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Even though it’s vibe coded, I like the idea of an open source repairable robot vacuum. The current generation of them are notoriously not built to last / be re

Even though it’s vibe coded, I like the idea of an open source repairable robot vacuum. The current generation of them are notoriously not built to last / be repairable.

fluidcruft 3mo ago
Agreed. I can code so I don't care whether it's vibecoded or whatever to bootstrap. Them working on designing hardware is what matters to me. I'll definitely keep an eye out for the kit, I don't have a lot of patience for hunting parts but would love to play with this.
- throwaway219450 3mo ago
  The issue I have is the documentation and “status” is slop. Looking at the repo, how much of it is even real? There’s supposed to be a build-along on YouTube but nothing there yet. The BoM is a bunch of aliexpress modules which is ok, but what about the chassis? Is that image generated? The RFC calls to generate accurate models for the components, but the render looks like a full assembly?
  - fluidcruft 3mo ago
    When they get to the point of shipping a kit, why would I care? It's open source, just fix things. It's not rocket science, I'm just no good at working out the baseline machine that has parts to do the things. So I can't help at this point. I don't expect a finished product. The value to me is the customizability and figuring out how to make it do what I want it to do. I'm sure that's not for everyone but like I have fingers. I can type. I can fix things. Slop is perfectly fine as a first draft because I'm envisioning a community of builders not a bunch of entitled twats who should just buy a Roomba.
    - progval 3mo ago
      But it's not even a first draft. There are only pictures and markdown files.
      - fluidcruft 3mo ago
        That's among the reasons why I said I will wait for a kit.
  - actionfromafar 3mo ago
    > This is genuinely early — and that’s the point Mmm I love the smell of slop in the morning
    - taffydavid 3mo ago
      You're right to push back
  - iliaov 3mo ago
    Correct, full assembly, for illustration purposes. All individual STEP parts in that assembly are here github dot com remakeai/vacuum_cleaner_teardown . I took a consumer vacuum, wanted to make it 3D printed (and replace its board). I did teardown, had it converted to STEP. I posted the teardown screenshot on Reddit, asked if anyone's interested building an open-source vacuum. Redditors said they don't want a vacuum like that because it's too basic. No self-empty dock, no mop, no obstacle avoidance, brush is too basic. People want a highly functional vacuum. So, I had to scrap the idea, switch to building a "mid tier" vacuum. I don't have a better design, so I kept the image and captioned it as "Reference design images - this is approximately how the finished design will look". I hope it's ok. No YouTube build-along - correct, not yet. I'll make one once ready. Evidence - an existing build-along for my previous robot youtube dot com watch?v=6GtjAB19GP8&list=PLOSXKDW70aR8uA1IFahSKVuk5ODDfjTZV
jm4 3mo ago
A few thoughts on the vibe coding… This is probably just one person and this project wouldn’t have seen the light of day if they weren’t able to vibe code it. A few years ago this would have to be a kickstarter that raised at least several hundred thousand- probably millions to have a shot at successfully getting off the ground. You’re talking software and hardware engineering, experts in multiple disciplines, a whole team of people pouring in many hours to develop a product, etc. Vibe coding doesn’t always have to result in low quality. An experienced engineer with good systems design skills piloting an agent can be incredibly productive. Although I’m pretty rusty at writing code, I’m still good at systems design and I’m having success with coding agents. Recently, I’ve built a system for myself because what I wanted didn’t exist. There’s no way I ever would have done it without AI. I wouldn’t be able to pull it off myself even with years of time and a budget to hire developers for my personal project is nonexistent. It’s the kind of thing I never would have thought to start prior to good coding agents. My productivity has been insane. I feel like there’s 10 of me. The quality of output is shockingly good. I’m looking at this and it’s one of the most put together systems I’ve worked on at any point in my career. It’s beyond what I saw from much more senior developers than I and it’s beyond what I was ever capable of myself. I get why people don’t like vibe coding. It does produce a lot of slop in the hands of someone unskilled in the use of their tools. It costs people their jobs. There are a hundred reasons not to like it. The flip side is we get cool projects like this one because a single person can build the thing they always wanted and never could until now.
- cwillu 3mo ago
  > The flip side is we get cool projects like this one As best as I can tell, this project doesn't exist yet, just a bunch of boilerplate.
- Planktonne 3mo ago
  > It’s beyond what I saw from much more senior developers than I and it’s beyond what I was ever capable of myself. and >It does produce a lot of slop in the hands of someone unskilled in the use of their tools. Form a somewhat contradictory pair.
  - 3mo ago
RealityVoid 3mo ago
I don't know why you would say that, my Xiaomi s6's wheel motor died, I was bummed about it. I ordered a replacement motor, and to my surprise, I only had to open one or two screws and the motor module popped right out. The module had a nice slitting connector. I put the new motor back in and I was done. The thing must be at least 8 years old by now and it's still chugging along. I now passed it on to my parents and it's cleaning their house.
- fy20 3mo ago
  Agreed. I have a 6.5 year old Roborock S5 Max, and it still works fine. I've replaced a few parts (can still get on AliExpress), but other than that no issues. It's cleaned 74km2.
  - moepstar 3mo ago
    Also very fond of the Roborock S5, in fact I recently got a second one for the other floor - totally took it apart, cleaned it, put it back together and stuck Valetudo onto it. The first one is from 2017 and still going strong - issues so far: battery replaced (only recently), laser motor replaced, fuse replaced. Aside from the fuse it was very easy and doable for basically anyone.
    - jader201 3mo ago
      I’ve had two S5s die on me recently. They kept shutting down in the middle of a clean, and from what I read, it needed a battery replacement. Ordered one off Ali Express, and after another couple months, it also started dying. So replaced it with a newer Roborock. Didn’t bother when the second S5 started doing the same, just got a new Roborock. Both new ones have been going well so far, and while it does seem to be good for replacing parts (I had another lidar part fail, and the replacement was easy), I was disappointed that replacing the battery didn’t fix the shut down issues.
      - TheScaryOne 3mo ago
        Shutting down in the middle of work is a common failure mode for overheating, for men and machine. Got an IR camera?

Even though it’s vibe coded, I like the idea of an open source repairable robot vacuum. The current generation of them are notoriously not built to last / be repairable.

fluidcruft 3mo ago

Agreed. I can code so I don't care whether it's vibecoded or whatever to bootstrap. Them working on designing hardware is what matters to me. I'll definitely keep an eye out for the kit, I don't have a lot of patience for hunting parts but would love to play with this.

throwaway219450 3mo ago
The issue I have is the documentation and “status” is slop. Looking at the repo, how much of it is even real? There’s supposed to be a build-along on YouTube but nothing there yet. The BoM is a bunch of aliexpress modules which is ok, but what about the chassis? Is that image generated? The RFC calls to generate accurate models for the components, but the render looks like a full assembly?
- fluidcruft 3mo ago
  When they get to the point of shipping a kit, why would I care? It's open source, just fix things. It's not rocket science, I'm just no good at working out the baseline machine that has parts to do the things. So I can't help at this point. I don't expect a finished product. The value to me is the customizability and figuring out how to make it do what I want it to do. I'm sure that's not for everyone but like I have fingers. I can type. I can fix things. Slop is perfectly fine as a first draft because I'm envisioning a community of builders not a bunch of entitled twats who should just buy a Roomba.
  - progval 3mo ago
    But it's not even a first draft. There are only pictures and markdown files.
    - fluidcruft 3mo ago
      That's among the reasons why I said I will wait for a kit.
- actionfromafar 3mo ago
  > This is genuinely early — and that’s the point Mmm I love the smell of slop in the morning
  - taffydavid 3mo ago
    You're right to push back
- iliaov 3mo ago
  Correct, full assembly, for illustration purposes. All individual STEP parts in that assembly are here github dot com remakeai/vacuum_cleaner_teardown . I took a consumer vacuum, wanted to make it 3D printed (and replace its board). I did teardown, had it converted to STEP. I posted the teardown screenshot on Reddit, asked if anyone's interested building an open-source vacuum. Redditors said they don't want a vacuum like that because it's too basic. No self-empty dock, no mop, no obstacle avoidance, brush is too basic. People want a highly functional vacuum. So, I had to scrap the idea, switch to building a "mid tier" vacuum. I don't have a better design, so I kept the image and captioned it as "Reference design images - this is approximately how the finished design will look". I hope it's ok. No YouTube build-along - correct, not yet. I'll make one once ready. Evidence - an existing build-along for my previous robot youtube dot com watch?v=6GtjAB19GP8&list=PLOSXKDW70aR8uA1IFahSKVuk5ODDfjTZV

jm4 3mo ago

A few thoughts on the vibe coding… This is probably just one person and this project wouldn’t have seen the light of day if they weren’t able to vibe code it. A few years ago this would have to be a kickstarter that raised at least several hundred thousand- probably millions to have a shot at successfully getting off the ground. You’re talking software and hardware engineering, experts in multiple disciplines, a whole team of people pouring in many hours to develop a product, etc. Vibe coding doesn’t always have to result in low quality. An experienced engineer with good systems design skills piloting an agent can be incredibly productive. Although I’m pretty rusty at writing code, I’m still good at systems design and I’m having success with coding agents. Recently, I’ve built a system for myself because what I wanted didn’t exist. There’s no way I ever would have done it without AI. I wouldn’t be able to pull it off myself even with years of time and a budget to hire developers for my personal project is nonexistent. It’s the kind of thing I never would have thought to start prior to good coding agents. My productivity has been insane. I feel like there’s 10 of me. The quality of output is shockingly good. I’m looking at this and it’s one of the most put together systems I’ve worked on at any point in my career. It’s beyond what I saw from much more senior developers than I and it’s beyond what I was ever capable of myself. I get why people don’t like vibe coding. It does produce a lot of slop in the hands of someone unskilled in the use of their tools. It costs people their jobs. There are a hundred reasons not to like it. The flip side is we get cool projects like this one because a single person can build the thing they always wanted and never could until now.

cwillu 3mo ago
> The flip side is we get cool projects like this one As best as I can tell, this project doesn't exist yet, just a bunch of boilerplate.
Planktonne 3mo ago
> It’s beyond what I saw from much more senior developers than I and it’s beyond what I was ever capable of myself. and >It does produce a lot of slop in the hands of someone unskilled in the use of their tools. Form a somewhat contradictory pair.
- 3mo ago

RealityVoid 3mo ago

I don't know why you would say that, my Xiaomi s6's wheel motor died, I was bummed about it. I ordered a replacement motor, and to my surprise, I only had to open one or two screws and the motor module popped right out. The module had a nice slitting connector. I put the new motor back in and I was done. The thing must be at least 8 years old by now and it's still chugging along. I now passed it on to my parents and it's cleaning their house.

fy20 3mo ago
Agreed. I have a 6.5 year old Roborock S5 Max, and it still works fine. I've replaced a few parts (can still get on AliExpress), but other than that no issues. It's cleaned 74km2.
- moepstar 3mo ago
  Also very fond of the Roborock S5, in fact I recently got a second one for the other floor - totally took it apart, cleaned it, put it back together and stuck Valetudo onto it. The first one is from 2017 and still going strong - issues so far: battery replaced (only recently), laser motor replaced, fuse replaced. Aside from the fuse it was very easy and doable for basically anyone.
  - jader201 3mo ago
    I’ve had two S5s die on me recently. They kept shutting down in the middle of a clean, and from what I read, it needed a battery replacement. Ordered one off Ali Express, and after another couple months, it also started dying. So replaced it with a newer Roborock. Didn’t bother when the second S5 started doing the same, just got a new Roborock. Both new ones have been going well so far, and while it does seem to be good for replacing parts (I had another lidar part fail, and the replacement was easy), I was disappointed that replacing the battery didn’t fix the shut down issues.
    - TheScaryOne 3mo ago
      Shutting down in the middle of work is a common failure mode for overheating, for men and machine. Got an IR camera?