them does not result in the loss of any history, maps, or settings on your robot.
You will need a USB OTG ("On-The-Go") cable to connect a USB flash drive to your Neato Botvac. Your Botvac may have come with one, but there is no need to use the official cable (which sells for around $30 US).
If you do not already have one, what you are looking for is an OTG Micro USB 2.0 Male to USB Female cable. You can find them on Amazon or eBay for a few dollars. (They are mostly used to connect USB devices to older smartphones and tablets.)
The Botvac is supposed to keep a secondary, backup firmware image from when it was originally shipped. If something goes wrong and your robot is not in a usable state, you may wish to attempt to have the bot revert to this backup image by performing a factory reset (also sometimes called a "hard reset"). This involves a process of holding down the front bumper in a certain way while pressing and releasing the power button, at certain intervals.
The specific steps to do this are outlined in this reddit comment by u/woutske. Note that not all of the steps may be necessary.
Of course, it is not guaranteed that this process will work or that you will always be able to do this.
The firmware images are signed by Neato Robotics, and the certificates are valid for a certain period of time. If the certificate has expired, the robot will not accept the firmware image.
This has, historically, been the largest stumbling block to updating firmware outside of the Neato app.
Although the neato.cloud certificate was renewed according to crt.sh, we do not have a copy of the full certificate, only the precertificate. However, it has been confirmed that the robot accepts a precertificate just like a regular certificate.
In the past, you could have moved the Signing.crt file from a non-expired firmware image to an expired one, and the robot would accept the firmware image. This is because the certificates all use the same private key, so the existing signatures remain valid.
The 4.5.3_189 firmware image contains a certificate which was valid until 2025-02-19. Up to February 19, 2025, you could have placed the Signing.crt file from that .tgz into the .tgz file of another firmware image, using a program like 7-Zip to open the .tgz files and replace the Signing.crt file, and the robot would have accepted it.
Now we need to replace the Signing.crt file with something else. We have two options.
This is currently the recommended method to use as of Feburary 22, 2025, as it is known to work.
It is possible to replace the expired certificate with a non-expired neato.cloud precertificate. For example, there is a neato.cloud precertificate that expires in March 2026.
Full details on this method are provided in the Precertificate Firmware directory of this repository. Rather than read that, alternatively you can simply download ready-to-use firmware images created in this way directly from the links above.
It may be possible to sign the firmware with a self-signed certificate that you generate yourself, with an expiration date hundreds of years in the future. This would work if the robot does not verify the certificate chain, and does not use the certificate for anything other than the initial signature verification.
As of this writing, this method has not yet been tested.
However, full, detailed instructions for this method are provided in the Self-Signed Firmware directory of this repository. You can also download a ready-to-use firmware image created in this way directly from the link above.
If you must install firmware with an expired certificate, you need to trick the robot into believing the date is before the certificate expiration date.
The idea is to prevent the robot from obtaining the current date, so it will accept any signed firmware image regardless of the expiration date.
You may be able to first remove the battery from your robot (so that it loses the current time). Once your robot is without power, you need to prevent the robot from connecting to your Wi-Fi network when it turns back on. Some methods to do this include:
- Temporarily turning off your Wi-Fi router, or
- Changing your Wi-Fi SSID or password, or
- Blocking its MAC address in your router settings, or
- Bringing it to someone else's house (for example), or
- Deleting your Wi-Fi network from the robot
Some of those are easier than others, and many may cause other issues, so be careful. If you are unsure about these, taking it to someone else's house is the easiest option. Be sure to bring your charging base.
Once you have done one of those, then reinstall the battery. The robot should turn back on but be unable to obtain the current date and time.
Important note: If the robot stores the last-known date and time somewhere in non-volatile memory, this may not work. It might just reset to that. Whether or not it does this is unknown. Therefore, if you try this, please open a GitHub issue or discussion on this repository to report your findings.
There is also a guaranteed known-working way to do this. You can instead do a full factory reset on your robot, disconnect the battery, then reinstall it. Here is a tutorial from u/cof53a on reddit. However, a factory reset should generally be avoided if possible, so only try this if nothing else works.
The robot obtains its date from the pool.ntp.org NTP servers. You can set your router to redirect the robot to your own NTP server, using something like Pi-hole or a custom DNS server. You could then configure your own NTP server to return a date before the certificate expiration date.
Explaining how to do this is beyond the scope of this document and is left as an exercise for advanced readers.
This is the latest official firmware pushed to the robots over the air before Neato Robotics shut down, and enables all known features and provides bug fixes over earlier firmware versions.
This is likely the safest firmware version to install.
As far as the current .tgz file as of this writing, it appears that a Vorwerk employee repackaged it on February 9, 2024 with a certificate valid through February 19, 2025.
Although the firmware .bin file in this archive has a newer date than in earlier archives, the .bin itself is identical to earlier copies.
The SHA256 hash of the Neato_4.5.3_189.bin file, which is the actual firmware image inside the .tgz, is
3d36076fbf3c196ef452b81d54857c75c17ac6eca24ef614aff27a8decc56ef8.
This .tgz file also contains a (normally hidden) ._Signing.crt metadata file, likely because the archive was created manually on a Macintosh computer. This unnecessary, additional file does not interfere with the update procedure and does not need to be removed.
The certificate contained in this firmware package is currently expired, but this can be bypassed using the methods described above.
Some users have reported that the 4.6.0_72 firmware was installed by Neato on their robots after RMA service. It has never been pushed to robots over the air, but was available on the Neato server. The changes in this firmware version compared to 4.5.3_189 are not publicly documented.
The SHA256 hash of the Neato_4.6.0_72.bin file, which is the actual firmware image inside the .tgz, is
38973d99f40df5ae7a51eed8db361bfa80c1fe21a274b66df9d6b461d97d8a72.
The certificate contained in this firmware package is currently expired, but this can be bypassed using the methods described above.
This is the earliest documented firmware update for the Neato Botvac D7 Connected, and was shipped with at least some robots. If your robot shipped with this firmware, this is the version that your Botvac will revert to if you perform a factory reset. At this time, there is no known reason to install it manually.
The SHA256 hash of the Neato_4.2.0_102.bin file, which is the actual firmware image inside the .tgz, is
4c67919bf53771f730bc1c3756532079e3ed7e51bb349a03559417d4645a9fb7.
The certificate contained in this firmware package is currently expired, but this can be bypassed using the methods described above.
If you try one of these firmware images, whether or not your robot accepts the firmware, or if you notice any problems with or have any suggestions for this document, please open a GitHub issue or discussion on this repository to report your findings.
