Simple Physical Controller for a Robot Vacuum (ESP32 + Raspberry Pi)
The idea for this project came from a very practical situation at home. We have a Roborock robot vacuum, but it is configured only on my phone. In daily use, I mostly rely on room-by-room cleaning, which requires a bit of preparation before starting the vacuum. I wanted my kids to be able to start cleaning as well, but without needing access to my phone. Recently, I experimented with an unofficial API available on GitHub, and I found that it was relatively easy to trigger cleaning commands for individual rooms. That gave me the idea to build a simple, dedicated controller. Hardware Design The device itself is intentionally simple: ESP32 Huzzah (with built-in battery support) Small LED display Battery-powered operation Custom 3D-printed enclosure I designed a small case and printed it using a 3D printer to make the controller compact and easy to use for kids. Challenges and Decisions One of the main challenges was communication with the vacuum. From a previous project, I knew that handl...