You can check out Valetudo. It is a custom firmware you can flash on many robot vacuum cleaners. Think of it as a layer between the robot and the manufacturer’s cloud that exposes the robot’s capabilities locally thus making the connection with manufacturer’s cloud redundant. There is a section with supported robots and instructions on their site making it very easy to install.
Yeap you are right, custom firmware is the wrong phrase perhaps my fastidious friend :P. I suppose you can call it “cloud replacement” software that runs on the robot after you flash a rooted firmware that allows you to make changes.
hmm no one said matrix. i rather like matrix. the whole key and passcode seems to confuse people but once its set up its nice and free… and you can host your own server if youre super paranoid.
Didn’t Amazon buy wikr a couple years ago anyways? That’s when I deleted it. Signal.
EDIT: as pointed out by LWD, op is likely just starting conversation to have another account recommend spyware, WireMin. Like he did in this thread’s comments: lemmy.world/comment/6346585and I found on another post: lemmy.world/comment/6032047
Another approach is rather than worry about whether the robot or IoT device is respecting your privacy, set up your network to be segmented with VLANs so that the IoT devices can only reach the internet and nothing else on your network. Then just provide fake info for setting up accounts with the IoT devices.
I do the reverse. My IoT devices that I didn’t make myself get shut out of communicating with anything but Home Assistant.
I’ll let them have internet access if there’s a firmware update, but that’s it. Anything that requires an internet connection to work doesn’t get purchased.
… I may need a tutorial on doing this… My HA works great, but I have a ton of Hue in my house from before and really like the bulbs and stuff… It would be nice to block those off from the Internet… Is that doable on the router or do I need to upgrade my network (been thinking about doing some upgrades anyways).
The easiest way is to put your IoT devices on the guest network and block internet access to the network, but you could do firewall rules if your router allows that.
Or, get a home lab router instead of consumer grade. I went with MikroTik, and it’s a great bang for your buck. It’s not too dissimilar from Cisco in the cli, but the GUI is nice too.
I like this approach cuz it plays ball and can be reused for a number of products. Could have an “appliances” network and make a reusable fake “appliances” identity for any device that wants to IoT.
I switched over to TickTick when Todoist suddenly changed their pricing model a few years ago. I don’t remember the specifics of what happened but I remember being very frustrated with the sudden changes as it would’ve required me to change my whole system.
I’ve been very happy with TickTick since then and would strongly recommend OP checks it out to see if it fits their needs.
Haven’t tried Session, though it seemed like a good service, until I found it lacks perfect forward secrecy, which IMO seems like a bad decision. I think Berty seems interesting too, but it seems like it might take a short while before it becomes a relevant option.
Also not a fan of Session missing FS. So I replaced it with SimpleX, but it’s quite a dead community. The app also feels like something beta, but I have high hopes for it
I had a similar need and settled on tasks.org. Depending on your needs, this may not fit. It’s more of a Google/Microsoft tasks replacement. It’s been really nice for my needs.
+1 for Valetudo! I’ve installed it once via OTA and twice by FEL. The OTA was obviously a breeze, but FEL wasn’t that bad. I just watched videos on YouTube for the disassembly and took my time doing each step. I love the UI and the fact that I can SSH into them just for the sheer coolness of it! I think one great thing about it is that it doesn’t affect the software that the robot uses for all its tasks and functions (e.g. vacuuming, mopping, sensors), just that it replaced the cloud and runs it on device.
The problem is that they are closed off systems; you need to do full on reverse engineering to even understand what you are dealing with; plus there is the fact that these appliances are expensive and, unlike people modding consoles, there isn’t mutch gained for the majority of users
No problem; do note that in most cases you are going to need to open the vacuum to access the serial interface; so make sure you are comfortable with doing that and that you have the necessary adapters… That last one bit me on numerous projects
I’d definitely recommended valetudo, but wanted to mention that eufy has some easily repairable non WiFi vacs that work reasonably well with no smart features. Eufy has a rough track record regarding privacy with their other smart products but can’t spy without a connection.
“I’m looking for a privacy respecting vacuum robot” must be one of the most dystopian sentences I’ve read in quite some time.
I mean there is no lack of dystopian stuff going around these days. But if you imagine someone saying that 30 years ago, that someone would have conceivably ended up in a lunatic asylum. In 2024 however, it’s a perfectly valid and apropos question.
Why don’t you get a shark vacuum cleaner. Honesty those make vacuuming kinda fun( it even has headlights!). You can stick some headphones on, listen to some music you like, and you even get some exercise! And you can still vacuum when the WiFi goes out!
Now if you’re disabled or something I understand the need for a robot, but otherwise you could save a ton of money, get exercise, and have zero privacy concerns.
Ha, you mentioned my use case: disability. I got my first robot as a ‘this is cool’ curiosity, and to try and take a bit of the burden of running a household + working + supporting two disabled adult children off my folks. It gives me a small manageable task (maintain the robot) and gives them ~90 minutes of their time back to work on other things like budgeting or meal prep, or relax for a bit after coming home from work.
7 years later (and 6 robot models; run awayyyyy from irobot or shark models!), and they’ve only had to pull out the manual vacuum twice. Though I prioritize cleaning ability over privacy concerns, seeing as if they have to vacuum regularly, the robot has no value to me.
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