I’m looking for a vacuum robot preferably under 500€ and with a cleaning station. My main concern is that most robot vacuum providers seem to need to be connected to the internet. Are there any providers that either don’t need that, where I can block the internet connection or any other way not getting a spy in my home? I’m fine with it if some work is needed
You can check out Valetudo. It is a custom firmware you can flash on many robot vacuum cleaners. Think of it as a layer between the robot and the manufacturer’s cloud that exposes the robot’s capabilities locally thus making the connection with manufacturer’s cloud redundant. There is a section with supported robots and instructions on their site making it very easy to install.
Thanks, that looks really promising
Source: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/newcomer-guide.html
Yeap you are right, custom firmware is the wrong phrase perhaps my fastidious friend :P. I suppose you can call it “cloud replacement” software that runs on the robot after you flash a rooted firmware that allows you to make changes.