Family got a Roomba (7550) and Breeva over the holidays. I think the main thing I’m trying to figure out is it supposedly likes lights on while cleaning. How do I turn lights on while cleaning, and off when docked?
I’m okay to run schedules out of the iRobot app, it’s more just the lighting since we run the Roomba/breeva at night when we go to bed.
Background:
all lights (well, almost all) are in Hubitat and Alexa
as noted, I have Alexa available. I also have Echo Speaks app, but don’t really use it. I’m not the biggest fan of needing Alexa and her skills, but will if needed.
I use ring (unofficial) app on Hubitat and HSM to turn light off when alarm comes on.
I have a Synology nas or Rpis available if I absolutely need to use docker for this.
@Sebastien Yeah, I noted that initially searching for a solution. I should have put that in my original post. But isn’t the cloud/iRobot native app still needed for mapping? I don’t ‘need’ local right now I guess, but maybe that’s needed.
I use the iRobot Scheduler. It doesn't replace the iRobot app. But it does allow you to control the Roomba as well as treat it as a device. Mine is called "Rosie" and I (for example) disable motion automations while rosie is running as otherwise she turns on lights everywhere she goes. I'm not sure about Roomba needing lights on though. I never turn them on. But she is setup to run when we're not home. You can do presence based automations.
The latest ones we have use cameras to identify things like obstacles and dog poop. We had that unfortunate experience once, right before guests visited, of our old Roomba rolling dog feces through the entire floor. That older version was retired after that.
I do find my roomba docks better when the area is well lit. I use the irobot scheduler to get the devices in hubitat and RM to turn the lights on when docking. It would be the same/similar setup to have lights on while cleaning.
I turn on lights overnight certain days a week for my Roomba, and turn it off a few hours later. My version uses cameras to see and take pics of obstacles.
For some reason my turn off is not working. Is it that the turn on is certain days after my defined days, and the off is in the next day?
I've never done a rule like that, but one thing that stands out is what if the lights turn on Tuesday night because they're allowed, but don't turn off because it's no longer Tuesday by the time 2:39am rolls around.
I'm not sure the best way to do this. Try turning on at your set time, but instead of an explicit time to turn off do a turn off after 3 hours or something like that.
[Edit] It looks like you can do that in Basic Rules. Just pick elapsed time for the turn off and see how that works..
Any luck getting this to work? I have the same need for this to work! All I want to do is turn lights on when my roomba is running, and off when it's not.
I just began looking into this so if I come up with anything I'll reply with an update. If nothing else works, My last ditch effort will be to attach a contact sensor on the roomba so when the switch is open, turn on the lights I want, when it returns home, the lights go off.
All I want to do is turn lights on when my roomba is running, and off when it's not.
