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If I have an old Roomba can I hack a new brain into it? I’ve got a Raspberry Pi and a soldering iron and a willingness to break them for science. Never done much hardware hacking though.
Technically yes GPIO -> pin headers of each physical control.
Sick, but also in the mean time check out the Valetudo project
Looks pretty cool but a very short list of compatible devices. Also, what they consider “budget options” are not what I would consider “in my price range”. LoL 😂
What is your price range, a button and two shells? The S5 can be found for 50 bucks used.
It’s three shells, and I still don’t know how to use them.
I wasn’t able to even find that one. And several of the others. Were you on Amazon or eBay?
Ebay, and the local used market (something like Facebook marketplace or Craigslist)
I love valetudo!
But I also think there should be more open source robotics, and a robot vacuum feels the right topic as a starting point.
I think I also saw someone that wanted to make a robot grass cutter.
This is why I love foss software. Their is some guy hacking away at some very specific problem in his own time and he shares it with the world for free. You will have never heard of this problem or even contemplated its existence but once u know some foss developer has solved it going back to a world where it doesn’t exist is just a little bit duller.
As i understand it Valetudo is not actually firmware to control the robot. It is a “parasite” that makes the existing robot firmware belive it is connected to the cloud which is very different from actually controlling and navigating the robot. However, in terms of homeasistant integration it could be worth getting inspired.
For a control operating system ROS could be something to consider. When I used it 10 years ago the project was quite unstable since tools changed constantly and it was overly complicated to work with, but a lot of development has happened since so maybe worth considering.I wrote this before reading the article
I love this! I’ll be following along :)
with a name like that, I really hope that it has a boot-up sound option where it makes an awoo boot noise.
I would actually be more interested in custom firmware for our old touch-and-go Roomba. The hardware is great, fully modular, did even survive a round of cat barf and washing. But the firmware is buggy and does inefficient vacuuming rounds.
I would actually be more interested in custom firmware for our old touch-and-go Roomba
The only thing out there that I know of is https://valetudo.cloud/
Which is basically only a on-device proxy to prevent communications.
But thanks.
3real5me…the amount of time and money needed to make even simple projects robust and truly usable, and not just a janky DIY job that needs to be used in just the right way or it’s wonky is always more than you expect. No matter how many times you’ve been through the process.
I tend to consider first attempts/versions as Betas. Sometimes I will do the full alpha, beta, RC cycle
Freedman has a pretty good video relating to this
Yeah, i mean, that’s just how developing anything works, i think it shuld be something that people have to explain more when they introduce someone to the DIY world, if you expect to finish a product on the first iteration or the first few, you either gonna fail or you have set a low bar
I think my device is easy and intuitive to use. The user wants video instructions and refuses to use my thing otherwise :(
cry in voron 3d printer
Ha, let’s hope that doesn’t happen here. This is genuinely exciting.
Need to do this with a lot of home appliances.
Looking for ways to keep my old one running as long as possible. it’s that roboroc xiaomi platform and it has been supper easy to get spare parts. I replaced entire wheel sections batteries and such.
There is a software that replaces the Xiaomi app and that would be the next project.
No need to phone home to china all the time.
What software?
I think this one
https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots/
Needs a custom firmware installed. But then I am free to use it even if the official app no longer exists.
This is it. I’ve done it last month, and besides having all the control of my s7, I swear that the robot is faster??!
Can confirm it works and is great. I’m even running a Glados voice pack on it that insults me while it cleans.
Only issue I’ve had the whole time was actually this week when I finally updated the valetudo re version to support the new home assistant MQTT format and the update got stuck but that was an easy fix once I worked out what it was.
Can it say ouch when you kick it or say let me down when you pick it up?
The game changer in robot vacs for me was the emptying station. My first one didn’t have it and it just sat in the corner. Full.
Doesn’t that lock you in to a specific type of bag that only the robot manufacturer creates?
It does but I am still on my first ten pack so …
Also there are for sure some alternative bags, I just didn’t put time in to find them.
You still have to empty the station tho
I do that three times a year. It works for me.
No way you change the stinky dirty water only once every four months?
Same.
Though I’m not a vacuum cleaner, I just eat a lot. And I will also cry.
It looks like a DVD rewinder.
Be kind, vacuum my floor
As time goes on I’m hoping more products like this that give what was once only possible via locked down proprietary software a new open and repairable life as theres many new products and tech that I see but could never use unless I’d want to just upload everything I do to whoevers servers and pray that they don’t get breached.
https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/
The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts. We’re developing open source industrial machines that can be made at a fraction of commercial costs, and sharing our designs online for free.
okay I clicked quite a few of those, And afaict, only the house is past the “planning” stage
the robot vac i have had for 3 years is the dumbest machine. goes over the same areas multiple times a session. has a manual steer setting but if i gotta steer it, whats the point of robotics? finally gave up and got a dust mop.
Awesome project! I would love to buy some robovacs, but I don’t want some unknown entitity mapping our home and whatnot. Our maid would love it too. Being done earlier for the same pay 😁
Just use valetudo in this case it works great
Oh. Wow. Thanks. Last time I checked the market it was horrible and then I just gave up on robovacs. Too many different to reverse engineer every single one. But great, gonna check this one out deeply. Thanks man.
The setup is fairly involved and not super beginner friendly however I finally came across and finished to flash my robot a few weeks ago and i don’t notice any difference vs the stock firmware when using home assistant, beside the fact that its no longer connecting to all these random servers in China. It really is a wonderful project!
Sounds great! Although I less worry about Chinese servers than american servers 😁 I would even be fine if it were shittier then, or totally manual programming or whatever. Just not clouds that get data I know nothing about and have no agency over it.
I just want one where the storage the vac empties out into is on the side so it can slide under a couch.
These things take so much damn space and for some reason they didn’t figure out there is a bunch of real estate underneath shit.
Delete this comment, sell idea to a company, profit! But in all seriousness this is a smart idea.
While this is a cool idea, if you read the article, it’s only an idea. Seems like nothing but a reference design has actually been made. Hoping to see it progress, but we shall see.
Concept of a vacuum.
Yeah, over the years I’ve learned to not hold my breath about any interesting announcement. Though I’m at the point now where I don’t really care either way and feel like pointing it out for any specific project just feels overly pessimistic. Just let them cook or contribute knowing there’s never a guarantee it’ll come to fruition.
Is “OOMWOO” an onomatopoeia for a vacuum cleaner’s sounds?
Is there a word for a palindrome that works when you rotate it 180 degrees?
About the name: “oomwoo” is a rotational ambigram — it reads the same flipped 180°, just like the robot itself roaming your floor in every direction.
Taken from the blog post.
