Neato vacuum robots to stop working | Hacker News Reader

Neato vacuum robots to stop working

support.neatorobotics.com

67 pointssimonlondon63 comments

Neato made a line of (good) vacuum robots with Lidar.

It seems there were bought by a company called Vorwerk, and Vorwerk are shutting down the cloud infra.

This means the app, floor plans, schedules, no-go zones etc will no longer work. The robot can only be manually started by pushing the button on the device.

As an owner of one of these robots this is sad but not unexpected for anything relying on an app.

By submitting to HN, I’m hopeful someone can point me in the direction of open firmware or OSS projects that can help me restore the lost functionality.

https://valetudo.cloud is the only one I know about but not sure if the controller in those units would be flashable.

Well, it appears that Neato/Vorwerk robots are not supported - at least they're not listed on https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html

> Please note that this list is exhaustive. These are the supported robots. Robots not on this list are not supported by Valetudo. If your robot is not on this list, it is not supported.

From what i gathered so far, Valetudo is actually no custom firmware but modified vendor firmware? So, not sure if anyone related to the project has any interest and capability to reverse that...

When I looked into it, it seemed like a community that loved freeing robots but was absolutely not willing to buy robots that the developers did not have access to. This seems like a fair stance and I think they will start receiving dead vacuums soon. Hopefully Neato's security is as bad as their business side.

Vorwerk is the company who makes Themromix - that is a quite expensive cooking robot . They also are a MLM sales company albeit with a decently appealing product. I expect in a couple of months to get calls to get free cleaning demos. I guess they will have a turf war with the Kirby people.

Before they made that cooking machine, they were in the business of premium vacuum cleaners -

Not quite a "cooking robot". It's a really fancy blender.

As a company, they don't seem to have anything as complicated as the Neato robot vacuum. So they presumably lack the in-house expertise to maintain it.

I currently not expect a existing project, but the communication with the server is mostly xml, with the app too.

Great framing, we’re incapable of maintaining a cloud solution that we built for a product we sold to you, so we’re taking it down for your protection.

I’m surprised that they aren’t charging their customers for such great service and attention to detail.

"Updating this environment would not be technically meaningful"

This is Kremlin-level deflection.

A friend of mine is involved and I had some talks with him about this story:

In a timely manner 1) Neato does good development 2) Neato cuts corners, does outsourcing, good developers leave, only shitty internal developers stay there 3) Vorwerk just want to buy a product from them and stamp their name on it 4) Vorwerk sees that the code quality is shit and Neato blocks the changes 5) Vorwerk buys Neato and fires all Neato staff, out of good reason 6) No one want to fix their shitload security bugs of the old robots, so the servers are closed to not create additional fallout

I'm sorry for your friend and everyone who is affected but you just can't make this sh*t up ....

Companies should be forced to hand over the communication and operation specification of their IoT devices as soon as they meaningfully degrade the quality or functionality of a cloud service. This will restore trust in the ecosystem, avoid ewaste, and nourish a community of developers/hackers/geeks/users.

Even better, they should be required to publish the communication protocol as soon as the device is released.

That would be ideal, but this sort of changes the topic from reliability to interoperability.

I’m pretty sure this is merely temporary state of things, as IoT is still a novelty and most people are unaware about new failure modes.

I hope - as the realization becomes common - the demand for devices that will keep working until they mechanically break is going to eventually become a marketing point.

I suppose we can hope, but I don't see the trend going that way. Without some kind of regulatory support, there's not much incentive for anyone to pursue that. It will be more profitable to produce tons of crap that breaks quickly so that people have to buy another one.

> Without some kind of regulatory support, there's not much incentive for anyone to pursue that.

I’m not sure there isn’t an incentive. For me it’s pretty clear one - I’m trying my best to avoid buying products that would likely fail to work. I did that couple times, I recognized and understood the issue, now I try to avoid repeating the same mistake.

Right now I’m in a minority, and my choices are limited or even nonexistent. Most folks out there haven’t yet tried and haven’t yet experienced the failures. Or had too few of those to mentally register. Either way, only a few vendors cater to our needs. So in the interim I have to settle for lesser evils, hunting for products that I can hack.

Yet, when I’ll - inevitably - become a part of a majority (as more and more people have similar experiences), I’m sure vendors will stat recognizing the demand and try marketing on reliability and independence.

Or so I hope.

I don't think you're going to become part of a majority, or at least not via that path. Companies are competing on obfuscation. Most people don't have the energy to even attempt to determine which companies are reliable. People will just drift from one provider to another, hoping each will be better than the last. Also, there's no way to know if they're going to rugpull until after they do so. Unless there are some consequences for doing that, it's too easy for people to set up a company, sell crap that will stop working, shut down, and then just start up a new company. There has to be some kind of force directing customers to the companies that will do a good job.

Maybe you're right, but I hope you're not. Only time would tell for sure.

I believe you're underestimating "most people". Yes, sure, today it requires a lot of specialized knowledge to determine reliability. But if you try a lot of times you eventually notice the pattern and start asking more and more meaningful questions. Such as "does it work without Internet" or "can I disable updates"? That's the whole history of humanity - we try various things, learning as we go, refining our search directions as we learn.

Indeed, some niches, particularly those with high entry barriers, are not healthy. They lack proper competition and feedback mechanisms are broken by severe disparities. Those niches can be disrupted either through regulation (feedback through an alternative channel) or mass consumer action (amplified feedback).

I'm optimistic because I'm seeing signals that suggest companies explore all possible directions. For example, GE appliances have pretty much open control and diagnostic ports, with official SDK and corporate blessing to make enthusiast projects to extend appliance capabilities (with some caveats, e.g. SDK is not fully complete). When I was looking for a new washer and dryer machines GE became my obvious choice. And then there's also example of Kagi that sort of brought my faith in humanity, showing that wherever there's a demand, even if very niche, even if not fully realized by many, good things can and actually do happen. Sure, things are progressing very slowly, but as long as people can think and say "no, I'm unhappy about this and I don't want it" I'm sure we'll be eventually fine.

In the meanwhile, to accelerate, I guess best we can do is spread the awareness.

Well, I hope you're right too. :-) I just see the trend as towards more of this, not less.

> Companies should be forced

Governments and companies are owned by the same billionaires.

A great opportunity to bring up that a robot that operates 100% locally and is located within Bluetooth range has never needed a cloud account, has never had to become unavailable whenever AWS goes down, and certainly doesn't have to be reduced to a manual dud when its company ceases to exist. I wonder what whoever produced such "Systems Design" would have to say to customers now.

> a robot that operates 100% locally and is located within Bluetooth range

Which robot is that?

Dreame with Valetudo

https://valetudo.cloud/pages/installation/dreame.html

I mean it's _every_ robot with valetudo, but I don't think any manufacturer sells their robots with valetudo preinstalled.

Neato's D-Series Botvac just works (e.g., BVD8-SD/HP). No Bluetooth. No cloud. No Wi-Fi. Zero network connectivity required. Had mine about 10 years. Replaced the battery once, probably due for another one. Still cleans well.

I don't understand the appeal of having local appliances bound to the fate of network services.

I have a Neato D650 which I assume meets that classification and is covered by the service withdrawal, it is now pretty degraded -- no notifications, no mapping, no keep-out zones.

No notifications means if it gets stuck it stays there.

No mapping means if it doesn't fully clean the space (eg, a door is closed) then I have no way of knowing without baby-sitting it.

No keep-out zones means every clean involves carefully preparing the space to hang up trailing wires out of the way -- previously I just had some keep-outs near the wires and that worked perfectly.

Without all these features I have stopped using it; it is quicker to just use a stick vacuum.

I've got a robot vac and only use it "manually" they do get stuck from time to time, but its just grab it and stick it down in whatever area.

The house has stairs in bits anyway.

If it was on a schedule it could only do the bit it was in if I left a door open, so why not just use it manually ?

I have never let it on the WiFi.

My Roborock S5 or 6. I bought it from a stranger, put it on the floor and pressed the power button.

There will eventually be a backlash to network attached hoovers or toasters that require AI keys to function. It always goes full circle.

It's ridiculous that people are jumping on the vendors bandwagon - control everything remotely, AI inside, etc.

Why the hell would I need the cloud to control a vacuum cleaner?

Sure, I understand that there are a lot of manufacturers today, and basically all products are similar, so marketing people are looking for any way to differentiate a product from a lot of others... but cloud-connected devices are a road to hell... hello LG, Samsung, Canon, Western Digital and others who change cloud solutions for hardware so often that you blow your nose and get a service cancellation message in the mail :)

> Why the hell would I need the cloud to control a vacuum cleaner?

One reason I can think of is I'd rather be able to remote control a device by pushing my instructions to the cloud from my phone and having my device pull from said cloud, rather than making the device itself accessible remotely.

Another is settings/data persistence (eg: if I replace the device, etc).

That said, I don't have a smart vacuum and none of my smart devices are devices I want to access when I'm not home, personally, so I'm not "for" cloud-based stuff anyway.

For the smart vac to go unattended your floor must be clear, all your wires for things must be off the floor (it will eat them), your doors all open.

The vac has to not be full.

You also need to semi regularly clear the brush of hair etc.

The robot vac is useful, but turning it on by pressing the button is not hard, especially if you have areas with stairs you need to move it anyway.

There's no need for it to have cloud.

Honestly don't see what this has to do with my comment, especially when I end my comment with:

> I don't have a smart vacuum and none of my smart devices are devices I want to access when I'm not home, personally, so I'm not "for" cloud-based stuff anyway.

I was giving example responses to the question:

"Why the hell would I need the cloud to control a vacuum cleaner?"

So if you want to reply "you don't need the cloud", I guess go reply to that parent comment?

My comment is that despite all the automation we don't see the potential fuckups that occur with a subcritical number of customers - see infotainment and "modern" controls in cars today. Then it leads to Ford coming out with a "mechanically" controlled car and everyone can go nuts for it.

So the question was, do we really need a vacuum cleaner connected to a proprietary cloud? And is there a critical number of people using it so a supplier can maintain and run cloud for a long time?

Off topic: A few days ago there was a discussion that someone tried to turn off connecting to the Chinese cloud and the device stopped working altogether...

> do we really need a vacuum cleaner connected to a proprietary cloud?

"Really need" is a such a high bar that you're basically ensuring a "no" answer, so why ask? Rhetorically?

I think there are features that can benefit from some sort of off-device (eg: proprietary cloud) server. I also think that the percentage of customers who would want to self-host this is inconsequentially small, so the vendor has a compelling reason to build a proprietary cloud solution, but not much of a compelling reason to make it open.

But two things can be true at the same time: there could be uses for a vendor's proprietary cloud, and the vendor could (through malice, incompetence, etc) end up being a bad actor.

Personally, I'd argue that any vendor that bricks devices should legally owe their customers a (at the very least prorated) refund on what they paid for the device, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for consumer protections from any country I've lived in so far.

I’m afraid you’re mixing at least two different things together.

Possible reasons for wanting remote control of home systems while away from home is one thing.

Engineering home systems in a way that they depend (to some extent varying from case to case) on external computers is another thing.

I don’t think there’s any single answer to either of those, but there are a lot of possible reasons.

Personally, I had a use case where I ran a vacuum remotely. I was on a work trip, and thanks to a robot vacuum I returned back to a clean home. That was a convenient and desirable outcome. Others’ reasons may vary.

As for engineering, I imagine reasons must be complex, consisting of at least tradition, cost, state of home network connectivity, and current disparity between consumer and corporate interests.

This reminds me a lot situation with computer games. Maybe stop killing games movement scope should be widened to all the software?

Sure, though SKG decided to focus on just one thing because there's enough already.

Its more that SKG could be part of a wider movement, if other people step up for these other parts.

Meta note: I think we should be angrier at Apple and Google over this. It’s in their interest to push everyone and everything to the cloud (their clouds ideally) and so they never pushed for great local connectivity solutions in their phone OSes.

There’s not really a good reason why it has to be hard for a device to connect to a nearby phone over some reliable signal, eg a home’s existing wifi network. (HN disclaimer: yeah yeah, i know it’s possible, but it’s a big hassle and the UX sucks so a manufacturer is effectively forced to go cloud if they want a device to be controllable from an app). The industry could have long developed some fancy protocol/system over wifi intended for just that. But device manufacturers aren’t strong enough to push for that in networking land, and Apple/Google/Microsoft have an interest against “local” becoming a normal thing normal people can figure out.

I feel like this is what regulation should be about. Instead of demanding that companies open source their systems if they go under, IMO we should have rules saying that smart devices shouldn’t need internet access for controlling them from nearby. If rules like that are in place, a push for a way to make the UX for that as good as it is via some cloud server will automatically happen.

I mean. I've owned several IoT devices that work either locally or over the internet. Some of this you can just blame on local networks being fiddly in ways that are difficult to control.

Over local network it's an unreliable assumption that device A can discover device B through some form of broadcast. There are ways to intentionally or unintentionally block that. And then even if you know each party's IP, some networks will intentionally isolate different users for security reasons.

Is it an Apple/Android limitation or a more basic networking limitation that drives devices to communicate with centralized servers on the internet?

And yes I agree it does seem ridiculous.

> Over local network it's an unreliable assumption that device A can discover device B through some form of broadcast.

Yes and I’m 100% sure people at wifi consortia and the likes could design a thing that fixes that. They came up with DHCP which smells vaguely like this, I’m sure there’s a way.

I own a Neato robot and I’m on the fence how I feel about it. On the one hand, it bothers me to no end that a shitty architectural design makes it so my robot loses half its functionality when the company goes under.

On the other hand, Neato went very bust a long time ago. Vorwerk bought the scraps, and I’m thankful to them keeping the servers on this long. They could’ve totally structured the acquisition such that all customer obligations ended with Neato (and who knows, maybe they did), but they kept it on even though Vorwerk never made a single euro from me. I wish they’d keep it on longer and fix/duct-tape the security issues, but can’t really fault them for not wanting to.

> Robots still work: Your Neato robot will continue to function manually. Simply press the button once to launch a full house run.

Your title is wrong

Perhaps a better title is “to stop working in the way they were sold / advertised”?

Almost all functionality is being disabled, other than limited manual operation.

The functionality is very much reduced.

Perhaps one day some jurisdiction will have the wherewithal to implement legislation to stop this madness. At the very least all the device and protocol documentation and crypto keys etc should be escrowed somewhere for the day this happens.

Sure, having legislation would help tremendously.

What would help just as much: people actually giving a fcuk - as in: researching how durable something is, how hackable, how cloud-dependant or not...

...and not act all surprised when something stops working once the manufacturer calling it quits (or starts charging for a previously-free service).

Today, whenever i talk to others how i evaluate products i still get blank stares and i might as well have talked in a foreign tongue.

Also not happening: learning from $companys previous behaviour - stopped supporting something after a year? No parts, no schematics, no nothing?

Well - welcome to my shitlist of companies that'll never see another $/€ from me, ever again.

Doing this eventually would force companies to change their ways, but as long as they can continue selling whatever dreck they come up with to the masses...

You're blaming the end users. Most end users aren't aware of this stuff, and even if they are, have no practical way to evaluate quality in the way you've described. Even I, as a very technical person, could not evaluate if something is "hackable" without a huge amount of work, and not before I've purchased it.

Like similar cases (is this car roadworthy? are airplanes safe?), this is the classic case for regulation.

> Even I, as a very technical person, could not evaluate if something is "hackable" without a huge amount of work, and not before I've purchased it.

Teardowns, reviews etc… Of course, there is no silver bullet, but researching before buying really goes a long way.

Whatever I buy smart, I always check if I can flash alternative firmware to it or if it can be used locally only - for example.

> researching how durable something is

how I am supposed to know (or research) which fridge or vacuum is more durable?

Especially when this changes.

My first Ecovacs robot vacuum lasted 5 years, the replacement died in months and I've replaced that.

Its a complete pain to get open, and the way its wired makes it a complete pain to get around to try and repair.

Don’t tell me they’ve all three been Ecovacs?

The two times I had to open my Roborock S5 (once because our cat decided to vomit when the robo cleaned up and once to replace a broken Lidar motor) I actually was very delighted by its thoughtful design - basically none of what you describe, everything was very modular.

I mean, of course, you’re right - a different model can and probably will be designed differently - but that’s what teardowns are there for - fool me once, check the next time beforehand.

Mostly by checking teardowns and reviews - that’s the one thing Amazon reviews are still good for - check them, especially the ones with a more negative sentiment and form an opinion based on that…

Also, certain brands more or less got similar issues over all the product ranges, for example power supplies giving up on Hisense TVs, compressors on certain fridge manufacturers etc - there are patterns to look out for - especially when the product has been on the market for some time.

> Perhaps one day some jurisdiction will have the wherewithal to implement legislation to stop this madness.

Oh, and to reply to that point: the EU will have mandated labels on packages that will indicate how repairable something is.

https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-upda...

It seems to be in effect in France already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repairability

> This decision was not made out of convenience or incapacity.

I don't believe you...

Then they will hopefully refund their customers.

Neato went bust a long time ago. I doubt whatever Vorwerk acquired included the responsibility to keep the lights on forever.

Wonder why they built them like that? How was the decision made, just simply incompetence: they didn't know how to do it any other way, delusion: they expected to be become the Google or the Microsoft of vacuums: they'd never go out of business. Maybe just plain greed: wanted to milk their customers for extra features and disable them remotely if they stop paying?

Apps let you collect loads of customer data and sell it.

> Robots still work: Your Neato robot will continue to function manually. Simply press the button once to launch a full house run.

The title is strictly wrong, the things that's being discontinued is the cloud platform.

Still shit though...

Is that what was advertised when the product was sold? As long as "press the button on the hoover once to launch a full house run" was the only thing advertised to sell the hoover, then I'm ok with that. But I highly doubt it.

Just another reminder we need a "Cloud and app free IoT" Good Housekeeping style label of quality.

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