Clean your home with the Xiaomi Mi robot and pimatic

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Maybe some of you got one of those fancy vacuum robots while they where on sale? The Xiaomi Mi Robot is currently on sale for 257€ (gearbest.com) - I thought I share my setup to let the robot clean my home without using the chinese app at all.

First of all, I used mirobo to control the robot via wifi. I disabled internet access for the robot (via my router), so it can’t dial out to it’s chinese friends, but can still be managed remotely.

For me easy handling and auto shutdown was essential, so the charger won’t stay on 24/7. I use pimatic rules to control the robot. So whenever I leave the house and want it to be cleaned, I press a button before leaving, indicating for the robot to do it’s job while I am gone. It will wait for everyone to leave the house and start cleaning, charge again until the battery is full and then shutdown the charger, resulting in a clean home and no energy wasted.

1. Install mirobo https://github.com/rytilahti/python-mirobo and discover your robot. Note your IP and Token. Also block internet access to the robot once discovered.

2. Using a simple shell script to query the robot for status

#!/bin/bash
# Author georg90@github.com

trim() {
    local var="$*"
    # remove leading whitespace characters
    var="${var#"${var%%[![:space:]]*}"}"
    # remove trailing whitespace characters
    var="${var%"${var##*[![:space:]]}"}"
    echo -n "$var"
}
# Set robot ip
ROBOT = '192.168.0.130'
TOKEN = '12345678765432234'

ping -q -c2 $ROBOT > /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
    echo "Robot is online"
    mapfile -t lines < <(sudo mirobo --ip $ROBOT --token $TOKEN status | cut -d ":" -f2)
    # state
    state=$(trim ${lines[0]})
    #battery
    battery=$(trim ${lines[1]})
    #fanspeed
    fanspeed=$(trim ${lines[2]})
    #in cleaning
    incleaning=$(trim ${lines[4]})
else
    echo "Robot is offline"
    state="Turned off"
    battery="0"
    fanspeed="none"
    incleaning="none"
fi

echo $state
echo $battery
echo $fanspeed
echo $incleaning

# Update variable in pimatic (example)
curl -X PATCH --header "Content-Type:application/json" --data '{"type": "value", "valueOrExpression": "'"$incleaning"'"}' --user "user:pass" http://$ROBOT:8080/api/variable-incleaning

3. Using pimatic rules, you can control your robot even more

Frontend controls

Any ideas to improve the setup? What do you think?

@georg90 Nice! Thanks for sharing! I suppose the charging switch is an add-on (Smartplug or alike)?!

Yes, indeed. It’s an sonoff s20 with espeasy installed.

For those who can’t choose a vac to buy - there’s an article with comparison here
It’s not an ad, just article with useful information

That’s looks really nice. You have done an excellent job. I would like to inform you about another Roomba vs Life Vaccum Comparision https://www.geekwrapped.com/guides/roomba-vs-ilife-vacuum-comparison Hope this could be helpful for you mate.

Thanks alot!

Hey,
i have littlebit problems with the Installtion of python-mirobo.

I get every time the Message:
“python-miio requires Python ‘>=3.5’ but the running Python is 3.4.2”

But when i try “sudo apt-get upgrade python” i get "Paketaktualisierung (Upgrade) wird berechnet… python ist schon die neueste Version. " ( -> python is already the newst Version).

@tehmilcho said in Clean your home with the Xiaomi Mi robot and pimatic:

Hey,
i have littlebit problems with the Installtion of python-mirobo.

I get every time the Message:
“python-miio requires Python ‘>=3.5’ but the running Python is 3.4.2”

But when i try “sudo apt-get upgrade python” i get "Paketaktualisierung (Upgrade) wird berechnet… python ist schon die neueste Version. " ( -> python is already the newst Version).

You need to upgrade python3 so sudo apt-get upgrade python3 - if your distribution doesn’t have a newer python version, just get it via PPA on Ubuntu or via the manual installation on other systems.

@georg90 Thx… i have littlebit searched on the internet and found “https://gist.github.com/BMeu/af107b1f3d7cf1a2507c9c6429367a3b” i try this in the Moment.

I have now installed Python 3.5 and python-miio. But if i try “mirobo discover” i get “-bash mirobo: Command not found”. Can someone help me with this? I cant find a solution via Google

Update: On my 2nd Raspberry with Stretch it works fine but im not able to get the Token. i export the App and check the DB but the field Token is empty, the control over the Andriod App works fine. I dont know … maybe my “roborock.vacuum.s5” (Roborock 2nd Gen) is unsupported.

Update: This no longer working with default firmware / newst APP-Version, there have removed the token from the Local app. So you have to Root you Cleaner with custom Firmware

Update: i got it do work, i installed on a old Tablet “mihome-5-0-19” via APK -> Download here https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/xiaomi-inc/mihome/mihome-5-0-19-release/mihome-5-0-19-android-apk-download/

Then i logged in with my Account and extract the App, now the Token field is not empty -> Guide to export https://github.com/jghaanstra/com.xiaomi-miio/blob/master/docs/obtain_token.md -> Methode 3 -> Non Rooted Phones

Hey its me agian

I have now a little problem with the Script from @georg90, the script works fine in the console but if pimatic runs it as cron.

i get everytime this Error in the Log:

error [pimatic-shell-execute]: [ShellActionHandler] stderr output from command home/pi/pimatic-scripts/roborock_cron.sh:   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed

  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100   164  100   114  100    50   1086    476 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  1096
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed

  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100   160  100   113  100    47   1190    495 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  1202
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed

  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100   159  100   113  100    46    397    161 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   396
100   159  100   113  100    46    396    161 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   396
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed

  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100   171  100   120  100    51   1443    613 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  1463

Anyone has a idea how im able to suppress this Errors?

@tehmilcho well, that isnt an error.

It outputs the data it gets to the console, because you are not redirecting the output.

What command is executed by the cron device? And does the command work?

Is it a curl command? You can do curl -s to suppress the message.
You can also disable logging from the device page.

@gleno0h Hey Thanks for your Anwser. I had the Cron via Pimatic-Rule now i changed it to a “true” Linux cron and everything is fine!

And you are right i had in my Pimatic rule just “excute script” with out “> /dev/null 2>&1” like on your Screenshot.

Hey,

for all that will use the Script from @Gleno0h if you want also the “Cleaning Timer” of the Roborock you can do this if you change the follow part like this:

then
    #echo "Robot is online"
    mapfile -t lines < <(sudo mirobo --ip $ROBOT --token $TOKEN status)
    # state
    state=$(trim $(echo ${lines[0]} | cut -d ":" -f2))
    #battery
    battery=$(trim $(echo ${lines[1]} | cut -d ":" -f2))
    #fanspeed
    fanspeed=$(trim $(echo ${lines[2]} | cut -d ":" -f2))
    #Cleaning Time
    cleaningtime=${lines[3]}
    cleaningtime=${cleaningtime:16:24}
    #in cleaning
    incleaning=$(trim $(echo ${lines[4]} | cut -d ":" -f2))
    echo "1"
else
    # echo "Robot is offline"
    state="Turned off"
    battery="0"
    fanspeed="none"
    incleaning="none"
    echo "0"
fi

Hi @georg90 ,
great idea. Can you tell me which variables did you created in pimatic?
thank you kai