You Should Hack Your Roomba

[@SamMeechWard]

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[@enriqueatentar8451]

Bro I wonder if Deepseek can run old model Robot like Pepper the robot?

[@realhamza2001]

I know this is unrelated but give the Quran a read :)

[@X862go]

Got it, time to hack a roomba

[@cody_codes_youtube]

Amazing job on this project! Was so excited to see it come through. Video is well done as well

[@SamMeechWard]

🤗 Thanks for the tip, now I can replace the blown up pico

[@cody_codes_youtube]

@@SamMeechWardwhatever I can do to enable this anarchist behavior, I will do my part!

[@AZisk]

my roomba is also sitting around collecting dust. wait a minute 🤔

[@kshau_]

Hi Alex Ziskind!

[@SamMeechWard]

I think you know what you need to do

[@theidas0]

​​@@kshau_you broke as$

[@kshau_]

@ what

[@theidas0]

@@kshau_ I sayed your broke as butt/as$

[@FFelesar]

Each video is better than the previous one. In 2050, he will build the death star II.

[@SamMeechWard]

Using only off the shelf and used parts

[@Jokestur]

The way you explain electronics is really demystifies things. Straightforward explanations that don't get bogged down in nit-piking - perfect for my current level of understanding.

[@cody_codes_youtube]

I’ve been waiting for this video for months!!

[@metalworker3]

Me too!!

[@AZisk]

i have a roomba and that pi, now just need to make them talk to each other

[@matejjustus4573]

You can also use the interface port on the roomba. There is documentation online. I think it uses something like uart and 5v logic. Then just send commands and recieve data/make it drive

[@ThylineTheGay]

"now kiss"

[@chrismdavis2009]

Dude, these raspberry pi videos are awesome. So many good ideas

[@SamMeechWard]

Thank you! Hopefully I can get a few more of these types of videos out this year

[@alecacis]

1M dollar idea. Make a small drone collect dust and spiders from the ceiling.

[@SamMeechWard]

ceiling roomba? Yes!

[@MinePossu]

Just make a regular roomba suction so much stronger so it could climb walls. Altough running out of battery could be a headache.

[@alecacis]

Let me know if you become rich, I want 5%.

[@the_real_cookiez]

Yup. Huge lawsuit pending if it "falls" on someone from the ceiling lol ​@@MinePossu

[@ThylineTheGay]

Nooo leave the ceiling spiders

[@GarryPeacock]

So glad to have found this channel, love this kind of content!

[@JohnSnow-ny9vk]

you are the real full stack engineer

[@TheRealWulfderay]

"make me a coffee" "I am a Teapot". I see what you did there :)

[@testservergameplay]

good eye. such a brilliant nuanced joke

[@SamMeechWard]

That was a joke for scholars

[@hand-eye4517]

this is one of the coolest videos i have seen in a WHILE.more please! low cost but ultra cool projects this is a serious winner !

[@dannylmathews]

Damn! I didn't expect to come away so inspired to do some hardware dev.

[@wouter11234]

Hooly shit I agree so much with you what you said in the first minute about coding with AI. Programming is a pashion for me and I love chasing bugs for hours. But with AI right there it's so easy to fix them quickly and implement "simple" features within minutes. I get bored of programming something that used to be "fun" so easily now. But I also can't justify spending days on a problem that could be solved in hours with chatgipedy. Guess I'll start becoming an embedded dev!! 😎

[@TheJD75099]

I wish there was a making of for this Video. Would love to see the extended part and understanding the though process of coding, debugging and everything else.

[@CryptoPensioner]

FPV vacuum ;] We are living in crazy times... :D

[@GabrielB-cg8rj]

This is such a great video! I feel like I’m learning a lot here as someone who has very small experience with hardware and microcontrollers

[@Simon-gk9ug]

Great little project, Didn't realise the mini pi was so powerful. This would be a awesome project in schools

[@RaOne-gk3ok]

Also that esp32s3 has camera interface hardware to speed up things

[@festro1000]

Imagine parents getting two of these and turning the chore of vacuuming into a competitive game for their kids.

[@SamMeechWard]

My kids beg me to let them vacuum now

[@JonVB-t8l]

My Shark robot had wifi/bt onboard, but it could only be accessed via an app, that then required an account and internet... So anyway I de soldered the wifi modual and replaced it with an ESP8266 that has a simple start and stop function that press the start button and the home button on the top. I don't need the fancy zoning crap. I just want it to run on a scheduled scripted in home assistant and be stoppable by me on my phone.

[@Rob_65]

I got a Roomba i7 that was not working anymore from a friend and I thought this was a perfect donor for a robot project that sucks. I started cleaning it, all sensors and internal plastic parts were covered in dust. After that it suddenly worked again so now it is collecting dust at my mom's place - doing a good job at cleaning the floors. I still want to control it myself but from searching the net it seems the i7 does not have that mini-DIN connector anymore 🥲so I guess the only option left is to disassemble and put some new electronics in there 😁

[@YouTube-Security]

Nice little Easter-egg with the 418 response code lmao (@ 0:43)

[@pxdzzdp55apbhss]

finnaly, new video, thanks sam

[@dianaward4990]

I love the idea of it having a song!

[@SamMeechWard]

I wish i could load more than 16 notes at a time though

[@cwhyber5631]

which song is that

[@SamMeechWard]

@@cwhyber5631 mgmt kids

[@unclesam007]

i just couldn't stop watching once started, very good video 👍

[@pedroocalado]

“Instead of 100 lines of Python it’s 2000 lines of C…” 😅

[@WhoWatchesVideos]

Having never really looked at a Roomba, the fact that they have an external control port blows my mind. Like, I've been thinking for the past year of learning how to be a maker that if I ever designed something to share, I'd make sure to put a port somewhere to make it potentially usable beyond its original design. And iRobot did it in 2005!

[@SamMeechWard]

Yeah I didn't give them enough credit for this in the video, that's amazing of iRobot. That pretty much never happens. It does look like they're deleting old documentation and getting rid of those ports in more recent models though

[@LuenWarneke]

Great to see the rewrite and effort put into this video. Nice work

[@gregM070]

Love it, thinking about dusting off my Roomba and turn it into a battle bay blade. Btw, what’s that window manager / app or task switcher you’re using (like at 6:46)? Would love a walkthrough of useful mac apps you’re using.

[@icastmoustache9387]

ok hear me out, so... battle roombas. that's all. thank you.

[@Naki87]

Did you say at the start when you ripped and tossed that hardware board, that it has a LIDAR component? This would be great if you could setup the unit to track around areas and map out the floor plan of the room/building and/or create 3D scans of buildings or objects

[@brandonadelgad7027]

Aight you convinced me, I subscribed

[@abdallahelmadi]

Big love for you, keep it going

[@SamMeechWard]

I'll never stop tinkering

[@sambeard4428]

Love the iterative approach, lets see if these are also available on 2nd hand market here in NL

[@everettblakley1624]

Incredible! Now I'm imagining Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, but with Roombas

[@SamMeechWard]

Give it to my kids and tell them it's a video game. Little do they know, they're doing their cleaning chores

[@clementita54]

So coool ! Great job !

[@tiagotiagot]

Is it still easy to find the models with the external control port? I remember looking it up some years ago and the reprogramable ones weren't being manufactured anymore and they had split into a line of pricey educational robot platforms that didn't vacuum, and the fancy SPYoT robotvacuum models that were seriously locked down (mostly just to the owners, because if they're like most other robotvacuum and IoT products in general, they likely come backdoored from factory).

[@JoshStribling]

What is that switch-like controller that you have for your phone? (can you add a link in the description to that phone controller?) Looks like a fun project!

[@alka-holic]

Did you use LLMs at any point for this project? For either code/search/etc?

[@pradeepmanoharan4859]

amazing work , one of the most waited video from robot community

[@Tony_Ey_O_Badabing]

This is a great idea, I love it. I would love to take this a step further, and use all the roomba sensors and the pico to control my riding lawn mower 😅

Omg yes this needs to happen

[@SamMeechWard]

Replace the roomba motors with hoverboard motors, they go for $30 on marketplace and are OP. Then have it be a lawn mower/trash collector that goes around cleaning up the neighborhood

[@kraftyk4162]

I've been fiddling around with arduino for a bit now. This video gave me so much inspiration for some whacky gadgets.

[@newmonengineering]

I have been hacking the chineese versions for years. I even wrote a better cleaning algorithm pattern. If you are clever you can use open cv or similar and have a computer control it with the camera. The largest issue is the cleaning algorithm and how it gets stuck with some furniture sometimes. With the camera you can come up with areas to avoid from its POV and that can greatly increase its productivity. The one thing I have not dine yet is try a full ROS2 navigation stack. One day I will do that. Maybe even write an article about how it goes. Not sure but don't have time atm to work on it.

[@SamMeechWard]

I was thinking of doing something with computer vision inside the esp32 but full ros2 would be so sick. Maybe just hook it up to a raspberry pi 5. Actually I have some old hoverboards lying around. I wonder if i could make a self driving mini (go-cart sized) car.

[@GanZAndaZ]

The kind of content I start watching, am very impressed and eager to learn more, realize after 5 minutes I lack the skills and move on... 😂 No offense but great stuff you are capable of doing 😊 👍

[@kingdrab]

Gotta take 3 or 4 of them, link them together, and turn it into a moving table

[@kylerchen2385]

this is sick! im familiar with programming but a complete beginner hardware wise. i was wondering what i need to buy to complete this project (besides the items in the description)? just a breadboard? any wires/cables or anything?

[@dudedavid522]

Yup, sub, save, share. Love you

[@SamMeechWard]

Love you

[@nechiii-2863]

After 6 months and this ❤‍🔥

[@SamMeechWard]

🤗 one day i'll learn how to make videos quicker

[@ivorjawa]

3:30 you need a resistor, otherwise you’re basically shorting the LED. Bad for both the LED and the pico.

[@karlu_z]

whats the app you used on your iphone to control the roomba?

[@SamMeechWard]

I made it github.com/meech-ward/roomba/tree/main/ios/WSCameraESP

[@SauravPant]

damm,That's Nice,can we get the hardware playlist next?

[@costantinoskitsios]

Maaaaaan you are awesome!!! I have two of these shity vacuums like roumba and now I know what will be the next gift for my nephews. Hahahaha.

[@diegocasmo]

What split keyboard is that around 9:07? Also, great video!

[@SamMeechWard]

Glove 80. I can’t type without it anymore

[@kyjmo]

I love this! Inspiring and informative! Nice job! I think I just might hack a Roomba…

[@SanaagSomaliland]

Someone should create a gaming attachment for this and bring it to the local skateboarding park for a roomba fight.

[@pabloalonso9083]

You make this to look easy 👏

[@danielseaton9135]

This is awesome!

[@dozy9563]

Absolutely wild, I checked for a vid on your channel the other day out of random curiosity and coincidentally I'm planning to fix my broken robot vacuum next week, like damn. I did have the thought of trying to control it, but now I absolutely am going to, thanks a lot! Absolutely agree on the homogenized website stuff, I'm going to enjoy time away from that.

[@sigrice]

cursor mentioned!

[@JoeCryptola-b1m]

I did I added a 6.2l twin turbo & ride it to work

[@ajinkyajadhav1146]

Dammmmm, these videos turn out to be motivation for me

[@IKcodeIgorWnek]

Ha! Thats nice, I don't have any of these but looks like a lot of fun. Great video!

[@SamMeechWard]

You can always find one on marketplace

[@IKcodeIgorWnek]

@@SamMeechWard I'll have to find one for me, that's for sure.

[@NakedSageAstrology]

I used Deepseek R1 to turn mine into an automated lawnmower.

[@lordnibbla]

I have acquired a collection at this point of people throwing theirs away.... I knew their time would come..

[@Banaannaa]

You can use other motor controllers now instead of big mosfet ones

[@SamMeechWard]

Yeah but those ones are only $3 each

[@DeathDecider]

Love this 🔥

[@abdullahamin6818]

It is really cool man 😍

[@alihaiderkhokhar92]

I love your videos ❤

[@DanielZuluagaVidaenAntioquia]

Wow, that's pretty impressive and fun!!!

[@aptech2933]

That was fun.

[@UserName-br5ty]

i've just seen this picture on a small screen and decided you are talking about anti-tank mine's upgrade with Raspberry Pi...

[@AlbySilly]

I am tempted to go buy a new roomba to then start tinkering with the old, it's like 5+ years by now

[@sir_no_name1478]

Never used micropython. Whats the main benefit? I coded in a lot of languages and mostlx do not care as long as it is note javascript/typescript and web stuff. I guess python is kind of my favorite language if I have no other infornation on the project, but thats because there is a solution for so many sub problems that its kind of nice to get projects done. I think I would have choosen C for that project but then again, maybe micropython is nicer ^^

[@SamMeechWard]

What takes me 1000 lines of c can be done in 100 lines of micropython, that’s about it. Easier to prototype but I use c and c++ once I’m past that initial prototype phase

[@alborzdesign]

when it detects dirt it should say "mustard on my feet".

[@SamMeechWard]

use the built in ai hardware to detect when it sees mustard or feet

[@ogdan1173]

Not bad, but you can make an opensource code to create a map and to clean automatic? No more spyware and more freedom.

[@IPROBABLYMADEIT]

20:18 It'll add to there Initial BOM, and make the Roomba more expensive

[@MarcinFeszter-m3r]

Hello, which game controller for iphone is it ? :)

[@SamMeechWard]

s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_olEsvBn

[@bartomiejdugosz8829]

What about Roborock s50?

[@jvictor499]

This is so cool

[@CantTouchDizz]

That was fun!!!

[@AlyssaNguyen]

0:44 - Why not just implement RFC 2324 (HTCPCP)? 😂

[@anthonyrussano]

are you using rshell?

[@SamMeechWard]

Nah i'm just using mpremote

[@Aksu115]

Now i have to disasemble my roomba

[@XtergoBlue]

What is that webcam?

[@silvunar]

I almost thought you were gonna build a Micro UGV

[@2000AK]

0:45 did anyone find the video of that cool project?

[@SamMeechWard]

It's in the final seconds of my last video, but you have to watch the entire video and not just skip to the end kzbin.info/www/bejne/jKGXmJ-Ji7WHbtE

[@2000AK]

@@SamMeechWard there is no such thing as rc car controlled using web browser at the end of the video.

[@2000AK]

Oh my bad i was looking at the end the roomba video,instead of the the video for which the link you provided.Sorry sam😅

[@BoaterFamily]

got our roomba up to 9mph yesterday.

[@theyayaa]

Do you follow Syntax podcast? or Wes Bos?

[@SamMeechWard]

Wes and I have been talking about hacking roombas for the past few months

[@Jango1989]

Favouriting this for later roomba abuse!

[@anthonyrussano]

i have that same seedstudio board

[@SamMeechWard]

I love it, but I usually switch out the camera and antenna

[@rudyrocks0187]

I’m a graduate TA for a grad level autonomous systems class and our robots we teach with are roombas😂

[@SamMeechWard]

Is it because they're so cheap and accessible? Or is there a different reason? I've also got about 8 hoverboards that i've taken apart for the powerful motors and drivers and I can get them on marketplace for $30-$50

[@ericthe3rdone]

Wow embedded is the coolest

[@joshs2022]

0:40 I think you mean teapot :)

[@Jacobk-g7r]

Bro, I’ve been thinking of using an ai assistant to help do stuff like this.

[@РоманИ-с1м]

What region your accent is of?

[@SamMeechWard]

From south east uk, lived in florida for 5 years and graduated hight school there, then cayman islands for 2 years, then vancouver for 10 years. So it's a mess of an accent

[@franciscoferreiro204]

hoping DJI get to know this history to open all their drones, NEO included, and specially... They will just end up selling them as coke

[@snoodsnooderson]

Better alternative to buying a turtlebot4 for a fortune

[@Programmingisdead]

Salute!