I am thinking of getting a robot vacuum. But I think I read a lot of them send a lot of information about the goings on of your house back to the company. And I want no part of that. Which companies should I avoid or look at. And anything else I should worry about besides the “does it work” part?
I got a Dreame Z10 Pro and Valetudo’d it. It’s a pretty expensive model and quite the investment, but I was happy with the results until the Wifi conked out. Still works, I just have to actually push the button physically on the robot to get it to start a clean. Not a huge deal.
The actual process of setting up Valetudo was a little technical. I’m not sure how much the process varies from device to device but for me it required an FTDI cable/adapter (and with those you always have to make sure it’s the right voltage for the device). As I recall, the setup guide for Valetudo was straightforward to follow, but then I play around with hardware hacking stuff occasionally. At least to the extent that I already had FTDI adapters and breadboard jumpers laying around without having to buy them specifically for this use case.
ouch. I got rid of my breadboard and such after college… more than 20 years ago. This sounds like it is more of an adventure then I have time for.