Last month we had a very cool challenge at SUSE: Replace any proprietary application with an Open Source replacement, and SUSE will donate to Open Source organizations. My only problem: I didn’t have any applications left which I could have migrated ;-) But then my old vacuum cleaner died…
Why this blog entry?
My company internal post to announce the migration to Valetudo got quite some interest - and I was asked to write a blog post about my experiences. So here we are! But one thing I have to mention explicitly:
The documentation is excellent, it doesn’t need any further explanation! So I’ll just write about the process itself and my thoughts about the new robot.
The goals
My old Roomba 760 was a reliable partner for around 14 years now, but recently it got stuck beneath the shoe shelf so unluckily that it ripped of its sensor for finding home. Also other components started to get more and more unreliable, so I thought it was time to finally look for something new. The Roomba was a model which was driving around semi-randomly (with some strategies like driving along a wall), but it managed to reliably clean my flat.
My requirements for the replacement were:
- No app required
- Should also be able to mop the floor
- Possibility to only clean certain rooms (in my case to mop the bathroom more often than everything else)
Easy, right?
Well, 0 robots fulfilled these criteria by default! Either you get something driving around randomly again, or you have to connect to the vendor’s cloud via an app. Or in other words: If you want something “intelligent” a cloud connection and an app are required. That’s not acceptable for me, and this is where Valetudo comes in!
Choosing a robot
The biggest catch: At the time of this writing the newest supported robot is already over two years old. And the robots are getting increasingly hard to find in new condition. Depending on how much money you want to spend an older used model will also work perfectly fine.
I wanted something new, and in the end I decided for the dreame X40 Ultra Complete because of it’s (theoretical) option to connect the fresh and used water tanks directly to the water supply. I only later noticed that this extension sold out already… Another feature I wanted to have is the extensible brush - but see below whether it’s really worth it. The Eureka robots on the other hand seem to have a significantly better brush by default, cutting hair before it can wind around the brush. And you don’t need a breakout board, but you can connect a USB cable directly - also see the next point for things that can happen here ;-)
The quality of the robot seems to be (surprisingly!) good to me - but of course I don’t have any long term experience yet.
One important finding: You can use these robots without a cloud by default! The robot has three physical buttons, one of them to start a cleaning / mopping run. On the first run it will map the environment while cleaning and store it locally - subsequent runs will be significantly faster then. But this way you don’t have any fine control: You can’t edit the generated map, you can’t set any timers, you can’t chose to only use the vacuum. But in general it works :-) This will most likely work for all the other supported robots, too.
Installing Valetudo
As mentioned already: The documentation is excellent, just follow it word by word! It will differ according to the model you decided to take.
What will happen if you do? Afterwards you will still have the same robot you had, but you will have root access to it, and you will have a webserver running to control it from you local network without any proprietary Cloud connection. Valetudo will not replace any of the robot’s firmware for the components: Cleaning or mapping won’t get any better (or worse) than with the original system, it’s really just about the cloud requirement.
In general the process consists of three steps:
- Connect the robot and gather information
- Root your robot
- Install Valetudo