HACKER Q&A
📣 evolve2k

Robot vacuum but without the privacy invasion?


After six months of research I’d finally settled on my dream robot vacume. Sure it was expensive but it would do everything I wanted including having its own self emptying bin into another robot.

The company had a decent enough privacy policy and i was pretty much set to go.

Then word of the privacy scandal hit [1] and I ran a mile.

It’s 2023. I want a robot vacume but I don’t want the privacy compromise.

What options exist?

- maybe it’s a mainstream robot that can be put into offline mode so it never connects to the internet

- maybe it’s some software I install on my local network that intercepts traffic and helps the robot keep running none-the-wiser that it’s not actually phoning home anymore

- maybe it’s the holy grail, the release of the Framework laptop of robovacs. An open hardware dream.

What suggestions do you have for this privacy weary soul who just wants some automated help with household chores?

1. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/

  👤 fckgw Accepted Answer ✓
Where is your tolerance level? There's plenty of robot vacuums that don't have cameras on them (the majority actually) and they use mapping via LIDAR. They may lose features such as object avoidance however.

If you're concerned with house mapping data then there's always the dumber bump-and-run models that don't map anything.

Some of the older Roomba models use a remote control to set schedules and timers and can be use completely without an app.

👤 BrittonR
Many models can be hacked to run https://valetudo.cloud which is completely local. I’m using it with a Roborock S5.
👤 housemusicfan
Anker/Eufy 11S is a fully-offline robovac.

Internet-connected vacuums could represent peak Silicon Valley extravagance. There is no shortage of new dumb ideas every day but they don't get anywhere close to this.

Get your cloud-powered AI bullshit out of my vacuum cleaner.

Amazingly they have succeeded in normalizing the concept that you need an always-on internet connection and a smartphone app to run a vacuum. To clean my floor.

The ghost of Juicero weeps in the corner, wondering how they were more successful in marketing something equally useless.

👤 spansoa
> maybe it’s some software I install on my local network that intercepts traffic and helps the robot keep running none-the-wiser that it’s not actually phoning home anymore

Yeah all my IoT devices connect to my pi-hole[0] and I manually disable connecting to various hosts. If there was some pre-made IoT filter list that would be great and would save me from manually disabling all the phoning home.

[0] https://pi-hole.net/

👤 praet
I used to have a Eufy 30C. Though inferior to a modern Roomba in many ways, it can operate full offline, doesn't have any cameras, is easily serviceable, and kept my house clean for the better half of a decade.
👤 whywhywhywhy
Might be out of date because I bought it 5 years ago I think but Botvac at least my model (D8 I believe) has excellent room navigation using LIDAR and can run completely offline if you don’t mind turning it on manually.

Not sure how bad it is privacy wise if you connect the app etc. but I chose it because it uses floor level LIDAR when Roomba at the time pointed a camera at the celling and numbed around to build a map.

👤 consoomer
In my experience, these robot vacuums all suck and not in a good way. You're better off paying a premium for a good stand up vacuum and doing it yourself... especially if you live with 1+ females that seem to shed hair like crazy ;p
👤 alibrarydweller
My Roomba is on a VLAN without internet access and is controlled via rest980[1] running in a container. It has a basic but functional web interface. Valentudo is probably nicer but I opted to trade that for the broad iRobot install base and spare part/consumable availability.

1. https://github.com/koalazak/rest980