6 ms·
Roombas at the end of the world
- binidxaba 3y agoBye-bye, Roomba Ernie. You were taken from us too early. Bye-bye, Roomba Ernie. You’re 5,000 candles in the wind.
- oldbbsnickname 3y agoMakes you wonder about the conversion factor between Roomba years and human years.
- JohnFen 3y agoMy Roombas seem to last about 5 years (then they get transformed into experimental robot platforms). But since it's getting harder to find ones that don't connect to the network, I think I may just start actually repairing the one that's currently used as a vacuum when it breaks, so I can continue to have a good robotic vacuum.
- Ruthalas 3y agoSo look into Valetudo if you want local control of your vacuums. It's a open source application that (after rooting the vacuum) replaces the cloud with a self hosted control webUI. I am a big fan.
- JohnFen 3y agoThanks for the pointer. I'll look into this.
- winrid 3y agoBobsweep still sells some that don't connect to a network. They also have an online store with spare parts.
- worik 3y agoVerring off topic... Can I run a Roomba whilst preventing it calling home? Is there a setting for that or would I have to configure firewall rules?
- malfist 3y agoNot completely. If it's one that does mapping, that's all stored on the cloud. You can prevent some of the telemetry with a pi hole, but be aware that every run will end with a notification of "communication error" when the Roomba tries to report on you
- worik 3y agoIs there a maker of privacy respecting robot vacuum cleaners that you know of?
- inhumantsar 3y agoiRobot still sells all the parts for their old, non-cloud vacuums if you don't mind buying used and doing DIY parts swaps. They're very repair friendly: No special tools required and easy to take apart.
- _dain_ 3y agoNot a maker exactly, but there is an open source hobbyist software project for certain brands of robot vacuum: https://valetudo.cloud https://valetudo.cloud It lets you run them without any cloud connectivity or forced updates.
- exitb 3y agoI run a ~5 year old Roomba, that I just never connected to anything. I control it via the physical buttons and it works just fine. Is that not an option anymore on newer models?
- batch12 3y agoMy oldest is approaching more than 11 years I believe, though I've replaced its brushes and rollers and batteries at least once.
- oldbbsnickname 3y agoMine are named Trouble (S9+) and Mayhem (m6). They're dressed in vinyl wraps to be less boring.
- tkjef 3y agoMine is named Rooby (j7+). Quite good for German Shepherd hair.
- feskir 3y agoI just have the one, and we named him Pablo. Named after the old labrador of one of my previous neighbours.
- malfist 3y agoMine that works well is named "Houseboy" The one that behaves really poorly has been through a series of names from "Ceiling" (because I thought it'd be funny to see a notification telling me that Ceiling is stuck and ended its job), to Hessalam ("Last Chance" from wheel of time) and is currently named "Chaos Monkey". I hate that damn thing.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoMine is named... whatever my 4yo daughter insists on calling it this month. I was completely surprised to see the robot vacuum get more affection from my kids than all their toys, and even our cat.
- JohnFen 3y agoYears ago, my daughter named our Roomba "Puck" because it looks like a giant hockey puck. I liked the double-meaning of it also being the name of the European trickster-fairy (aka "Robin Goodfellow") and so have stuck with it.
- bhandziuk 3y agoOur 4y/o named ours Circle Cat
- cperciva 3y ago
- BotJunkie 3y agoI wrote this story, which originated entirely from a single picture on brr [1], an Antarctica blog that has wonderful, detailed descriptions about how the South Pole station functions. [1]: https://brr.fyi/ https://brr.fyi/
- gordon_freeman 3y agoThis blog is great. Thanks for sharing.
- pxmpxm 3y agoOn my bookmarks toolbar for quite some time, fantastic blog.
- rcarmo 3y agoThis was hilarious and I loved it. I had read the blog previously and noticed the sticker, but missed the story.
- goodboyjojo 3y agoi remember some guy bought a bunch of roombas and programmed them to play pacman. it was pretty neat
- smcin 3y agoa Ghost frame conversion would be nice. Although not very round
- ck2 3y agoWe're going to get roombas with full AI at some point aren't we. Clean when people are away and pets when they are home.
- tetris11 3y agoI've seen enough scifi to know exactly where this will end up.
- guappa 3y agoI don't think this requires AI. Just monitor when the phones are connected to the wifi.
- bhandziuk 3y agoThe Roomba app already does this (supposedly. it's part of the initialization. I haven't used it though. Still trying to get our Roomba to not run out of battery before going back to the home base then needing a factory reset to connect to the wifi again. They have some kinks)