[HN Gopher] Valetudo: Open-source cloud replacement for vacuum r...
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Valetudo: Open-source cloud replacement for vacuum robots
Author : lapser
Score : 189 points
Date : 2022-06-08 11:38 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (valetudo.cloud)
(TXT) w3m dump (valetudo.cloud)
| unixhero wrote:
| Valetudo is not a custom firmware
|
| Scrolling down
|
| Building the firmware
| [deleted]
| exabrial wrote:
| We need this for:
|
| * "Smart" homes
|
| * Electric Vehicles
|
| * "Power Walls"
|
| And everything else tied to an internet connection
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| I used to be a huge fan of robot vacuums back when I had hardwood
| floors. When I switched to a house with carpets, I noticed my
| socks were never really clean and my kids started having
| allergies. So I bought the super-ultimate-mega model of a
| standard old fashioned vacuum (which cost less than half of a
| Roomba) and that significantly improved both my sock situation
| and my kids' allergies. For carpets, I don't think these tiny
| vacuums can compete with the powerful standard ones, the floors
| just don't get as clean as they can get.
| outworlder wrote:
| > For carpets, I don't think these tiny vacuums can compete
| with the powerful standard ones
|
| They never did. Even the best vacuum plugged into your standard
| 120v receptacle will have trouble removing all the crap that's
| accumulated in the average carpet. A small, battery powered
| vacuum can't either.
|
| They do help in reducing the amount of stuff that accumulates
| in between hand vacuums. Back when I had carpets, because of my
| wife's allergies, I'd vacuum with the "old fashioned" vacuum
| every weekend. A Neato would run every day (and would have to
| be emptied every couple of days, it picked so much stuff). Then
| I'd actually _wash_ the carpets every month. Every single time,
| even with all that, the water would come out black. This
| helped, but ultimately we had to move. You can never really
| clean carpets.
|
| If anyone in your family has allergies, get rid of carpets if
| you can. Just because they may not be displaying symptoms that
| are really obvious right now, doesn't mean they aren't having a
| constant allergic response.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| Yes, washing the carpet is absolutely necessary. But: how the
| heck did you find time to wash your carpets _every month_?? I
| 'm guessing your apartment was pretty small... I takes me a
| whole day or more to wash all my carpets.
|
| I try to do the bottom floor every 3 months and the upper
| floor every 6 months. If I do it more frequently I start
| getting clean water out of the machine, especially in the
| upper floor.
|
| That said, we don't use shoes inside our home. I think that
| makes a great difference.
| MikeKusold wrote:
| A robot vacuum doesn't replace an upright vacuum, it
| supplements it.
|
| Our robot vac gets ran daily, and each day the bin is almost
| completely filled with dog hair. Then periodically we use the
| upright, and it still always manages to pull up lots of debris
| from the carpets.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I've never had a super strong vacuum, but, as others have said,
| the main attraction of the robot is that is can do its business
| much more often than I would vacuum myself.
|
| So, to me, the house is actually cleaner, because there is no
| way I would vacuum every day.
|
| And even if the suction isn't up to a regular one's standard,
| I'm still quite amazed by how much dust it gathers every time.
| And I don't have pets, and live in a relatively small
| apartment.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Well that's because almost all of them aren't actually vacuum
| cleaners; they're just sweepers. Brooms work fine on hard
| floors, not so well on carpet.
|
| Dyson make a (super expensive) vacuum one that actually
| vacuums, with a brush bar and everything. There are probably
| others now.
| outworlder wrote:
| What? They are all vacuums. With a brush. From the original
| Roomba, to the Neato, to Roborock, etc. We can argue about
| their suction power and how good the brush is, but they all
| have them.
| IshKebab wrote:
| They have a brush that _sweeps_ not a brush bar that beats
| the carpet. It 's completely different.
| ghaff wrote:
| My brother has a new house that's almost entirely one level and
| tile floors with just a few throw rugs. He really likes
| whatever robot vacuum he has. I've looked at them but I have a
| bunch of level transitions, always have various stuff in piles,
| etc. Last time I looked, I decided to get a cordless Dyson
| instead. I just pull it out, do a quick vacuum of high traffic
| areas, and put it away. Takes me 5 minutes--and totally solved
| the problem of my kitchen especially getting dirty between the
| times my housekeeper comes.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I agree with you. I have a robot vac and a plug in stick vac.
| The robo vac is scheduled to clean 3x a week when no one is
| home. Most of the time it finished this just fine and things
| appear ok.
|
| But in Fridays when I get home I give everything a once over
| with the plug in vac and the amount of dust and dirt it
| captures at first surprised me. The robo vac's suction just
| can't compete
|
| But I still don't mind it as it makes keeping the floors in
| general cleaner easier - but if I had to do it again today I
| wouldn't buy the robo vac.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Thank you for posting this, I'm always keeping an eye out for
| self-hosted replacements for the "home convenience but with
| cloud-based strings attached"...
| dubswithus wrote:
| I'd like a vacuum that picks up hairs with no suction and is
| super quiet. Anything that accomplishes this? I really hate the
| sound of a vacuum and have some hairy animals in the house.
| pdpi wrote:
| As a native Portuguese speaker, the project's name confused the
| hell out of me. Vale Tudo is Portuguese for "everything goes" or
| "no holds barred", and is the name of a Brazilian combat sport.
|
| Turns out Valetudo is the Roman name of the Greek goddess of
| cleanliness, Hygieia (which is where we get the word hygiene
| from)
| 0des wrote:
| Easy fix, tape a boxcutter to the lid. _Vale Tudo!_
| Arrath wrote:
| Ah yes, the classic game of "watch out for the hamstringing
| vacuum" as I go to make my morning coffee.
|
| Alternatively:
| https://sepulchritude.tumblr.com/post/152864353958/on-the-
| to...
| ufo wrote:
| And also a 1988 soap opera ^_^
| fiatjaf wrote:
| Is this project Lei de Gil compliant?
| causi wrote:
| That's pretty clever though. "everything goes" is appropriate
| for an application that lets you root your vacuum and gain full
| control of it.
| Arrath wrote:
| Possibly also an apt name for the default setting, if it just
| vacuums up everything.
| dakial1 wrote:
| Brazilian here, also got confused and was guessing why the name
| was chosen. Thanks for the explanation.
| outworlder wrote:
| Thank you! I was similarly confused.
| clamprecht wrote:
| As someone who lived in Argentina, it made me think of
| "pelotudo", which means "asshole" or maybe "dumbass" depending
| on the situation.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Which rhymes with "boludo".
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| Yes! I clicked the link expecting to see them make the robots
| somehow fight, I thought it would be something battlebots-like.
| Disappointed :(
| is_true wrote:
| I have a robot that often has death matches with shoes. The
| last time the shoe won by flipping the robot somehow
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Super cool. My next vacuum robot will be one that works best with
| this system.
| causi wrote:
| Shame it isn't available for any Botvac models. Their software is
| atrocious.
| goodpoint wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| ---
|
| 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.
|
| ---
|
| If you want to build a community of contributors and deter
| freeloaders - that's exactly what GPL is for.
|
| Apache-2.0 is designed to allow people to proprietarize Valetudo
| and use it in closed-source devices.
| hypfer wrote:
| > Apache-2.0 is designed to allow people to proprietarize
| Valetudo and use it in closed-source devices.
|
| At the time, the idea behind that was that _maybe_ this would
| make the vendor pick it up and provide a cloud-free stock
| experience. In that case, it would've been fine-ish if they'd
| monetize the work as it would still be very much beneficial to
| everyone. That sentence in the docs is not directed at those.
| You can't reason with corporations.
|
| Instead it's directed at that crafty kind of individual that
| would sell pre-rooted robots just because there's money to be
| made. Those people that purposefully refuse to share knowledge
| so that they can monetize it. I am aware that it won't stop
| them either, but at least there's an attempt I guess.
|
| Given what I've learned in the process, I can't say for certain
| that I'd pick the Apache-2.0 license again but it is like that
| now. As far as I'm aware, re-licensing would require asking
| every single contributor for their consent. I'm not too fond of
| doing that tbh.
| the_biot wrote:
| I once started an open source project where one facet was
| interfacing with, and even embedded firmware for, proprietary
| hardware. I went for the GPL precisely _because_ vendors
| would otherwise use the software without giving back patches,
| credit etc, and indeed hide the fact that they were shipping
| free software in the first place. The vendors would thus not
| have any more inclination to be more open about their
| hardware 's protocols etc, they'd just get free labor.
|
| And you know what? They did it anyway. Several times people
| shipped our software, changed just enough that it wasn't
| blindingly obvious at a glance, but of course we figured it
| out and lots of lying ensued. There is no point whatsoever in
| trying to be nice wrt proprietary hardware, hardline all the
| way.
|
| FYI the guy running the VLC project (Jean-Baptiste Kempf)
| once changed the license for it, 10 years after the project
| started, with tons of contributors to contact etc. Some
| patches had to be rewritten, but most authors just agreed.
| Took him years, but he totally did it, and VLC got the new
| license. I don't know if I'd recommend it, or have the
| stomach to do that myself, but the guy is a personal hero of
| mine because of it. You could be, too! :-)
| throw10920 wrote:
| > Those people that purposefully refuse to share knowledge so
| that they can monetize it.
|
| Since when do individuals have an obligation to share
| knowledge for free?
| hypfer wrote:
| They don't, however refusing to do so usually indicates a
| lack of skill. Capable people don't need to purposefully
| control the flow of information just so that they have an
| advantage. They have an advantage because they're capable.
|
| Of course there may be other and actual valid reasons for
| why someone might not share all information. That's not
| what I'm talking about in the previous comment though.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > You can't reason with corporations
|
| > Those people that purposefully refuse to share knowledge so
| that they can monetize it
|
| For both cases, again that's exactly what GPL is for.
|
| > As far as I'm aware, re-licensing would require asking
| every single contributor for their consent
|
| First, you can start contributing all new code under GPLv3
| while keeping a copy of the Apache-2.0 license in the repo
| and a notice that inform users that large part of the
| codebase was contributed under Apache-2.
|
| According to https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
| redistribution paragraph and
| https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html
|
| Secondly, you can also ask the few major contributors if they
| accept switching to GPL. Those who contributed tiny changes
| e.g. 1-line bugfixes in the past do not have enough
| contribution material to have a legally standing copyright
| claim.
| miduil wrote:
| Does anyone know whether the Roborock S7 + empty station is
| supported? I saw someone on GitHub talking about this model, but
| on the website it isn't listed.
| casenjo wrote:
| +1 for this project, I'm glad it's getting visibility. It's an
| excellent add-on for the robots that are compatible, especially
| for all the privacy-conscious people that want smart devices in
| their homes.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| How amazing! This is precisely something I would have built if
| I had, you know, talent, time, money, support community, no
| kids, ...
|
| It's amazing stuff like this gets built, and even more amazing
| it is free.
| flodan wrote:
| In case anyone has the Roborock S5 and wants to use Valetudo, I
| wrote a small HowTo on how to install it using a Mac (I found the
| original guide a little confusing).
|
| Link to the guide:
| https://flodan.github.io/blog/articles/roborock-valetudo-mac...
|
| Maybe it is helpful to someone
| [deleted]
| casenjo wrote:
| Haaaa great write-up! I was in that situation and ended up
| repurposing a Raspberry Pi to make sure it would fully work.
| Didn't wanna take the risk of bricking it so soon after getting
| it haha
| boredumb wrote:
| Does anyone have any recommendations for a vacuum bot? I remember
| seeing a roomba years ago and it seemed fairly silly.
| arnvald wrote:
| I use Roomba for vacuuming + Braava for moping and I'm very
| happy with the combo. Every Saturday morning they clean one
| floor and go back to charging, in the afternoon I take them
| upstairs to clean the other floor and it's done.
|
| The only thing I need to do regularly is to fill water tank in
| Braava and wash the moping pad, and every once a while replace
| the bag in Roomba self-emptying base.
|
| One thing to note is that this requires fairly high-end models,
| at least in case of Roomba. I used some e-series model before
| and I wasn't happy. Now I have i7 series and it's a big
| difference (primarily in self-learning and navigation)
| greggman3 wrote:
| I'm pretty happy with Anker's brand Eufy. They're relatively
| quiet. I have hard floors with throw rugs. I've heard roombas
| are too loud to use if you're home where as I can work in the
| same room with my Eufy running
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I have an older Eufy and it's pretty dumb but it works well
| and is cheap.
| MikeKusold wrote:
| If you want to use Valetudo, Z10 Pro and L10 are the only two
| recommended models.
| jrudolph wrote:
| This. To be fair that info is very hard to discover on the
| website (I looked it up in the docs code that generates the
| website because I found that easier to parse like a database
| of all models).
|
| I own an L10 and am very happily running valetudo on it.
| Someone should make a business out of selling them pre-
| flashed with valetudo for a less technical audience...
| hypfer wrote:
| > Someone should make a business out of selling them pre-
| flashed with valetudo for a less technical audience...
|
| Please don't. Attracting a less technical audience to the
| project would be immensely harmful to it. It is already
| quite difficult to deal with issues that technical people
| might have. You simply do not want everyone to use your
| open source project. There is also no point in doing so.
| Why would one want to make their own life harder?
| stavros wrote:
| I don't know if by "make their own life harder" you mean
| the maintainer (you) or the user, but, as a user,
| valetudo has saved me. The original Xiaomi app is buggy,
| slow, and phones home, but Valetudo just works locally.
| It's amazing, thank you!
| chrisxcross wrote:
| I run valetudo with OpenHAB. No cloud needed just a little rPI.
| ingenieroariel wrote:
| For anyone confused, this is not an "Open Source Cloud"
| replacement, but and "Open Source" "Cloud Replacement". A way to
| have the vacuum robot become cloud-free.
| dugite-code wrote:
| Although if you combine it with homeassistant or other home
| automation services it becomes fully "cloud replaced"
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| And easiest way to communicate that is to use the TLD .cloud!
|
| No, wait, uh--
| hypfer wrote:
| :^)
| corrral wrote:
| I figured it out on my own, but did spend a solid 5 seconds
| wondering how the fuck a cloud service was going to replace my
| vacuum robot.
| lapser wrote:
| Hah. I didn't realise it until you mentioned it. In my defense
| I copied it from their site and just made sure it fit HN's
| title limits.
| morsch wrote:
| I'd love to use this with my Roborock S4, because from what I can
| tell it works better with the open software than with Xiaomi's
| cloud software (and you drop the cloud requirement). But from
| what I remember it's quite an involved process, starting with
| _completely_ disassembling the device. In hindsight, I should
| have bought a different device, but back then no such guidance
| was available.
| Avamander wrote:
| Is there actually modern robot vacuum hardware that has FOSS
| firmware?
|
| Maybe yet another device for Pine64 to consider, maybe.
| gh02t wrote:
| I believe it used to be easier and could be done basically with
| one click, but Xiaomi/Roborock pushed an update that locked it
| down as well as making it hard to downgrade to an earlier
| version.
| pkulak wrote:
| There's a big list of robots, but is there a "best" to buy? Like,
| the one they recommend in their forums or something? My vacuum
| and thermostat are the last two parts of my home automation with
| any need to connect outside of my home network, and I'm always
| looking out for a good way to remedy that. This looks amazing.
| dugite-code wrote:
| On the supported robots page they have developer and
| recommended field. The z10 pro for example is listed as: get it
| right now https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-
| robots.html
| onedr0p wrote:
| I found the S5 (not max) a good robot for the price. I was able
| to find one on Amazon Warehouse Deals for $250 2 years ago.
| It's been running Valetudo since the day I recieved it. I don't
| have many complaints other than I wish I had the Dreame Tech
| Z10 Pro instead but given the Z10 Pro is 3x the price I paid
| for the S5 I'd still say I am happy.
| lapser wrote:
| They have recommendations for each robot but it's not easy to
| parse them quickly (I.e. in the table).
|
| I went through them all and it seems the only one that's fully
| recommended is the Dreame Tech Z10 Pro. I actually bought it
| too the other day with the intention of installing this on it,
| so now waiting for delivery.
|
| The rooting process seems relatively involved though, so we'll
| see how it goes.
|
| [0] https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-
| robots.html#d...
| philoaftermath wrote:
| Definitely post back here on results if you can, curious how
| this turns out for you. Also curious what smart thermostat
| you favor.
| lapser wrote:
| I'll be happy to!
|
| I'm still renting so I've not really bothered with any
| thermostat yet. I used to have a Nest Learning thermostat
| when I was living in a place where they allowed me to
| install it, but I gave that away when I moved.
|
| Haven't bothered with thermostats since, and likely won't
| until I've moved into my own place, but I'm hoping to find
| a thermostat that can run without cloud or at least, with
| an OSS cloud replacement.
| gempir wrote:
| I own the Z10 Pro flashing wasn't super complicated and it
| now completely auto updates itself. Zero problems. All the
| features work. I haven't even found a bug in the UI
| jonathankoren wrote:
| So does it do anything better now?
|
| I have a relatively new Roomba (one with the camera), and I
| hate it. Sure it can be more efficient than the old models
| without a camera, it insists on building an map of the
| house, which takes forever, constantly needs restarted
| because it literally can't find rooms, or just fails to
| update the maps, requiring you to start all over again. It
| doesn't even have those IR walls, that the old ones had.
|
| IF there was a better mapping system, that would be
| helpful.
|
| After like 10 years of trying these things, I've decided
| they're mostly a gimmick, but damn it, I _want_ them to
| work.
| gempir wrote:
| To be fair I never tried the original software so I don't
| know what I am missing. It has very good mapping I don't
| miss a feature you listed.
| freeqaz wrote:
| I've purchased this robot and installed this firmware on it.
| It definitely took about an hour and it was a little tedious
| with having the push the wires into the tiny pins (I had my
| orientation wrong for the pinout).
|
| That said, once it worked, it's been working well since then!
| My only note is that you do need to make sure to keep the
| sensors clean or the map can "drift" and it'll stop
| understanding where it is. For me, to fix that, I had to
| reset the map before it would work reliably again.
| pkulak wrote:
| That robot looks very nice indeed! I looked at the rooting
| instructions, and there's this lovely, bolded, line:
|
| > This was patched in many new firmwares. Do NOT update your
| robot via the Mi Home app if you want to root.
|
| Which sounds ominous if you're buying the robot new today.
| How do you feel about posting back here, or emailing me, or
| whatever, after you give it a shot? That bot plus open source
| firmware looks absolutely ideal.
| hypfer wrote:
| Unfortunately it seems that the old stock is running out
| and they're now selling robots with a firmware version that
| is too new for that rooting method right from the factory.
| _Some_ users report that they still got UART rootable
| robots but the number of those who didn't steadily
| increases.
|
| That doesn't mean that those robots aren't rootable though.
| We do have more rooting methods, however those aren't
| public currently. It is TBD how we will move on from here.
| lapser wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately this model isn't available in the UK so
| I'm just going to have to take a stab in the dark. I'll
| find out soon enough.
| dkresge wrote:
| Wow this feels a bit Baader-Meinhoff. With Valetudo + self-
| emptying as motivation, I received my Z10 via Amazon /
| "Dreametech official store" just this past Friday. Happily,
| it arrived with fw 4.1.7_1056 and I was able to use the
| simple reset method to install. Valetudo's worked
| wonderfully for the past week and I've never even seen the
| official app. One note: VT is not open source firmware.
| It's more like a brain controlling parasite with a good UX.
| dangrossman wrote:
| I enjoyed my Neato XV-11 back in 2010. It had laser room mapping
| and planning, automatic self-charging as needed, and scheduling
| back when Roomba was the only alternative and only offered
| "bounce in random directions" robots. No software, cloud or
| otherwise, required. Scheduling was done on a small screen on the
| vacuum itself. I gave it away to someone else after 8 years.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Why did you give it away, did you replace it?
| dangrossman wrote:
| Life circumstances changed. I got married, we both work from
| home, which means there's no convenient time for extended
| vacuum noise and keeping the floors clear of obstacles any
| more. I offered the Neato to a neighbor when we moved, it was
| still working great after a $30 battery replacement. I now
| just use a Dyson stick vacuum on our mostly hardwood floors.
| outworlder wrote:
| I have a somewhat newer Neato (non cloud connected), and a
| Neato D3 (cloud connected).
|
| The non-cloud is inconvenient, not because of not having cloud
| management, but due to the fact that it doesn't have any
| networking capabilities at all. I still keep it around and
| trigger manually. Its LIDAR died, but I just had to open and
| clean it to restore operation. One battery changed. Still
| going.
|
| The other one, despite being cloud connected, can at least be
| managed by Home Assistant(although the initial integration is a
| pain). Which means I can do things like run it when there's no-
| one at home (or noone downstairs).
|
| I also have a Braava. Which, despite connecting to iRobot's
| cloud, also has local control. It works even better than the
| D3.
|
| They are all outclassed by newer robots. If I had the time I'd
| replace the onboard electronics entirely.
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