Hey, I just recently did this with a Dreame L10 Pro, which I think has a similar root procedure. If you’re reasonably technical and have some Linux experience, it’s a fairly straight forward process. The documentation on the Valetudo site is decent, but doesn’t really address any possible issues you might run into during the process. All told, it took about 20 minutes, but it was a bit of a labyrinth. Having said all that, the end result is absolutely worth it, and Valetudo is pretty great.
This pretty much sums up my experience as well. So glad I did it, but I wouldn’t recommend to someone who doesn’t like fiddling with systems. Note that with recent firmwares, it may be harder to near impossible to root. And I don’t think you can know the firmware version before purchasing…
This pretty much sums up my experience as well. So glad I did it, but I wouldn’t recommend to someone who doesn’t like fiddling with systems. Note that with recent firmwares, it may be harder to near impossible to root. And I don’t think you can know the firmware version before purchasing…
That’s a good point about the firmware. Just as a data point, I purchased mine about 3 weeks ago from Amazon (the seller was Dreametech themselves) and was able to root it. I think the smart move is to try and root it before you even think about connecting it to a network, as connecting will prompt a firmware update check. I obviously can’t speak to the W10, but Amazon at least has a pretty lax return policy, so if you can’t root it you can always return it.
Also, to add some detail to OP’s actual request about my experience rooting:
Purchased this pack of cable because I needed male-to-female connectors. I didn’t mind that there were a bunch of them, I tinker with ESP so they’ll get used.
The technical issue I ran into was the opening of the serial connection to the robot (from here). It turned out I needed to switch the RX and TX connectors around and run as root to make the initial connection. YMMV, but I don’t believe there’s any risk of damage by trying different combinations. On the L10, you have 2 options for Ground as well. Took a bit of fiddling to get that worked out.
Aside from that speed bump, the process of actually getting the firmware onto the robot is kind of a clumsy fetch quest. You have to go to another site, choose some options, and download the firmware. That site adds your job to a queue, then sends you a link an email, which could take a while if their server is busy. Just something to note, maybe do that step first and start working on the actual rooting after. You also have to download a lightweight web server app to actually transfer the files over to the robot, then use the usb serial connection to install.
I don’t mention this to scare you off trying it, it’s definitely do-able, but it’s not a straight-forward process and will almost certainly not go perfectly smoothly (the chance of encountering some minor issue(s) along the way is high). I just noticed we’re in the homeassistant channel(sublemmy?) here, so I assume you’re not afraid of getting your hands at least a little bit dirty. I will say that after getting Valetudo installed, I’ve not had any other issues with it. Solid as a rock, and has opened some really great automation opportunities in HA. I’ve also updated Valetudo from the robot itself once, and that was a pretty painless and trouble-free experience.
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