Valetudo – Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling local-only operation
valetudo.cloudThis project tries to both be open source and accessible to regular people. And it kinda succeeds :)
For the end users, there's a telegram group where people can share standardised PCBs for rooting common robots sold in Europe. And the project's main developer is even in there actively helping out. But discussion about forks or custom PCBs is frowned upon, as that would only confuse the non-devs.
On the developer side, thought, making things easy and standardised required some trade-offs like not supporting any robot-specific functionality. That means if you're a power user, you'll probably run your own fork.
So in a way, installing Valetudo moves you from a Chinese closed-source walled garden into a European source-available walled garden. That said, I'm extremely happy with my (private, unsupported) fork running on 2x Dreame W10.
I wouldn't say that soldering a pcb [0][1] yourself is beginner-friendly but I understand your argument. Some robots are unfortunately still very difficult to root (which is not valetudos fault), which makes getting started with the project very cumbersome.
The telegram group has a bunch of people (including myself) willing to mail pre-made ones, or the unsoldered PCBs for self solder.
It has become quite a community around the software and breakout hardware in itself
Sadly not my region. Maybe I'm 2024 able to get one.
I think beginner-friendly is kind of relative. Considering the end goal, you're tying to achieve (hack the robot to run your custom software), requiring a user to solder a relatively simple board is a very accessible requirement.
I might be fine with soldering. But it's a completely different skill than running the software to flash something, I can see how it would put people off.
The Valetudo page says it is Apache 2 licensed, so that would be open source not source-available?
Indeed, valetudo is open source. The parent comment seems to prefer a different approach but valetudo project took a different path and is forcing the commenter to maintain their own fork (which is a feature of *all open source approved licenses*, not of all source available licenses)
How are valetudo forcing people to maintain forks?
I got my Dreame because it had good Valetudo support. But when it arrived i did a doubletake and saw destructive hardware mods were involved I decided to not mod yet. I never set the thing up with a Chinese account, never told it about my WiFi, and everything works fine. Just use the buttons on the device.
I've been using this on my Dreame Z10 pro for over a year now, and it's been great. I will never buy a robot vacuum that doesn't have valetudo compatibility (or similar in case an alternative ever shows up I suppose).
While I haven't done much with it yet, I also appreciate the relatively straightforward HomeAssistant integration.
I also have the Dreame Z10 Pro. Valetudo and https://dontvacuum.me/ are wonderful resources! I can't speak highly enough of them. Really appreciate all the hard work that went into making rooting robot vacuums with privacy-preserving firmware possible.
A question for both of you. Did you make your own Dreame Breakout PCB, or did you buy one from someone, or did you wire in directly?
When I did it, it just required plugging wires into the port. The only difficulty I had was that it was a slightly unusual spacing so I struggled slightly to stick the jumper wires in, but after that it worked fine. Have subsequent Z10s changed this?
Ok after reading the docs, it looks like that board specifically fixes the non standard pitch. I managed without it, but I did have some difficulties with poor connection that the board would have avoided
Yeah, that was my same experience. It was a tight fit, but certainly doable.
Also chiming in that wiring in directly is easy. There are two types of Dreame rooting:
* Connects to robot's serial port. You'll need a USB-to-TTL cable if you don't have one around to connect to your computer. Z10 Pro uses this method.
* Connects to robot's USB port (still via the debug header). You'll need three of the four wires from a USB cable. You can literally cut open a USB cable here, or get a breakout board. L10s Ultra uses this method.
Plus misc jumper wires to connect it all. The boot button is connecting a wire to boot select, a wire to ground, and touching these wires together (really, the PCB is all three of these things: boot button + serial + direct USB).
I currently have the same problem, I would like to root my dreame roboter, but unfortunately I can't get the components for the dreame PCB, or nobody sells me a ready soldered dreame PCB. Too bad there is no alternative, but that makes it really hard for people with a dreame robot to use the project.
I just poked wires in.
I've used it on my Roborock S5 for at least 4 years now and love it. It used to be a little unstable (something like it uninstalling itself if the battery dies for too long) but hasn't had any issues in years. I, like you, will never buy an unsupported vacuum again :)
I almost pulled the trigger on the Z10, then got worried I’d just brick it and backed out. Now it’s not even available. Hopefully there will be another no-solder option soon.
Answering the burning question: no, Roomba hardware is locked up and not supported.[1]
But this is really awesome. I don’t love the idea of Roomba having a floor plan of my house and constantly prompting me to buy more crap directly in-app, and HA integration is fantastic. Would allow for far more dynamic scheduling for one thing (everyone out of the house? Get to it! Prioritize this room over that one. People arriving back? Head back to base. Night before garbage day? Notify me to empty/replace collection bag.)
[1] https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
Roombas are well-supported in HA, and they can use the local network connection. You still need to use the Roomba app to set up the robots, but afterwards they can work completely locally.
Do they work completely locally or just without the Roomba app? I mean, if you prevent the i-series from phoning home, does it still work? I guess I could test this pretty easily, but frankly will be pleasantly surprised/impressed if Roomba let their robot run “off-grid” for very long.
Update: pleasantly surprised: https://iroboroomba.com/how-to-use-roomba-without-wifi/
In my experience, without wifi, roombas are loosing their schedules after some time. I don't remember exactly, after couple of weeks maybe. They just stop working according to schedule or star they work on unusual hours.
Does Roomba have any physical/sensor/whatever advantage over supported models, either absolute or bank/buck?
Roombas tend to be better at cleaning carpets and rugs. They're also designed for service- it's really easy to clear jams and untangle hair, and they last many years. Many of the competitors at lower price points are essentially disposable devices.
One of their models is the only decent vacuum that can automatically avoid pet faeces.
More importantly, Roomba charges per square meter covered (by tier obviously). While it is resting most of the day and could well cover another floor, it’s a feature the base models don’t have.
Let’s say this option costs 100€. Should all users of Valetudo donate 100€?
I'm sorry, WHAT? I need to pay extra to have my Roomba clean all the rooms?
They seem to be implying that the different tiers of Roomba robots are differentiated by how much square footage they can clean in a session, not that Roomba literally has a usage based pricing model. I don’t know how they came to that conclusion though.
I wasn't aware of this either (if it's not a joke)... if so, it would be right up there with HP printers refusing to scan if you don't buy ink.
GP is incorrect. Roomba does not charge by sqft
I own two Roombas and have never heard of this.
Not yet, but this is the future. After all, people don't want vacuum cleaners, they want clean apartments, cleaning is a service, and other such self-aggrandizing business bullshit. Welcome to the future!
I think you're confused. The sqft is roughly how much they can cover in one go before either the bin is full or the battery is low. You can configure your Roomba to do multiple cleaning jobs in a day, each cleaning certain rooms on that floor. Or just pick up the vac, put it down anywhere in the house, and press the button.
This is a wrong/misleading information. When you buy a Roomba, you buy once and use it for free as long as you want.
There's a very recent talk that they did at 37c3 that you can watch, if you're interested in the process of them gaining root on the various platforms [1][2]
[1] https://events.ccc.de/congress/2023/hub/en/event/sucking_dus...
> The Apache-2.0 license is a very permissive license and a lot of work is being shared for free here, so I trust people to not take advantage of that and sell Valetudo; especially not as their own work. > Please don’t disappoint me. Thank you.
Valetudo is a perfect example of a project at risks of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization - OEMs can easily slap it onto their vacuums and prevent users and developers from changing the firmware.
This is exactly what GPLv3 was invented for.
Yes. It is almost guaranteed that the code from this project will be used in exactly the way this person fears. Why not use the GPL if you don't want that to happen? Why instead try and beg people to not "disappoint" you? I find it hard to understand why people expect others to 'do right by them', when they aren't prepared to do right by their self (e.g. by choosing a license better fitting your expectation).
Some large tech companies have been carrying on a smear campaign against GPL...
Direct link to the list of supported robots: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
Not sure if that’s up to date? Roborock S8 Pro Ultra is listed on the page of buying supported robots but it’s not on the supported robots page?
That’s the one I have and I’m interested in Valetudo for hooking into HA but I wish there was an iOS app for it.
It’s extremely hard to root, I think that’s why it got removed from the supported robot page. As for ios, just saving the page on the Home Screen really works fine, no need for a native app here imho.
I own a Neato Robotics Botvac Connected, and with Neato shutting down, my robots cloud-dependent functions will be useless(remote start, iphone app etc) Unfortunately it’s incompatible with Valetudo.
The Chinese $Mi bots I’ve come across lack the suction power I loved about the Neato. I’m in search of a no-nonsense replacement. Any solid suggestions? Dyson one seems nice but way to expensive.
Last year I did a lot of research on Reddit and other sites and finally settled on the Roborock S7 Pro Ultra. Some learnings I had along the way:
- Software quality is crucial, and new models are often iffy. Badly programmed vacuums (and almost every brand has those) are incredibly annoying, because they get stuck constantly, fall down stairs, leave dirty areas, can’t find the way to the base station, etc. Roborock seems to be one of the few who nails this.
- Suction power should be maximized, or you’ll spend time cleaning up after the robot. The S7 I bought has 5100Pa and I think that’s acceptable, but I still need to do two runs sometimes (which is low effort for me, but it means more noise).
- Since we wanted a vacuum that also mops: Those mops, if not managed well, get moldy and start to stink after just a few days. Build layout and engineering quality are big factors here - ours almost never stinks even though it has no drying fan (some do).
- A base station is needed for real hands-off usage, and those are damn expensive when bought afterwards. And do change the water tanks regularly, they can get quite smelly, fast. It’s the one non-negotiable maintenance we have to do every week.
- I was looking for vacuums with explicit mention of HEPA filters, but it seems the more expensive ones have decent filters without ever mentioning HEPA. I’m still not sure what grade the S7 filters really are, but it seems allergy friendly (likely also owed to the mop and the usage of a filter bag in the base station).
- Even if the manual says to wash the filter, don’t; they will often degrade. Better to use compressed air (carefully) to clean instead.
Overall, we are still happy with the S7 Pro Ultra after a solid year of usage. It’s been a time saver rather than a time sink, and apart from getting stuck sometimes laying around, it has always done a solid job.
Checkout Matic at maticrobots.com.
Few things:
1. We have HEPA bags - each bag acts as HEPA filter.
2. We found that more than suction power, the brush roll is more import for effective sweeping and vacuuming. It picks the dirt way better… so we have designed first of its kind to hair tangle-free brush roll. It is designed to be effective on all kids of surfaces.
3. We further improve efficacy with actuating cleaning head so it adjust the height for each type of surface with diff thicknesses.
4. The HEPA bags last a month if just vacuuming and about a week if daily vacuuming and mopping. It collects both wet and dry messes. It even has version of diaper salt and charcoal powder so it doesn’t smell or get moldy.
5. But the most important is completely Vision first perception with precision 3D system so that it doesn’t get stuck, chew wires, etc.
Indoor world is entirely built by humans, for humans, to fit our vision first perception system. So we have given it a very similar perception system.
6. Private by design. It was built to work completely w/o internet connection.
Looked very promising, but there are some hard blockers: 1. It's not shipping yet, meaning there are no trustworthy reviews. 2. It will be shipped to USA only. 3. It needs apple device for (full) control.
Hopefully all of these will be adressed
Totally understand. Here's a review from the first look demo that we gave to reporter from Wired.
https://www.wired.com/story/matic-robot-vacuum-first-look/
And, yes, we're starting with the US and iOS but will be adding support for both international and Android ASAP. Thanks!
Similar price point as a S8 Pro Ultra, but without a dock. The dock is actually really nice cause it stores water / dirt and more importantly... cleans the mop after use. Membership is also a non-starter for me.
I think you're going to have a hard time competing against the S8.
Thank you for your kind feedback.
The choice of lack of dock is deliberate one -- when we did research with our target audience -- familes and working parents with kids/pets, we realized that they actually do not like the large dock for few reasons:
1) It's ugly - family homes are very carefully decorated and most don't want the big dock in the room.
2) It's extremely loud -- again, it's a matter of preference but it's like rocket taking off every time it vacuums the vacuum. And, even the self-cleaning mopping is noisy. It still doesn't cover for the fact that it just drags dirt around between those cleaning cycles.
3) We heard from familes that they hated the smelly dirty water and did not know where to throw it.
Again, I'll refer to back to noise but for lost of pets and kids, the noise of dock and the robot are very scary. I know because my Golden hated it and my 3-year old would cry everytime the rocket took off.
Based on the response so far to pre-orders, we're very optimistic that it's resonating. Thanks!
1) agreed, it is bulky and a bit ugly, but it also fits perfectly under the sink in my kitchen, so this isn't an issue for me. It isn't like a regular vacuum isn't bulky and ugly either.
2) it is loud for about 30 seconds as it sucks what is in the robot into its own bagged storage. not a big deal at all.
3) it is a lid sealed container of dirty water that you just pour down the sink or a toilet after it is done cleaning. this isn't rocket science here.
4) I'm not worried about someone in China seeing me in my underpants. My house and images and what I paid for it are already listed in MLS. This is classic making a big deal out of something that really isn't a big deal.
5) Do you know how many S8's have been sold? That would be the real comparison with your pre-orders. My bet is that they are orders of magnitude higher.
Also, families care a lot about privacy, and right or wrong, there's an inheritant mistrust of cloud based disc bots and especially those coming from China. We do not beleive anyone of the disc bot companies have wrong intentions or anything, but I know that I wasn't comfortable with our home data going to cloud.
Hence, we started with the premise that we shouldn't have to compromise our privacy to keep our floors clean. Thanks!
Looks cool! But disposable HEPA bags mean that the owner will be vendor-locked on them.
Ultimately, we're striving for great user experience which we can do with the bags. Our goal is to make bags as cheap as possible and already it's a $3/bag which is way cheaper than any other robovac bags if we're not mistaken.
That's also why we have all-you-can-clean membership plan -- it's optional and users can purchase bags a al carte, but with it's unlimited bags. mop rolls, extended warranty, and accidental coverage it's really a great peace of mind for our users.
Our goal is to provide great customer experience first and formost with a higest quality product. Thanks!
Hi, I'm in the UK and interested in knowing more about Matic. Do you have any plans to ship to the UK any time soon? You mention the device is private by design (this is a huge selling point for me). Does Matic support MQTT or any other open protocol to allow integration with Home Assistant?
We will ship to UK as soon as we can - just starting with the US for now. In terms of integration with Home Assistants -- again zero problem in doing this. We will eventually get there, but we want to make sure that we do it in a way where privacy is still maintained. We do not want to enable it if it means sharing private data of any kind with home assitant companies.
If you provided MQTT support like plenty of IoT companies do, then any open source home automation tool can integrate! Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/) have a grading system, so a local-first implementation would give you their highest score since they also really care about privacy. https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th...
Thanks, Looks really nice and exactly what I am looking for. I want to mention that my first reaction was “it’s huge, where do i even put it?” And make sure you ship outside the US!
Shiiping outside will happen for sure.
In terms of size, it's ~1x1 feet and far smaller than some of the docks that come with disc bots these days.
The reason for 1 feet height is that we are giving it a same top-down vantage point that we humans have. Flat designs will give ant-like vantage point which makes seeing what's in front it rather hard.
Human like vantage point also means it builds maps that both the robot and humans can easily understand and recognize all the objects. Thanks!
Sounds good, let’s see how it holds up in the real world ;) I’m not in the market for a vacuum RN btw.
For sure! So far field trial results have been great, but we've got work to do before we ship. Lots of bugs to squash! Thanks.
For the mop getting moldy problem, I recommend to simply get a pack of replacement mops from aliexpress for like $5 or something. After a cleaning cycle, throw the used one in the washing machine and replace it with a new one, it only takes 10 seconds of work and your floor remains bacteria-free.
I have an S8 and it's a real life quality improvement, I love that thing
Ours self-cleans so eliminates the hassel of having to replace it after every cleaning cycele.
Fwiw, I've found that the main brush from the Q5 works better in my S7 than the factory one
The S7 Ultra has a $100 mop heater add-on that helps manage mop stank by drying it out after use.
Or just buy a S8 Pro Ultra.
They have slightly different sensors - we actually wanted the MaxV so that we could check up on the apartment/cats in a pinch. It’s not as simple as “just buy the next model up” - my recollection of researching this was that there are a number of very similar models with different features - mop base, sensors, suction power. Even with buying a “flagship model” there were local maxima with other models.
Great learnings, thanks for sharing. I have been eyeing the roborock series as there seems to be some sort of consensus on them being slightly better than the others, yet I get this review astroturfing vibe when reading reviews and posts. And like you mention in the learnings; mop gets moldy, dust bag emptying, huge basestation etc just misses the point somehow. I will probably end up getting one slimmed down version from roborock
The mop doesn’t get moldy for me. What I meant is that there are such reports for other vacuums. The base station is sizable, yes, but tbf it does carry a lot of liquid and dust storage.
Good to know. Thank you!
Similar for my proscenic. While the company exists in theory, the app can't register a new device on Android anymore. Since my last phone update I'm just left with hoping that I never need to change the schedule and it will keep running until it dies.
I'm on the same boat. My neato is already a bit old (needs new battery and I had to replace a broken belt) but I've been procastinating in finding a replacement as there's just so many options, most of which suck.
> most of which suck
I'd hope so, that's kinda the point.
But seriously, my house hold just replaced the Roombas with roborock and couldn't be happier
Yep, roborocks have done a great job maximizing disc bots. And like any other Xiomi product, they tend to do slightly better job with software/app.
I've generally been happy with roborocks, and a few are compatible with valetudo. I haven't used it yet, though, because the rooting process is incredibly complex.
I wasn't even aware that Neato is shutting down. I owned two Neato's, one is dead, the other one is dying (screen broken). Still sad.
Take a look at vacuum wars on youtube
My little robot vacuum has been running Valetudo from day one. It has been rock solid. I literally never use the UI, as I just press a button and let the little puck do its thing (while talking like Glados from Portal).
I just like that thanks to this, my robot vacuum works like a standalone device that does not communicate with anything, yet does exactly what it should.
A bit offtopic, but I really like bauhaus-style cantilever chairs but I always had problems with robots wanting to climb them and then getting stuck/being super loud, same with drying racks. Is this still a problem? I thought maybe those vision/lidar robots can avoid climbing the tubes.
My roborock S6 with camera and lidar tries to climb my POÄNG chair.
It’s great to be able to de-cloud. But the community, especially the maintainer of Valetudo, is terrible. Literally everyone is rude every step of the way.
Checkout the telegram channels. Watch the maintainer yell at people, call them names, and watch the supporters eat it up.
> rooting and installing Valetudo is a pretty much permanent change.
As much as I like the project and appreciate its concept, but this is a deal breaker unless your robot is out of warranty, because you will be under the mercy of some random developer instead of the vendor.
This is amazing, I wish it had support for Ecovacs too
Dennis Giese - the guy who did & published many of the actual vacuum roots - actually did a talk at 37c3, just yesterday! Together with Braelynn he published rooting methods for Ecovacs. Expect easy & comfortable root using the UART debug connector.
Valetudo support seems to be coming, however "it's done when it's done"; the necessary work is more dramatic due to the different protocol Ecovacs uses for cloud communication.
Until then: I would make sure not to update the device firmware. Just be prepared to wait and keep an eye on the release notes and/or Valetudo webpage (unlike with other projects, you can safely assume it to be up to date).
I couldn’t find how to run Valetudo on iOS which is sad since my native app is too slow sometimes.
There is none, there is a section why and waht to do without it in the FAQs.
You can just use the browser.
It only supports old models and most of the time requires complicated full disassembly and breakout boards/PCB knowledge. Of course great that this exists, but this isn't for the "average" advanced users.
Define "old"
Love the section "Valetudo is a garden"
"But, at the end of the day, you must understand that it is still privately-owned. You’re on someone else’s property over which you have no power at all. You will have to show the necessary respect. And - most importantly - you need to understand that letting you into this garden is a gift and should be treated as such.
If you don’t like this garden because you don’t like how it’s structured, or you feel like it’s missing something, or maybe I choose the wrong flowers to plant over there that’s fine. It’s just not for you then. You can leave at any time.
There is simply no ground to stand on to demand change to the garden."
Here is my favorite.
"Only supported robots are supported
While this may sound incredibly dumb, it unfortunately needs saying nonetheless.
Only supported robots are supported. Unsupported robots are not supported.
If you have an unsupported robot, it is not supported. There is no support for it because it is not supported."
You can almost hear the lament of dealing with entitled people in the statement. These are words that originated from having to deal with people who assume that they get free stuff for nothing in return
While this is crystal clear, what isn't clear is what actual robots are officially supported..
For example, the buying recommendations mentions Roborock S8/S8+, but the supported robots page doesn't mention it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's very clear:
"Please note that this list is exhaustive. These are the supported robots."
https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
The supported robots are the ones on that list, nothing more. The firmware might work on more of them though.
I think in that case they might want to make it clear they are recommending unsupported model.
I was going to comment the same thing... it's a lovely metaphor and you can see it comes from the experience of someone who has been through it before.
Despite being about private property, I still think this bit of text or something like it should be added to the support page of most OSS projects.
It’s really nice to see a “don’t try to force people to use this” and a “here are reasons not to use this”. Refreshing.
Hey All, we (maticrobots.com) have built a local-only fully autonomous robot mop and vacuum. We just use 5 RGB cameras with all on the edge device processings. We send even the map data to app using local WiFi. No cloud at all.
Matic builds full matterport like 3D map just using CV. This enables Matic to Precisely navigate without bumping at all.
We have built 10x better vSLAM than the best open source lib like Orb SLAM.
AMA.
Would you please expand on your VSLAM improvements? What other implementations are you comparing against and on what metrics/settings?
The latest NN based approaches still fall short of ORB-SLAM - which is considered the state of the art (in terms implementations). However, it still has only 70% success rate in loop closures.
We tend to measure our accuracy with loop closures and slam graph consistency over time.
Here’s the link of Matic self and exploring and building map on the fly: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e051nmb1ci0o8nu/Auto_Explore_Mehul...
Is that sped up ?
Yes. Its at 4x the speed.
All of the devices that Valetudo supports also only run the actual cleaning logic local-only. That's why Valetudo works in the first place.
Yep. The diff is dynamic and continuous mapping.
Does Valetudo remove that? The stock Dreame firmware does that, and I got the impression the core navigation and cleaning routes would stay intact.
How do you handle changes during a session? Eg legs/cats, chairs being moved etc - are those constantly re-integrated in the map?
Matic keeps both static (historical map) and dynamic constant live mapping. So it constantly observes changes live all the time — just the way we do. And it keeps merging these changes in the slam graph/maps.
Any specific reason to avoid Lidar? Cost?
Single pixel lidars are not enough. Anything higher is way too expensive.
Also, Indoor world is designed with our vision first perception. We think robots need to be imbued with similar system. And we believe vision is enough (there’s a reason why nature chose vision based systems for us?)
Three bottlenecks in on fully autonomous indoor robots are:
1. Perception and Precise SLAM 2. Affordability 3. Privacy.
All three are feasible with Tesla like cameras only approach.
Problem with indoor robots isn’t sensors — it’s lack of brains/algorithms.
Probably not, it looks like it costs about 4x what my lidar vacuum did
And there's an annual subscription on top. I really don't understand the value proposition here.
I don't see an annual subscription. I see one year of "unlimited replacement of HEPA Bags, Mop Rolls, and Brush Rolls". That sounds great actually.
Thank you. Thats correct. Membership is OPTIONAL. Users are welcome to buy bags and rolls a la carte.
And Membership is more peace of mind with all-you-can-clean like unlimited bags and rolls, extended warranty, and accidental damage coverage.
Cost is in computes and lack of economies of scale. Have to take Tesla like high-end to more affordable overtime approach.
Disc robots have been around for 20 years. Most are exactly the same from inside.
Looks pretty nice. How does it handle cleaning under furniture?
Thank you. Cleaning head is 2 inches tall and extends up to 3 inches below furniture. It cleans all the visible dirt and goes underneath anything that’s taller than ~14”.
It’s designed to clean visible dirt thoroughly.
Frankly, if primary use case is cleaning underneath furniture than disc robots are great already.
Thanks, that makes sense. For context: having little kids we also keep all the crawl-accessible spaces pretty clean which includes under couches etc. Manual vacuum immediately for any obvious mess to keep it from spreading, robot to handle tediously complete levels of coverage.
Totally understand and the use case and really appreciate your feedback. We hope to resolve that in diff way. Just things kind of like truck vs suv vs sedan — we will just need diff form factor.
With this one, we really want to eliminate day to day use.
I've used three generations of vacuum robots, with the latter two being Valetudo-supported:
* Eufy RoboVac 11 (no lidar, the "stumble around triggering front bumper" locomotion)
* Dreame Z10 Pro (lidar, base station vacuum emptying, mop attachment)
* Dreame L10s Ultra (lidar/camera, base station vacuum emptying plus clean/waste water for integrated mopping)
I root a second a vacuum for my partner's place, but past that it's very hard to recommend a Valetudo setup to someone remote who doesn't have the technical skills to do the rooting and install procedure. So the Matic is potentially appealing to me, even if I never end up using one myself.
Looking at the Matic page: I think this is aimed at people with very cluttered houses, i.e. folks with young kids? The implicit pitch here seems to be, "it doesn't matter how cluttered your house is; this little robot can get in there to clean without tangling".
Except... that's never made explicit? It's just a lot of photos of very cluttered spaces. I'm left to connect the dots.
Customers aren't going to care about "Real-time 3D floor mapping" or "Cutting-edge vision software". They want "Won't trip over your (sometimes literal) shit".
Vacuum feature wise, it seems like table stakes and not much past that? I only just upgraded to the L10s Ultra, which has a larger base station that includes two water containers--one for clean water, and one for waste water. The robot returns to the base station to cycle water and clean the mop pads every X square meters (configurable). This does such a better job actually mopping, compared to the Z10 Pro's mop attachment. It lifts the mop pads when it crosses carpet, so it can even mop the other side of large area rugs that fill rooms. I suspect the Matic's mopping will be only marginally okay, especially with no mechanism to automatically clean the mop pad?
Rubber roller seems to be common on newer robots too.
Having a charger-only base station seems really limiting (versus emptying on-robot waste into a larger bag on the base station itself).
I picked up a second L10s Ultra for my partner's place for $630 during the black friday period, so price-wise it's going to be an uphill battle. Honestly, though, I don't think people willing to pay $1k for a cleaning device are all that price sensitive. I'm trading money for convenience, and I would absolutely trade more money for more convenience if I clearly understood the convenience on offer.
Lack of Home Assistant integration makes it a no-go for me personally, as a technical user, but I realize the average person isn't going to care (and probably you shouldn't either). If you did want to support Home Assistant, I think the shortest path would be MQTT support. You don't need to do a custom integration. It's fully discoverable and automatic if you adhere to their expected structure: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/vacuum.mqtt/
Anyway, no idea if any of that is useful, especially since "nerdy person who roots consumer hardware" isn't exactly your target market, but maybe something in that brain dump is useful info!
Thanks for the detailed feedback and thoughts.
1. Yes, our core users are young families: working parents with young children and pets. Clutter and rate of entropy is just higher. :)
2. The fundamental reason for reengineering and reinventing robot floor cleaners with Matic is that disc robots are relatively inferior and suck (literally and figuratively).
Few issues that I as user encountered: 1) constantly getting stuck, chewing wires, dog toys, etc. 2) small bin size and my wife hates the big docks - she just thinks they are ugly. (People go out of their way to hide appliances behind cabinets, so why do we need to tolerate these ugly bricks. 3) Noise. Not only vacuum is noisy but docks are like rocket ship taking off - doesn’t work with pets or young kiddos. 4) Can’t get to sides and corners - circle shape. Vacuum at the bottom is literally 2 inches away from the side 5) and, can’t tell it where, what, how to clean. Most times I don’t want the whole home cleaned or whole room — I just need to clean kitchen are clean where we cook/chop veggies etc.
** However, it just doesn’t make sense to why we are tolerating these Gen 1 robots that were invented in early 2000s. They were great for that time. But they are Nokias and Blackberries. Now tech and AI is so much better, so it’s time to reinvent and build iPhone of home robots.
(200+ self driving car start-ups, same amount building industrial robots, none in home space…why?)
2. We believe that just like self-driving cars need Google Street View maps (which Sebastian Thrun built first) and GPS, fully autonomous indoor robots need precise SLAM and high fidelity 3D maps. With Matic, we are letting robots build maps on the fly and remember its location in precise manner.
3. You are right that mostly we have built table stakes features. However, the it’s about HOW we have built them. With our vision-first approach, disc robot ceiling is our floor. That’s just the foundation.
And HOW is about making robot that actually works and is intelligent.
How can we call robot intelligent if it continuously needs to bump? If it doesn’t even know what’s in front of it?
A robot that can navigate our home the way we do is in itself a huge step forward and for that it needs precise and dynamic maps (we constantly observe when things move).
We have done few things: - reinvented sweeping and vacuuming to adjust suction, brush roll speed, height of CH etc. based on type of surface and type of dirt. (We don’t take vacuums over rugs with frills and we mop wine stains - why can’t robot do that).
- first if it’s kind self-cleaning mop that doesn’t just drag dirt with it like mop pads. Instead we squeeze dirty water and dirt out the bin with every turn.
- a completely new mobility system invented for the modern homes. disc robots don’t climb shag rugs. We do.
- quiet. Vacuums at 55dBA and mops at 52dBA. This is really important for robots to do things on our behalf in homes. They can’t be noisy.
- with our ID not only families love looking at it but kids and pets are not afraid of it.
And, we are just getting started. By end of the next year we will be adding embeddings and simple chat like command/control based on visual maps.
Stay tuned!
Sort of a strange question on a Valetudo thread, but have you used Valetudo on a lidar-enabled robot? You can easily clean specific rooms, and I've never seen a lidar robot get lost, and very rarely stuck (usually something like managing to close a bathroom door behind itself).
But anyway: I do think it's worth tripling down on your "average busy person with a cluttered house" pitch. 3D mapping is a huge distraction, although I get that it's unique and your team is proud of it. You're selling the features it enables!
If your site's first content was a time lapse video of Matic navigating a living room covered in toys and charging cords that would tangle most robots, though...
Will add lot of it... before it can navigate precisely, it has to know what's in front of it. Lidar is a one-laser, it cannot see what's above or beyond that one pointer, so it's bumps and tangles with wires/tassles etc. all the time.
Imagine if you could only see just one-inch ehigh of what's in front of you -- not below or above -- then you'd un into tables or chairs all the time. Single pixel lidars are sort of like that.
I understand. IR security cameras can see the beam. Most have a kinect-like dot pattern that isn't purely horizontal, but that's neither here nor there.
I still don't think it's worth much attention. "It's better at avoiding tangles because it sees the world in full 3D".
Appreciate your feedback.
I read these comments and was very confused for a good while; somehow I thought there was a new kind of cloud robot that vacuumed your SQL databases for you.
The name comes from "Vale tudo" (tudo = all, vale = valid). Vale tudo are martial art events where any fighting style is allowed with very few rules. The precursor of MMA.
From their FAQ https://valetudo.cloud/pages/faq.html
Valetudo is the roman name for the greek goddess Hygieia, which is the goddess of health, cleanliness and hygiene.
Tangentially, "valetudo" is just "health" (which may contextually connote _good_ or _bad_ health): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1...
We get "valetudinarian" from this word, one who worries (excessively) about one's health.
Ah, you got me. I didn't consider that other alternative meaning.
And you just stated to know where the name came from, even though you made it up instead of looking it up.
As said in the comment you replied to, it was a good faith mistake on my part, due to not knowing the alternate meanings of the word.
It means "anything goes" in portuguese but maybe it is a coincidence.