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Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

makerspet.com

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Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#61

Post by oliwarner »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #51
oliwarner wrote: post #41

The hardware is an issue, not because it's bad but because it's massively expensive to buy the components piecemeal. You can purchase a lidar vac for £70-80 now. Even if you only replaced the brains, that's a quarter of the price of a Oomwoo. The only upgrade I'd want is self-emptying. You'd probably have to relocate the charging contacts but it seems highly achievable. Or you could break up an existing vac for the p…

> £70-80 Dreame's rebranded Mova starts at something like 350 EUR. Yes it's kinda capable and yet still kinda shit - gets tangled, stuck and needs quite some TLC. It doesn't look like it's going to be very reliable either. I can't imagine how poorly 70 one can be. Reminds me of people buying battery stick vacs without checking and then getting disappointed it's not same as dyson (while samsung as actually leads accor…

Maybe. At the very budget end, I was really thinking you take the £150 worth of sensors and motors (when bought new) to make something better.

We just got a second hand Ultenic T10. The 2021 model is commonly available for £40 used. It tangles a couple of times a week and its battery will probably need replacing eventually, but it maps well and empties itself. At that sort of featureset, just a brain transplant to get it offline would be a welcome upgrade.

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#62

Post by dv_dt »

oliwarner wrote: post #41

The hardware is an issue, not because it's bad but because it's massively expensive to buy the components piecemeal. You can purchase a lidar vac for £70-80 now. Even if you only replaced the brains, that's a quarter of the price of a Oomwoo. The only upgrade I'd want is self-emptying. You'd probably have to relocate the charging contacts but it seems highly achievable. Or you could break up an existing vac for the p…

I think about parallels to custom auto hobbyists. There are a lot of shops that can do incredible builds matching up different parts, engines, suspensions and even large scale chassis mods, but there are comparatively few outfits setup to build the car from scratch. A car is a different scale endeavor than a vacuum but some of the tradeoffs are similar. Maybe the engine, transmission etc mechanical interfaces are more easily modified and adapted than digital electrical software interfaces

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#63

Post by Jasp3r »

oliwarner wrote: post #41

The hardware is an issue, not because it's bad but because it's massively expensive to buy the components piecemeal. You can purchase a lidar vac for £70-80 now. Even if you only replaced the brains, that's a quarter of the price of a Oomwoo. The only upgrade I'd want is self-emptying. You'd probably have to relocate the charging contacts but it seems highly achievable. Or you could break up an existing vac for the p…

Yeah I don't think fully open sourced hardware is the play here. For €350 you have a vacuum with home station, with mop, with carpet detection and lift function and with proper software.

I'd rather buy that and change some components to have local software. Similar to what this hobbyist sells for home assistant compatible home ventilation: https://github.com/arjenhiemstra/ithowifi

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#64

Post by kadoban »

fh973 wrote: post #24
teddyh wrote: post #3

No information about whether it will run Valetudo.

Valetudo is an API proxy to control robots via an associated app in order to avoid vendor clouds. It is not a robot firmware and has no role here.

It could still be the UI for this, if they wanted to, and they just implement the guts behind it with that in mind. It's not everything, but the UI is still something you can ~skip.

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#65

Post by Gabrys1 »

RealityVoid wrote: post #17
shaunkoh wrote: post #7

Even though it’s vibe coded, I like the idea of an open source repairable robot vacuum. The current generation of them are notoriously not built to last / be repairable.

I don't know why you would say that, my Xiaomi s6's wheel motor died, I was bummed about it. I ordered a replacement motor, and to my surprise, I only had to open one or two screws and the motor module popped right out. The module had a nice slitting connector. I put the new motor back in and I was done. The thing must be at least 8 years old by now and it's still chugging along. I now passed it on to my parents and…

yup, Xiaomi products are generally easy to repair. I've replaced a suction motor on a Roborock, built one working electric scooter out of two broken (in direct ways) ones. The firmware on the scooter is easily replaceable, the one in the vacuum makes it easy to install valetudo. If only more manufacturers were this way.

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#66

Post by binaryturtle »

I wonder if there's a project like there's OpenWRT for routers, just for vacuum robots? Where you just can buy some device form a normal online shop, then flash your custom firmware, and off you go with a privacy respecting fellow that doesn't film you and doesn't send everything to some US or Chinese cloud. :)

(I still use a traditional vacuum here, because all the privacy and snooping aspects of those robot thingies.)

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#67

Post by frio »

jimnotgym wrote: post #21
frio wrote: post #4

I am bone tired of slop. This looks like a useful thing to build (the cameras in existing closed source robo vacuums creep me out), but when people don't even write their announcement blog post by hand it gives me zero confidence in the project getting anywhere meaningful. Perhaps not the place to share this, but it's depressing. I hope this proves me wrong.

Isn't a AI generated blog post better than someone building a useful thing and nobody hearing about it?

Of all the things LLMs do, one of the most fun is that they help you get over that hump of activation energy for an idea. We all have limited spare time, and going from "hey this might be cool" to a working prototype in minutes instead of days is intoxicating.

Much like my own heaving ~/prototypes folder, there is an avalanche of small projects other people are building in their own spare time (with LLMs), and there is a subsequent avalanche of "check out my cool project" posts. This is cool! However, unfortunately, almost universally, there is very little follow through. If you come back to those projects after a month, most are abandoned.

The creators of the ones that tend to last, at least in my brief experience so far, _do_ write useful blog posts by hand, or put a bit of human effort into sharing what they've built. I guess when I encounter someone sharing their work by way of blog post, it feels to me like they don't really care about actually sharing that work.

Also -- and this is much more a me thing -- I'm just fucking tired of reading Claude's writing. I have to work with Claude most days, and seeing it take over the whole internet is suffocating. Inflicting more of it on others just sucks.

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#68

Post by theblazehen »

binaryturtle wrote: post #66

I wonder if there's a project like there's OpenWRT for routers, just for vacuum robots? Where you just can buy some device form a normal online shop, then flash your custom firmware, and off you go with a privacy respecting fellow that doesn't film you and doesn't send everything to some US or Chinese cloud. :) (I still use a traditional vacuum here, because all the privacy and snooping aspects of those robot thingie…

There is! https://valetudo.cloud/

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#69

Post by fluidcruft »

progval wrote: post #40
fluidcruft wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they get to the point of shipping a kit, why would I care? It's open source, just fix things. It's not rocket science, I'm just no good at working out the baseline machine that has parts to do the things. So I can't help at this point. I don't expect a finished product. The value to me is the customizability and figuring out how to make it do what I want it to do. I'm sure that's not for everyone but like I have…

But it's not even a first draft. There are only pictures and markdown files.

That's among the reasons why I said I will wait for a kit.

Re: Oomwoo, an open-source robot vacuum you build yourself

#70

Post by gempir »

RobotToaster wrote: post #46
haellsigh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that, there's https://valetudo.cloud/ that supports a number of models from different brands.

None are particularly easy to flash, and the dev seems to have no interest in making it more accessible.

micro USB cable and a computer required.

https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots/#eurek...

I did this, it's as easy as it is described. Fully functioning robot vacuum free from the cloud.

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