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?
How technical are you? If you’d want an offline solution, check out https://valetudo.cloud
See the list of supported devices.
But note this warning:
To install Valetudo you will need some understanding of linux-ish operating systems as well as computers in general and maybe even some basic hardware hacking stuff. If you lack these skills, please consider asking a friend or computer repair shop to help you with that.
Well, I use linux for work. So I know some things about computers. I don’t usually hack hardware though. I will still check it out.
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.
My Coredy is the epitome of a dumb vacuum. It doesn’t connect to wifi, it doesn’t have an app, it doesn’t even make a map of the house as it goes. All it has is a remote with a seven segment display for a timer, and a can-do attitude
Which model?
Coredy Robot Vacuum Cleaner, 1700Pa on Amazon. It’s not available there, but it’s gotta be out there somewhere
This is the typa capitalist attitude we are missing on the fediverse with souboys clogging the space with their hot takes on wormers and their “right”
If this comment went to the wrong post, please let us know what app you used.
Nahh it just didn’t land lol
Sometimes a man got to take that L
L
I see what you were going for, but I think privacy respecting device recommendations are too normal here for anyone to expect a joke
My robot vacuum doesn’t do WiFi, so unless it has an expensive GSM modem, it can’t send anything.
OTOH, it just sweeps floors, and lacks built-in voice assistant, freemium subscription with a paid option to also sweep the hallway, smart speaker mode, companion/pet mode, built-in games, or all the rest that the modern equivalent of a broom ought to be capable of…
So which brand is it?
Sorry for the cliffhanger. That’s ILIFE. I didn’t have the opportunity to check, and I didn’t remember it by heart.
I’ve got a Eufy RoboVac 30 and until reading this post it didn’t even occur to me to see of there’s an app. Turns out there is, but we’ve never used it and never connected it to our wifi. We just hit the button to turn it on and it works just fine. It came with a remote that we can use to set a schedule but as far as I know it has no way to call home.
Look for older models. Mine just mindlessly runs various patterns and beeps when its stuck or out of power. Nothing else. No app, no floor plan of my appartement, no wifi. For several years now.
If you want app control and an individual vacuum route for your appartement and such things, I guess the data collection is part of the deal. The smarter your electronics are, the more they know about you.
I had a Roomba that was cloud connected (when AWS has an outage, it doesn’t work at all).
It still just mindlessly ran various patterns and beeped when it got stuck, which was all the time. Piece of shit.
I know Valetudo supports a wide range of machines, but it looks a bit involved to set up – I don’t have any first hand experience with it though.
The 1 machine I found was Matic, but they want over a g-bar for that.
Looks interesting. But is also sold out apparently. And they only do IOS for now. But the attitude of keeping the data local is what I am looking for.
I honestly didn’t knew vacuum cleaners now send data
you can pretty much assume anything that connects to wifi sends out data.
That’s really their purpose.
They suck more data than dust
Same.
Im also like “so companies know im lazy and untidy? No shit, thats why I brought one”.
Or we talking voice data or or something?
We are talking about full remote camera access. Google it, there have been scandals about it already.
We got one of the older baseline Eufy models a number of years ago, and have been fine with it. Even got a second one for the upstairs since we’re lazy and got tired of carrying it up there every now and then. I’d love to have one with more of a memory of where it’s been, but really the random various patterns work fine to get most everywhere if the battery lasts long enough. I’m sure there some math there to show the drunken walk covers everywhere. Plus sometimes things get blown around, and if the robot mapped out a place as cleaned but it got some stuff pushed over there, it won’t go back to get it like the random might.
But the real reason I like the lower model is that it is less complicated. I do think that the higher end ones with all the bells and whistles probably can be a pain when things go wrong. Keep it simple. Also, your mileage may vary depending on what you’re cleaning - the type of dirt and pet hair, the room layout, bare vs. carpet, etc. A side note - bare floor is the only way to go with pets…you don’t realize until you do a deep cleaning or have to replace some areas of carpet that get damaged. Yuck.
I think you can stop most of them from sending data if you don’t use an alexa style hub device to connect it.
My J9+ didn’t have any prompts asking for data that I couldn’t just say no to, and aside from being a bit derpy around low hanging bedsheets it works just fine.
Interesting page. But I don’t see anything on there about which send data home or what not.
