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fxtentacle
rhim
I wouldn't say that soldering a pcb [0][1] yourself is beginner-friendly but I understand your argument. Some robots are unfortunately still very difficult to root (which is not valetudos fault), which makes getting started with the project very cumbersome.
jackweirdy
The telegram group has a bunch of people (including myself) willing to mail pre-made ones, or the unsoldered PCBs for self solder.
It has become quite a community around the software and breakout hardware in itself
rhim
Sadly not my region. Maybe I'm 2024 able to get one.
hagmag
[flagged]
moooo99
I think beginner-friendly is kind of relative. Considering the end goal, you're tying to achieve (hack the robot to run your custom software), requiring a user to solder a relatively simple board is a very accessible requirement.
plagiarist
I might be fine with soldering. But it's a completely different skill than running the software to flash something, I can see how it would put people off.
pabs3
The Valetudo page says it is Apache 2 licensed, so that would be open source not source-available?
reedciccio
Indeed, valetudo is open source. The parent comment seems to prefer a different approach but valetudo project took a different path and is forcing the commenter to maintain their own fork (which is a feature of *all open source approved licenses*, not of all source available licenses)
pabs3
How are valetudo forcing people to maintain forks?
brnt
I got my Dreame because it had good Valetudo support. But when it arrived i did a doubletake and saw destructive hardware mods were involved I decided to not mod yet. I never set the thing up with a Chinese account, never told it about my WiFi, and everything works fine. Just use the buttons on the device.
jgalt212
[flagged]
MostlyStable
I've been using this on my Dreame Z10 pro for over a year now, and it's been great. I will never buy a robot vacuum that doesn't have valetudo compatibility (or similar in case an alternative ever shows up I suppose).
While I haven't done much with it yet, I also appreciate the relatively straightforward HomeAssistant integration.
nsagent
I also have the Dreame Z10 Pro. Valetudo and https://dontvacuum.me/ are wonderful resources! I can't speak highly enough of them. Really appreciate all the hard work that went into making rooting robot vacuums with privacy-preserving firmware possible.
rbut
A question for both of you. Did you make your own Dreame Breakout PCB, or did you buy one from someone, or did you wire in directly?
MostlyStable
When I did it, it just required plugging wires into the port. The only difficulty I had was that it was a slightly unusual spacing so I struggled slightly to stick the jumper wires in, but after that it worked fine. Have subsequent Z10s changed this?
Ok after reading the docs, it looks like that board specifically fixes the non standard pitch. I managed without it, but I did have some difficulties with poor connection that the board would have avoided
matthew-wegner
Also chiming in that wiring in directly is easy. There are two types of Dreame rooting:
* Connects to robot's serial port. You'll need a USB-to-TTL cable if you don't have one around to connect to your computer. Z10 Pro uses this method.
* Connects to robot's USB port (still via the debug header). You'll need three of the four wires from a USB cable. You can literally cut open a USB cable here, or get a breakout board. L10s Ultra uses this method.
Plus misc jumper wires to connect it all. The boot button is connecting a wire to boot select, a wire to ground, and touching these wires together (really, the PCB is all three of these things: boot button + serial + direct USB).
rhim
I currently have the same problem, I would like to root my dreame roboter, but unfortunately I can't get the components for the dreame PCB, or nobody sells me a ready soldered dreame PCB. Too bad there is no alternative, but that makes it really hard for people with a dreame robot to use the project.
BHSPitMonkey
I just poked wires in.
smith7018
I've used it on my Roborock S5 for at least 4 years now and love it. It used to be a little unstable (something like it uninstalling itself if the battery dies for too long) but hasn't had any issues in years. I, like you, will never buy an unsupported vacuum again :)
pkulak
I almost pulled the trigger on the Z10, then got worried I’d just brick it and backed out. Now it’s not even available. Hopefully there will be another no-solder option soon.
aksss
Answering the burning question: no, Roomba hardware is locked up and not supported.[1]
But this is really awesome. I don’t love the idea of Roomba having a floor plan of my house and constantly prompting me to buy more crap directly in-app, and HA integration is fantastic. Would allow for far more dynamic scheduling for one thing (everyone out of the house? Get to it! Prioritize this room over that one. People arriving back? Head back to base. Night before garbage day? Notify me to empty/replace collection bag.)
[1] https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
cyberax
Roombas are well-supported in HA, and they can use the local network connection. You still need to use the Roomba app to set up the robots, but afterwards they can work completely locally.
aksss
Do they work completely locally or just without the Roomba app? I mean, if you prevent the i-series from phoning home, does it still work? I guess I could test this pretty easily, but frankly will be pleasantly surprised/impressed if Roomba let their robot run “off-grid” for very long.
Update: pleasantly surprised: https://iroboroomba.com/how-to-use-roomba-without-wifi/
dshdsh
In my experience, without wifi, roombas are loosing their schedules after some time. I don't remember exactly, after couple of weeks maybe. They just stop working according to schedule or star they work on unusual hours.
jojobas
Does Roomba have any physical/sensor/whatever advantage over supported models, either absolute or bank/buck?
dharmab
Roombas tend to be better at cleaning carpets and rugs. They're also designed for service- it's really easy to clear jams and untangle hair, and they last many years. Many of the competitors at lower price points are essentially disposable devices.
One of their models is the only decent vacuum that can automatically avoid pet faeces.
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eastbound
More importantly, Roomba charges per square meter covered (by tier obviously). While it is resting most of the day and could well cover another floor, it’s a feature the base models don’t have.
Let’s say this option costs 100€. Should all users of Valetudo donate 100€?
WirelessGigabit
I'm sorry, WHAT? I need to pay extra to have my Roomba clean all the rooms?
avarun
They seem to be implying that the different tiers of Roomba robots are differentiated by how much square footage they can clean in a session, not that Roomba literally has a usage based pricing model. I don’t know how they came to that conclusion though.
noduerme
I wasn't aware of this either (if it's not a joke)... if so, it would be right up there with HP printers refusing to scan if you don't buy ink.
malfist
GP is incorrect. Roomba does not charge by sqft
dharmab
I own two Roombas and have never heard of this.
TeMPOraL
Not yet, but this is the future. After all, people don't want vacuum cleaners, they want clean apartments, cleaning is a service, and other such self-aggrandizing business bullshit. Welcome to the future!
dharmab
I think you're confused. The sqft is roughly how much they can cover in one go before either the bin is full or the battery is low. You can configure your Roomba to do multiple cleaning jobs in a day, each cleaning certain rooms on that floor. Or just pick up the vac, put it down anywhere in the house, and press the button.
BinaryBrain
This is a wrong/misleading information. When you buy a Roomba, you buy once and use it for free as long as you want.
Namidairo
There's a very recent talk that they did at 37c3 that you can watch, if you're interested in the process of them gaining root on the various platforms [1][2]
[1] https://events.ccc.de/congress/2023/hub/en/event/sucking_dus...
goodpoint
> The Apache-2.0 license is a very permissive license and a lot of work is being shared for free here, so I trust people to not take advantage of that and sell Valetudo; especially not as their own work. > Please don’t disappoint me. Thank you.
Valetudo is a perfect example of a project at risks of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization - OEMs can easily slap it onto their vacuums and prevent users and developers from changing the firmware.
This is exactly what GPLv3 was invented for.
phs318u
Yes. It is almost guaranteed that the code from this project will be used in exactly the way this person fears. Why not use the GPL if you don't want that to happen? Why instead try and beg people to not "disappoint" you? I find it hard to understand why people expect others to 'do right by them', when they aren't prepared to do right by their self (e.g. by choosing a license better fitting your expectation).
goodpoint
Some large tech companies have been carrying on a smear campaign against GPL...
PeterStuer
Direct link to the list of supported robots: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
joshstrange
Not sure if that’s up to date? Roborock S8 Pro Ultra is listed on the page of buying supported robots but it’s not on the supported robots page?
That’s the one I have and I’m interested in Valetudo for hooking into HA but I wish there was an iOS app for it.
csnweb
It’s extremely hard to root, I think that’s why it got removed from the supported robot page. As for ios, just saving the page on the Home Screen really works fine, no need for a native app here imho.
deluxeroyale
I own a Neato Robotics Botvac Connected, and with Neato shutting down, my robots cloud-dependent functions will be useless(remote start, iphone app etc) Unfortunately it’s incompatible with Valetudo.
The Chinese $Mi bots I’ve come across lack the suction power I loved about the Neato. I’m in search of a no-nonsense replacement. Any solid suggestions? Dyson one seems nice but way to expensive.
manmal
Last year I did a lot of research on Reddit and other sites and finally settled on the Roborock S7 Pro Ultra. Some learnings I had along the way:
- Software quality is crucial, and new models are often iffy. Badly programmed vacuums (and almost every brand has those) are incredibly annoying, because they get stuck constantly, fall down stairs, leave dirty areas, can’t find the way to the base station, etc. Roborock seems to be one of the few who nails this.
- Suction power should be maximized, or you’ll spend time cleaning up after the robot. The S7 I bought has 5100Pa and I think that’s acceptable, but I still need to do two runs sometimes (which is low effort for me, but it means more noise).
- Since we wanted a vacuum that also mops: Those mops, if not managed well, get moldy and start to stink after just a few days. Build layout and engineering quality are big factors here - ours almost never stinks even though it has no drying fan (some do).
- A base station is needed for real hands-off usage, and those are damn expensive when bought afterwards. And do change the water tanks regularly, they can get quite smelly, fast. It’s the one non-negotiable maintenance we have to do every week.
- I was looking for vacuums with explicit mention of HEPA filters, but it seems the more expensive ones have decent filters without ever mentioning HEPA. I’m still not sure what grade the S7 filters really are, but it seems allergy friendly (likely also owed to the mop and the usage of a filter bag in the base station).
- Even if the manual says to wash the filter, don’t; they will often degrade. Better to use compressed air (carefully) to clean instead.
Overall, we are still happy with the S7 Pro Ultra after a solid year of usage. It’s been a time saver rather than a time sink, and apart from getting stuck sometimes laying around, it has always done a solid job.
mehuln
Checkout Matic at maticrobots.com.
Few things:
1. We have HEPA bags - each bag acts as HEPA filter.
2. We found that more than suction power, the brush roll is more import for effective sweeping and vacuuming. It picks the dirt way better… so we have designed first of its kind to hair tangle-free brush roll. It is designed to be effective on all kids of surfaces.
3. We further improve efficacy with actuating cleaning head so it adjust the height for each type of surface with diff thicknesses.
4. The HEPA bags last a month if just vacuuming and about a week if daily vacuuming and mopping. It collects both wet and dry messes. It even has version of diaper salt and charcoal powder so it doesn’t smell or get moldy.
5. But the most important is completely Vision first perception with precision 3D system so that it doesn’t get stuck, chew wires, etc.
Indoor world is entirely built by humans, for humans, to fit our vision first perception system. So we have given it a very similar perception system.
6. Private by design. It was built to work completely w/o internet connection.
ratiolat
Looked very promising, but there are some hard blockers: 1. It's not shipping yet, meaning there are no trustworthy reviews. 2. It will be shipped to USA only. 3. It needs apple device for (full) control.
Hopefully all of these will be adressed
latchkey
Similar price point as a S8 Pro Ultra, but without a dock. The dock is actually really nice cause it stores water / dirt and more importantly... cleans the mop after use. Membership is also a non-starter for me.
I think you're going to have a hard time competing against the S8.
FearOfTheDuck
Looks cool! But disposable HEPA bags mean that the owner will be vendor-locked on them.
s0l1dsnak3123
Hi, I'm in the UK and interested in knowing more about Matic. Do you have any plans to ship to the UK any time soon? You mention the device is private by design (this is a huge selling point for me). Does Matic support MQTT or any other open protocol to allow integration with Home Assistant?
deluxeroyale
Thanks, Looks really nice and exactly what I am looking for. I want to mention that my first reaction was “it’s huge, where do i even put it?” And make sure you ship outside the US!
manmal
Sounds good, let’s see how it holds up in the real world ;) I’m not in the market for a vacuum RN btw.
slowmotiony
For the mop getting moldy problem, I recommend to simply get a pack of replacement mops from aliexpress for like $5 or something. After a cleaning cycle, throw the used one in the washing machine and replace it with a new one, it only takes 10 seconds of work and your floor remains bacteria-free.
I have an S8 and it's a real life quality improvement, I love that thing
mehuln
Ours self-cleans so eliminates the hassel of having to replace it after every cleaning cycele.
Rebelgecko
Fwiw, I've found that the main brush from the Q5 works better in my S7 than the factory one
a_t48
The S7 Ultra has a $100 mop heater add-on that helps manage mop stank by drying it out after use.
latchkey
Or just buy a S8 Pro Ultra.
deluxeroyale
Great learnings, thanks for sharing. I have been eyeing the roborock series as there seems to be some sort of consensus on them being slightly better than the others, yet I get this review astroturfing vibe when reading reviews and posts. And like you mention in the learnings; mop gets moldy, dust bag emptying, huge basestation etc just misses the point somehow. I will probably end up getting one slimmed down version from roborock
manmal
The mop doesn’t get moldy for me. What I meant is that there are such reports for other vacuums. The base station is sizable, yes, but tbf it does carry a lot of liquid and dust storage.
viraptor
Similar for my proscenic. While the company exists in theory, the app can't register a new device on Android anymore. Since my last phone update I'm just left with hoping that I never need to change the schedule and it will keep running until it dies.
zzleeper
I'm on the same boat. My neato is already a bit old (needs new battery and I had to replace a broken belt) but I've been procastinating in finding a replacement as there's just so many options, most of which suck.
malfist
> most of which suck
I'd hope so, that's kinda the point.
But seriously, my house hold just replaced the Roombas with roborock and couldn't be happier
mehuln
Yep, roborocks have done a great job maximizing disc bots. And like any other Xiomi product, they tend to do slightly better job with software/app.
zamalek
I've generally been happy with roborocks, and a few are compatible with valetudo. I haven't used it yet, though, because the rooting process is incredibly complex.
louwrentius
I wasn't even aware that Neato is shutting down. I owned two Neato's, one is dead, the other one is dying (screen broken). Still sad.
alexdns
Take a look at vacuum wars on youtube
nicbou
My little robot vacuum has been running Valetudo from day one. It has been rock solid. I literally never use the UI, as I just press a button and let the little puck do its thing (while talking like Glados from Portal).
I just like that thanks to this, my robot vacuum works like a standalone device that does not communicate with anything, yet does exactly what it should.
LeanderK
A bit offtopic, but I really like bauhaus-style cantilever chairs but I always had problems with robots wanting to climb them and then getting stuck/being super loud, same with drying racks. Is this still a problem? I thought maybe those vision/lidar robots can avoid climbing the tubes.
Epa095
My roborock S6 with camera and lidar tries to climb my POÄNG chair.
meohmywow
It’s great to be able to de-cloud. But the community, especially the maintainer of Valetudo, is terrible. Literally everyone is rude every step of the way.
Checkout the telegram channels. Watch the maintainer yell at people, call them names, and watch the supporters eat it up.
tamimio
> rooting and installing Valetudo is a pretty much permanent change.
As much as I like the project and appreciate its concept, but this is a deal breaker unless your robot is out of warranty, because you will be under the mercy of some random developer instead of the vendor.
vikeri
This is amazing, I wish it had support for Ecovacs too
archi42
Dennis Giese - the guy who did & published many of the actual vacuum roots - actually did a talk at 37c3, just yesterday! Together with Braelynn he published rooting methods for Ecovacs. Expect easy & comfortable root using the UART debug connector.
Valetudo support seems to be coming, however "it's done when it's done"; the necessary work is more dramatic due to the different protocol Ecovacs uses for cloud communication.
Until then: I would make sure not to update the device firmware. Just be prepared to wait and keep an eye on the release notes and/or Valetudo webpage (unlike with other projects, you can safely assume it to be up to date).
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This project tries to both be open source and accessible to regular people. And it kinda succeeds :)
For the end users, there's a telegram group where people can share standardised PCBs for rooting common robots sold in Europe. And the project's main developer is even in there actively helping out. But discussion about forks or custom PCBs is frowned upon, as that would only confuse the non-devs.
On the developer side, thought, making things easy and standardised required some trade-offs like not supporting any robot-specific functionality. That means if you're a power user, you'll probably run your own fork.
So in a way, installing Valetudo moves you from a Chinese closed-source walled garden into a European source-available walled garden. That said, I'm extremely happy with my (private, unsupported) fork running on 2x Dreame W10.