A real cool dude in a real loose mood

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • That’s a good point about the firmware. Just as a data point, I purchased mine about 3 weeks ago from Amazon (the seller was Dreametech themselves) and was able to root it. I think the smart move is to try and root it before you even think about connecting it to a network, as connecting will prompt a firmware update check. I obviously can’t speak to the W10, but Amazon at least has a pretty lax return policy, so if you can’t root it you can always return it.

    Also, to add some detail to OP’s actual request about my experience rooting:

    • Purchased vacuum here
    • Purchased this usb serial module
    • Purchased this pack of cable because I needed male-to-female connectors. I didn’t mind that there were a bunch of them, I tinker with ESP so they’ll get used.

    The technical issue I ran into was the opening of the serial connection to the robot (from here). It turned out I needed to switch the RX and TX connectors around and run as root to make the initial connection. YMMV, but I don’t believe there’s any risk of damage by trying different combinations. On the L10, you have 2 options for Ground as well. Took a bit of fiddling to get that worked out.

    Aside from that speed bump, the process of actually getting the firmware onto the robot is kind of a clumsy fetch quest. You have to go to another site, choose some options, and download the firmware. That site adds your job to a queue, then sends you a link an email, which could take a while if their server is busy. Just something to note, maybe do that step first and start working on the actual rooting after. You also have to download a lightweight web server app to actually transfer the files over to the robot, then use the usb serial connection to install.

    I don’t mention this to scare you off trying it, it’s definitely do-able, but it’s not a straight-forward process and will almost certainly not go perfectly smoothly (the chance of encountering some minor issue(s) along the way is high). I just noticed we’re in the homeassistant channel(sublemmy?) here, so I assume you’re not afraid of getting your hands at least a little bit dirty. I will say that after getting Valetudo installed, I’ve not had any other issues with it. Solid as a rock, and has opened some really great automation opportunities in HA. I’ve also updated Valetudo from the robot itself once, and that was a pretty painless and trouble-free experience.

    Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.