Comment by shaunkoh
18 hours ago
Even though it’s vibe coded, I like the idea of an open source repairable robot vacuum. The current generation of them are notoriously not built to last / be repairable.
18 hours ago
Even though it’s vibe coded, I like the idea of an open source repairable robot vacuum. The current generation of them are notoriously not built to last / be repairable.
I don't know why you would say that, my Xiaomi s6's wheel motor died, I was bummed about it. I ordered a replacement motor, and to my surprise, I only had to open one or two screws and the motor module popped right out. The module had a nice slitting connector. I put the new motor back in and I was done. The thing must be at least 8 years old by now and it's still chugging along. I now passed it on to my parents and it's cleaning their house.
Agreed. I have a 6.5 year old Roborock S5 Max, and it still works fine. I've replaced a few parts (can still get on AliExpress), but other than that no issues. It's cleaned 74km2.
Also very fond of the Roborock S5, in fact I recently got a second one for the other floor - totally took it apart, cleaned it, put it back together and stuck Valetudo onto it. The first one is from 2017 and still going strong - issues so far: battery replaced (only recently), laser motor replaced, fuse replaced. Aside from the fuse it was very easy and doable for basically anyone.
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Same here: 10 year old Roomba from the 6xx series, still going strong. I bought official replacement parts for a wheel, some brushes and a new battery: Replacing them was very easy - just a few screws, no glued-together parts.
Assuming you live in a crazy big house (1000 m2), it cleaned your house 74000 times. Given S5 was released 8 years ago, even approximating it to 10, that's 20 times a day. I can imagine it taking about an hour to do one clean run. Jesus, did it ever stop cleaning
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yup, Xiaomi products are generally easy to repair. I've replaced a suction motor on a Roborock, built one working electric scooter out of two broken (in direct ways) ones. The firmware on the scooter is easily replaceable, the one in the vacuum makes it easy to install valetudo. If only more manufacturers were this way.
Agreed. I can code so I don't care whether it's vibecoded or whatever to bootstrap. Them working on designing hardware is what matters to me. I'll definitely keep an eye out for the kit, I don't have a lot of patience for hunting parts but would love to play with this.
The issue I have is the documentation and “status” is slop. Looking at the repo, how much of it is even real?
There’s supposed to be a build-along on YouTube but nothing there yet. The BoM is a bunch of aliexpress modules which is ok, but what about the chassis? Is that image generated?
The RFC calls to generate accurate models for the components, but the render looks like a full assembly?
> This is genuinely early — and that’s the point
Mmm I love the smell of slop in the morning
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When they get to the point of shipping a kit, why would I care? It's open source, just fix things. It's not rocket science, I'm just no good at working out the baseline machine that has parts to do the things. So I can't help at this point.
I don't expect a finished product. The value to me is the customizability and figuring out how to make it do what I want it to do. I'm sure that's not for everyone but like I have fingers. I can type. I can fix things. Slop is perfectly fine as a first draft because I'm envisioning a community of builders not a bunch of entitled twats who should just buy a Roomba.
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A few thoughts on the vibe coding… This is probably just one person and this project wouldn’t have seen the light of day if they weren’t able to vibe code it. A few years ago this would have to be a kickstarter that raised at least several hundred thousand- probably millions to have a shot at successfully getting off the ground. You’re talking software and hardware engineering, experts in multiple disciplines, a whole team of people pouring in many hours to develop a product, etc.
Vibe coding doesn’t always have to result in low quality. An experienced engineer with good systems design skills piloting an agent can be incredibly productive. Although I’m pretty rusty at writing code, I’m still good at systems design and I’m having success with coding agents.
Recently, I’ve built a system for myself because what I wanted didn’t exist. There’s no way I ever would have done it without AI. I wouldn’t be able to pull it off myself even with years of time and a budget to hire developers for my personal project is nonexistent. It’s the kind of thing I never would have thought to start prior to good coding agents.
My productivity has been insane. I feel like there’s 10 of me. The quality of output is shockingly good. I’m looking at this and it’s one of the most put together systems I’ve worked on at any point in my career. It’s beyond what I saw from much more senior developers than I and it’s beyond what I was ever capable of myself.
I get why people don’t like vibe coding. It does produce a lot of slop in the hands of someone unskilled in the use of their tools. It costs people their jobs. There are a hundred reasons not to like it. The flip side is we get cool projects like this one because a single person can build the thing they always wanted and never could until now.
> The flip side is we get cool projects like this one
As best as I can tell, this project doesn't exist yet, just a bunch of boilerplate.
> It’s beyond what I saw from much more senior developers than I and it’s beyond what I was ever capable of myself.
and
>It does produce a lot of slop in the hands of someone unskilled in the use of their tools.
Form a somewhat contradictory pair.
A paintbrush can produce a terrible painting or a masterpiece. The skill of the person holding it determines which.
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