Having a clean house - Roomba i960

 

I've had this robot vacuum for about 2 years now and whilst I'll be discussing the integration of the iRobot i960 with HomeKit, by using homebridge, there are a bunch of other robot vacuums that also have plugins.

A couple of things I'd say are:

1. I do think iRobot is a bit expensive. However it has been very reliable.
2. This model is not that brilliant at picking up cat hair from a carpet.

Still, it's a good starter. One of the big issues with robot vacuum cleaners is that they have such small bins. iRobot fixed that with the s9+ which came out not long after I bought mine. The new vacuum's have a self emptying capability.

There is not a single vendor that supports HomeKit and there is not a category for it in HomeKit, which is disappointing. Still, some enterprising people have still built integrations using Homebridge. I have used the Roomba2 Plugin.

What it looks like in HomeKit

Mine lives in my Dining Room, actually under a seat, and you can see that it appears just as a switch in HomeKit.

Thi makes it nice and simple as I can just touch the button and the Roomba starts up, or I can say "Hey Siri turn on the Roomba" and away it goes. Similarly I can turn it off, but turning it off makes it return to its base station which, in Roomba terms, is to return "home".

But wait.... there's more!

If you select settings on the switch, you will see that there are 4 accessories, 3 of which appear as contact sensors, giving you an open/closed status. Basically, the plugin delivers:

• Roomba start on demand
• Roomba stop and dock on demand
• Roomba charging status
• Roomba battery level (with low battery warning)
• Roomba docked notifcation
• Roomba running notification
• Roomba bin full notification

A Simple Automation

You don't have to get too complicated with this really.

I have set up an automation that says that when we leave home, then:

• Lock the doors
• Turn on the Alarm to Away mode
• Start the Roomba

I haven't automated turning it off as, usually, it's finished when we get home or, if it hasn't we usually let it run for a while.

Thinking about it now, I should also set it to off if the TV is turned on. I'll do that now!

Set up.

This is a little painful, I'm afraid.

You will need the IP address of your robot. This isn't necessarily easy, as the iRobot app doesn't easily provide it. You'll have to get it from your network router.

You need to have a CLI (Command Line Interface). On a Mac it is called "Terminal", and you get to it by using Folder, going to "Applications", then scrolling to the bottom, and selecting "Utilities". You will see "Terminal" towards the bottom.

1. CD into where your plugins are installed. On both the Pi and MacOS it is: /usr/local/lib/node_modules/homebridge-roomba2
2. Type 

   sudo npm run getrobotpwd 192.168.x.xxx

3. This will install a new tool and run it for you.
4. Follow the instructions on screen
5. Use the credentials supplied to fill into Homebridge.

You then restart Homebridge, and your iRobot should appear in the same room as your Homebridge. You can then move it wherever you want inside HomeKit.