Roomba turns on and starts cleaning by itself

[bravelittleroomba]

...and I didn't schedule it.

That's exactly what happens. Every few days or so, my 5xx roomba suddenly sings its startup song, all on its own, backs out of the dock, cleans, and returns happily, all as though nothing suspicious went on. While it's sure convenient, I didn't schedule it, and I'm wondering if something's up.

[TechGuy]

There may be some IR signal telling your Roomba to start. What TV remote do you have?

[iMayne]

There may be some IR signal telling your Roomba to start. What TV remote do you have?

You got to tell me if what you are asking is possible.

[mfortuna]

You may want to pull the battery for a few seconds to clear the roombas memory. It may be corrupt and fooling the roomba into thinking it has a schedule.

[Sc0rPs]

Or... it has become self aware... and just gets bored sitting on the charging dock so starts it's primary program!

No? Well in that case maybe try what above poster suggests and do a reset... wiping it's memory... and self awareness...

[bravelittleroomba]

No remote in here--no TV in the room where it is docked. If it continues to do it I'll have a look at the battery, that'd be pretty annoying, that is an almost new battery.

[mfortuna]

I don't mean to infer the idea of a bad battery. It is possible a part of roomba's memory became corrupt and indicates there is a valid schedule. Pulling the battery will erase the memory. When I used to schedule my reds and disco, they would sometimes lose a schedule because of corrupt memory. One possible cause is static.

[bravelittleroomba]

She hasn't done it in several days. Since it's convenient for me anyway, I'm going to wait another week and see if she does it again. I can report back with what happens!

[vic7767]

The Roomba schedule has a 7 day event array with a single start time option per day. If the battery is removed or a system reset is performed then the schedule array will be zeroed out. Have you done either action on your Roomba ?

[bravelittleroomba]

Recently no, and I did not schedule this bot, ever. I'm just waiting to see if it gets worse or if there is some pattern to her antics. It was the 16th that this happened so I'm going to wait till a week after that and see if she goes for a spin all on her own on April 23rd.

[vic7767]

I understand that you have not scheduled this robot. I'm just pointing out that the program responsible for turning it on has a 7 day event window. If the program somehow got an activity bit set then it may start the robot at a specific time on a specific day or days. Removing the battery would clear the program.

[Fraggboy]

Do you have any pets??

My Scheduler started up automatically a few years ago (During the night), and I was for the life of me trying to figure out why. I had a cat that learned how to perch on top of the Roomba and she would press the clean button to activate it. That happened several times with different Roomba's. I had to build a cardboard cover so she wouldn't press the buttons..

Just thought I would check.

[RoombaMomma]

May I ask, how do I do a reset? Just by removing the battery for a few seconds?

[vic7767]

Normally removing the battery for a few minutes is better. There are capacitors installed on the circuit board that store battery voltage that require a longer amount of time to discharge. Once voltage is drained from all circuits then most memory registers are restored to zero.

[jerryxia]

Is it at the same time every day?

My Xiaomi Mi robot vac starts cleaning every day on its own at 19.00.40 and 19.00.50 hours pacific time (CA, USA) (without my request).

Scheduled running is disabled.
Programming the DND (Do Not Disturb) to eliminate that time period has no effect.
Powering down the router during those time periods does stop it.
Opening the connection between modem and router at 19.00.32 for 25 seconds simply delays the auto-start-ups (evidently resends packets).
The only convenient solutions are to "turn off" the vacuum during that period, or to"cage" it (cleans a couple square feet and returns to dock).

[TAJ]

Or... it has become self aware... and just gets bored sitting on the charging dock so starts it's primary program!

No? Well in that case maybe try what above poster suggests and do a reset... wiping it's memory... and self awareness...

Remember, Roomba is Skynet.

[TAJ]

Actually the same thing happened to me. I have no schedule set. It just woke up and started cleaning.