Servicing a robot vacuum cleaner (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Servicing a robot vacuum cleaner (2019)

willem.com

Not quite as old, but my Roomba 620 has been going since February 2014. The battery, a wheel, and the normal replacements parts have been replaced over the years, but otherwise it still works great.

It’s now going into its retirement home, we are getting a modern one with a station for self-cleaning and a more advanced navigation than the chaos mode, while the old one will take over cleaning my parents’ bedroom.

For those interested in modern vacuums, but want to avoid the cloud, there is Valetudo: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html

I wish Valetudo was easier to install (this is not a knock at the product or its maintainers, it is great). Some models require a breakout board which you basically have to manufacture your self.

It is shocking that no hardware manufactures are jumping in the space of not running their own services.

> It is shocking that no hardware manufactures are jumping in the space of not running their own services.

We've been wondering for a long time why the vendors (especially Roborock) invested so much effort in locking us out.

We still don't know, but just a few days ago I saw this post on Reddit, where Roborock unilaterally altered the deal, hinting at the possibility of perhaps upcoming subscription-based features in the future?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Roborock/comments/1ghlgjb/anyone_ge...

With the market being as saturated as it is and with Roborock being a publicly traded company required to bring in the revenue, I suppose such a move would make sense. It would at least be following the same playbook, all the other players in all the other markets are following.

Anyway, my point being that I don't think that there is still much money to find in hardware alone. There still is, but it's not the money maker it once was. You can see it by robot vacuums becoming a commodity but also by one of the largest players doing something that could be read as preparing to shift from just hardware to services.

And, since the vast majority of investment is only done on the promise of providing hypergrowth and 100x to 1000000000x (add some more 0s to that) ROI, I'm not sure if some entity just selling decent robots without cloud tethers would receive any funding at all. You can definitely make such a business profitable, but you can't make it the absurd amounts of profitable, investors with deep enough pockets to fund hw development upfront are seeking.

A quick search suggests a few open hardware projects out there.

If there was a clear leading project in that space - using Valetudo web interface! - I'd be all over it.

Thank you so much for what you do.

Technically, you don't have to manufacture the board yourself.

There's a telegram channel where people exchange and send boards everywhere, you basically need to cover shipping costs, and then send it on to the next person after you're done.

If you know how to solder, Hypfer, the creator and maintainer, will send you the parts, again for the price of shipping, or you can contribute more,if you want.

Great to know. I've seen that blurb and assumed it was pretty low key. Seeing a testimonial for that helps.

Was a beta tester for some of the early generations.

They were a joy to repair: every part was made to be easily replaced, not "engineered" with glue, or pegs that break.

Could tell it was tech started at the MIT AI Labs.

Having taken a few robot vacuums apart, you are spot on. It’s very noticeable. The roombas are the better engineered ones. The worst one was a Shark. It was toy-like in its construction, the wiring was messy, it was simply unpleasant. Also unpleasant but a step above were the neatos. We still have an xv21 that runs daily. Its lidar tech was amazing at the time. Early xiomi roborocks were blatant copying both the lidar and motherboard.

I have a roborock that I have taken apart a little bit and I thought it looked extremely similar to the article's Roomba from underneath.

Obligatory mention for every robot vacuum article: Firmware update your robot vacuum so it doesn't talk to anyone's cloud. https://valetudo.cloud/

My Eufy vacuum app helpfully tracks runtime hours and notifies me of different maintenance tasks as they become required, like wiping off sensors (every 35 hours) or cleaning filters and brushes (every 20 hours) or replacing filters (every 350 hours.)

Maybe it’s a ploy to sell more replacement parts, but the notifications do help remind me since overall I hardly think about the vacuum.

One additional improvement he could make is upgrade to a aerovac bin, it will work on a 500 series. https://www.irobot.com/en_US/replacement-aerovac-bin/4359682...

I have been using 500 and 600 series for almost 10 years to clean my garage, they do a great job and are incredibly tough.

Is there a compatibility chart somewhere that lists possible upgrades for older Roomba models?

Our S7 basically went into a shutdown sequence every time we'd try to run it. After disassembling it and replacing the serviceable parts, I can only assume it was something with the logic board. I assume after enough troubleshooting and parts, I presume I could have fixed it, but I threw in the towel and replaced it with a Roborock.

Got a different make and it has done 4 years no dramas and I dont feel like i particularly service it or take good care other than detangling and bin emptying. Reckon it'll do 10 years. It has been notifying many different smartphones in its time :)

Mine works fine after replacing the battery, except that this little 3 armed rotating brush thingie keeps falling off. It has a screw, but I can't figure out how to correctly screw it back on in such as way that it doesn't fall off again...

Cheaper alternative spares are often available for nearly all the iRobot range on Ali Express.

There is a slight difference in parts to the iRoomba ones e.g. the paper filters are visually a little different, or the rubber rollers have a slight change to the dimple designs. They still perform the same imho.

As for the app, just use something like PiHole or another DNS service to block IoT devices, or specific IP ranges or domains. Your hoover will still function just as well.

Far too much built in obsolesence and social media shills serving upgrade culture these days.

Buy. Use. Service til it dies.

Note that this article is from 2019.

Coincidentally, I got my Roomba in 2019, and it still works just as new, with less maintenance than described in the article. My problem is that this "just as new" isn't particularly impressive - I'd expect it to be less dumb. It keeps getting lost since it continually redraws the apartment map (hallucinating corridors where there aren't any), it keeps getting stuck etc.

iRobot hasn’t been competitive in the robot vacuum space for many years. Tons of other manufacturers have eclipsed them for less money or more upscale with substantially better features. Roborock, Dreame, Narwal, Eufy, to name a few.

Roombas might be repairable, but if they get stuck constantly and don’t have useful features (eg, self cleaning mops), it’s not particularly useful to me.

I also have a Roomba from around 2019 and it feels kind of like a finished product. I’m not that interested in mopping. Never connected it to the internet. I push the button every few days and empty the trash compartment when it requests to do so. Once a year I give it a thorough clean. Not sure how any device could do better.

For your application they are perfect. Elsewhere they are still much much slower than a human while they could be much much faster.

The floor plan needs to be hard coded. When a new house or office is wired gadgets can be embedded in the walls, floor, doors to get the positioning system accurate to the mm. Movable chairs can also get a bit of electronics, not sure if it even needs power. Larger objects that are moved less frequently can be positioned on its map manually.

It needs an idea how delicate or robust objects are so that it can move extra slow or extra fast.

It needs to know if the bottom of the wall is cleanable and do so.

It should know when to clean then if no one is there race up and down the hallway. If the bottom of the walls and/or doors are cleanable it should know to move faster.

In some industrial applications there should be rails on the wall or floor and possibly rubbers for it to drive into if the floor is slippery.

A combination of large and small cleaning robots would be more effective.

Even if you don’t want mopping, the pathing and speed at which it actually cleans a house vs the ones with LIDAR are comically different. It also has trouble getting itself out of small crevices or tight spaces vs the competition. I know, cause I constantly fought these issues. That’s not even counting for how it will get itself stuck on any cord, toy, etc laying on the ground.

I, too, have an older model (2016 980). It only gets confused when the layout of the room changes during vacuuming (ie. a door closes, a piece of furniture is moved). There was a brief period when its navigation skills were less than stellar, but eventually I figured out that it just needed new wheels (the rubber tires got worn, wheels started slipping and the robot was unable to compensate for that).

The maintenance mentioned in the article is very similar to what I do. Dust bin and filter - daily vacuuming. Front wheel, bottom brushes and side brushes - weekly. Charging contacts and other parts that require disassembly - monthly or less, depending on .

    The Roomba is a maintenance friendly robot

Absolutely! The Roombas are very easy to take apart and spare parts are easily obtained (both original and replicas). And boy is that a good thing, because you will be replacing parts quite often if you run your robot daily. ;)

Which kind of oil does the engine need?

:D Actually, Roombas do need a bit of oil sometimes, when their side brushes start to squeal. Regular bicycle oil will do.

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