Zigbee in Roomba 500 series

[laran]

This is the renamed thread about radio communication and roomba 500 series. please find older posts a:

http://www.robotreviews.com/chat/viewtopic.php?t=7396

[laran]

After a number of firmware updates and download of new software packages to by devkit I have managed to setup my packet sniffer. As expected the roomba does not send out any "I am alive" messages. I don't know if it's because I have an unbonded 560 of this is normal if one has a WCC as well.

After reading the "How do I pair my Wireless Command Center?" answer on iRobot Customer Support, I beleive that a WCC is what is needed for me to be able to go any further.

Does anyone know where to find someone selling WCC's that is prepared to ship to Sweden? I know iRobot won't !

Also, I have been looking for a manual or detailed description of how the WCC works, can someone point out where if/where this information can be found?

[THX-1138]

Hello Laran,

Does anyone know where to find someone selling WCC's that is prepared to ship to Sweden? I know iRobot won't !

Have you checked with Chris at RoombaExchange.com? Let me know if he is able to help you out.

I have been looking for a manual or detailed description of how the WCC works, can someone point out where if/where this information can be found?

Have you checked iRobot.com documentation? What type of information are you looking, just on how to use it? or it's internal workings?

[laran]

I'll check with Chris to see if he can help me with this.


I don't expect to find details inn WCC internal workings at the iRobot documentation What I am looking for is information that can be used for information about what packages may be expected when I sniff the network. My plan was to start with investigating a detailed description of what all the buttons do and what information may be sent back to the WCC from the roomba. I will go through the documentation to see if something interesting pops up.

[MyRobot]

Hey Guys,

Please post your findings related to the Roomba ZigBee IF as soon as you see progress . I just received the wireless command center and it works great! I just ordered a $75 ZigBee USB dongle for Windows: https://www.integration.com/prd_iaoemdaub12400.php
It should come with enough drivers for me to do some hacking on the Roomba - I can't wait to get started. My guess is that the iRobot developers are smart people with no intension of creating too much work for themselves, so they would probably go with some serial protocol that immediately allows access to the full ROI. This would not only speed up their development, but it would actually allow them to make future command centers with higher complexity, than the wcc. Just like the rest of us, they would want to also utilize the RF IF for diagnostics and since they already decided to implement 2 way communication between Roomba and the wcc, I'm sure the ZigBee IF provides a full-featured interface. Well, we will see, won't we?

[THX-1138]

Welcome MyRobot to RoombaReview.com and Merry Christmas!

It may be not difficult to 'hack' into iRobot and get the full ROI but keep in mind their terms of intellectual property when doing so. If you haven't please check "Greg's scratchpad" thread for more information.

[MyRobot]

Thanks THX-1138(?)
I am aware of the "rules of engagement" when it comes to hacking the iRobot and I have no intentions of breaking any such rules. The RF interface is not directly a part of the Roomba Open Interface or the CLI - I do however believe that it can only be a matter of time before it becomes open to the public. You probably agree that part of iRobots success can be seen as a result of the "free" marketing that Robot-holics have provided by posting their Roomba mods online. iRobot knows that you and I wouldn't care about a dumb vacuum cleaner unless we were able to tinker with it. To be honest, I was impressed with the efficiency of my iRobot when it comes to vacuuming. I had no idea that it would do such a great job. I invested in it in order to get a cheap robot for my spare time projects, and have come to realize that I can no longer live without the vacuum. This means that any mods that I do must be reversible and the radio interface offers the optimal reversible solution.

2 days till my ZigBee dongle arrives. It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

Stay tuned!

//why do today what your Roomba can do tomorrow?//

[MyRobot]

I forgot to thank you guys (Laran and THX-1138 and everybody else contributing) for your efforts in investigating the RF interface. It will become the first important step on an incredible journey.

And Merry Xmas to all of you out there!

[laran]

I am looking forward to hear about any progress from MyRobot. If you find out the tools from Integration being sufficient it's a great platform to start working from. It is probably one of the cheapest solutions as well. I am still waiting for my WCC so I am not much help at the moment.

Ones you can post some information about the packets being sent from the WCC during the pairing process and power-up I can get started as well.

[Fraggboy]

I'm curious as to why you didn't find any RF signals when you started up your Roomba. Didn't you get 2 VWLH's when you got your 560? It uses RF to communicate to them. I have no background in what you are doing, but wouldn't your packet sniffer pick up on those types of signals, since the WCC and VWLH's use RF to communicate? Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just curious..

[MyRobot]

Good point Fraggboy!
The VW/LH certainly communicates with the Roomba when the Roomba wakes up. I just verified that the communication is over the radio link by hiding the VW/LH behind a book while waking up the Roomba. The LED on the VW/LH turns on seconds after I wake up the Roomba. I'm not sure which of the two initiates communication - I'm guessing that the VW/LH listens for a short time at a given interval in order to save power, and that the Roomba pings for entities that are willing to connect. But Laran's observations sort of indicates that i is the other way around(?) Otherwise he should have picked up some signaling exactly as you suggest.

[dasyar316]

I think that the VWLH are put into low power standby mode, when the roomba becomes active it wakes up the VWLH's. I also think that the roomba itself has the same setup, since the WCC can get the roomba to start doing something, while the roomba is at the home base. I do not have a WCC, but it would interesting to see if, when the roomba is powered down, if the WCC can actually wake the roomba up.

In my own futile way, I keep on pressing for more info about this subject on the Create site. So far I have had no luck, they are probably ignoring my posts. I will try to wear them down LOL.

[Fraggboy]

It makses sense that the WCC can wake up the Roomba. I mean, if the Roomba is powered off, and you press the clean button, the Roomba should turn on and start cleaning. I don't have the WCC, but I think it would be safe to say that the relationship between the WCC and Roomba is one way. Sure, they need to "Pair" up via the "Handshake", but after the pairing the WCC controls the Roomba.

Now, with the VWLH's is a true mystery. Which device has the control? Does the Roomba tell the VWLH that it's ready to go to the next zone, or vice-versa? Waking up the VWLH is pretty straight forward. The Roomba wakes them up, but after that is the real Who controls who?

I am so anxious to find out what you guys cover!!

[Feyr]

just to clear up. yes you can start it from the wcc, but you need to press the button twice.

on the first press, it will wake up (the wcc will) and flash its light (presumably looking for the roomba), on the second press, the roomba will start cleaning

[MyRobot]

I believe the key to understanding how communication is initiated is to look at the power consumption of the different entities. The Roomba has a large capacity battery that is charged regularly. It would be OK to open up both the Roomba RF transmitter and receiver at regular intervals. The WCC and the VW/LH are powered by non-rechargeable alkaline batteries so the system must be designed in such a way that battery capacity is conserved. This means that the VW/LH will probably open up the RF receiver and shut it back down at some (other) regular interval. The WCC could behave differently because communication is always initiated by human interaction - meaning that it can power down completely if no buttons have been pressed for a while (the power indicator LED on my WCC goes out after 1 minute of my last key-press).

When I power on (press any button) on my WCC it scans for the Roomba for up to 15 seconds (the week days light up one by one) before the power LED lights green. I can control the Roomba only after the scanning has succeeded. This indicates that the idle Roomba keeps at least the receiver open for connection. I would assume that it turns the transmitter on to connect to the VW/LHs when it starts moving (the power consumption of the RF tranciever is nothing compared to the Roomba's motors)

Laran could you try to put your ZigBee sniffer on the case? I assume that the Roomba has to move before it sends out any signaling to the VW/LHs.

[MyRobot]

UPS contradicting myself

The VW/LHs actually power up before my Roomba starts moving as I stated earlier!

[Fraggboy]

Question With the Roomba and WCC off, when you power on the WCC, and after the "Searching", does the Roomba turn on automatically?

[MyRobot]

Chris,

It does. Whether it's in the charging dock or out. It reacted rather quickly the second time I tried (My Roomba lives under the sofa in the living room now that I have the WCC - out of sight, not so much out of mind...). I will keep it powered down and out of he dock for a couple of minutes to see if the behavior changes. If I remove the batteries from the WCC and then replace them, the Roomba will turn on immediately.

[Fraggboy]

If I remove the batteries from the WCC and then replace them, the Roomba will turn on immediately.

Strange behavior! So I take it that the WCC remembers the handshake then. Must be retained in non-volatile memory, or you didn't have the batteries out long enough.

[MyRobot]

I had the Roomba powered down for hours and out of the dock. The Roomba powered up less than a second after I pressed the power button on the WCC