Xiaomi Vacuum Cleaner How To Find The Token

Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner in action!

Robot vacuum cleaner Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner impressed users from the first day of its release with its declared powerful characteristics and relatively low price. Many immediately wanted to know more about this device in order to try to understand how the designers managed to create such a nice gadget. And at the same time, figure out how good the robot vacuum cleaner is at its job.

The robot is delivered in a cardboard box, inside which there are cardboard compartments for accessories and a foam block for the robot itself. Includes charging station, power cable and robot brush cleaner.

Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner is literally stuffed with sensors: ultrasonic sensor, infrared sensor, laser scanner, collision sensor, gyroscope and so on. Not bad for such a “kid”!
The robot should be able to clean up to 250 sq. meters of premises on a single charge. Such luxury is provided by the built-in 5200 mAh battery.

The surface of the robot looks great, just like the surface of the charging station.

The access to the trash bin is very thoughtful. You just need to open the upper part of the robot body. a plastic container for dirt is found under it. What’s nice, the container has a built-in HEPA filter.
Due to the high air pressure (up to 1800 Pascals), which is pumped by the motor of the robot vacuum cleaner, at which the surface is cleaned, the garbage collected by it is tightly knotted in the container.

For high-quality cleaning, the Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner brush is equipped not only with bristles, but also with soft rubber “ribs”. This design is not new. many leading manufacturers of robotic vacuum cleaners have already used it in their devices. The length of the brush is 165 mm. This size is 100% justified from a design point of view. Enormous suction power applied to a relatively small area that the brush goes through provides really good cleaning.

And do not be afraid that the robot vacuum cleaner will miss some part of the surface! The navigation system is responsible for its competent movement, created according to the principles used in NASA’s rover systems.

We are talking about SLAM. an algorithm of actions that imitate the work of the human brain. Thanks to a laser rangefinder located in a 360-degree rotating turret on the top of the device, the robot’s systems scan the area and draw up a map of the room in which it finds itself. Thus, it is worth Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner to draw a map of a certain room once and it will not be lost in it a second time.!

During the “apartment tests” the robot showed itself in all its glory. He quickly, but at the same time, carefully moved around the room, thoroughly cleaning it and, at the same time, scanning the area around him and drawing a map. He as close as possible (about 1 cm) approached the walls, marking them on the map. He also entered the legs of chairs and beds into the map as obstacles.

This precision allows the robot to avoid crashing into obstacles and avoid them during the next cleanings. Even when the robot got into a difficult situation (drove between the table leg and the legs of the chair under the table), having moved several times, and even once touched the leg with the body, it oriented itself in a matter of seconds, scanned the surrounding area, and left this “trap”.
Another feature of the robot is that based on the map of the room in which it is cleaning, the robot builds its own cleaning route on the basis of the map it compiled. He divides the map into zones and tries to drive them all as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner is equipped with a battery control function. That is, when the system detects that the robot’s battery is low, it automatically directs it to the charging station. At the same time, during docking with the base, the robot gives a voice signal, which means that it is charging.

The Mijia robot vacuum cleaner is equipped with a smart component that allows it to sync with the owner’s smartphone. Thus, a smartphone, with the help of a special mobile application, turns into a remote control for the robot, on it you can set the boundaries of the gadget’s movement, control the suction force, all the cards drawn by the robot come to it, etc.

To test what the robotic vacuum cleaner’s powerful suction system is really capable of, a test was carried out. Quartz sand was poured on the carpet, and the command was given to the gadget “to start”.
The results were impressive. after 2 minutes of using the Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner, it collected about 30% of the sand, and after 20 minutes about 55-60%. At the maximum suction power, the percentage of sand collected was about 65-70%! And this is a very high indicator!

In the next test, quartz sand, hair, and hard granules of cat litter were sprinkled on the hard floor. And if in the last test the robot pleasantly surprised, then here it simply shocked with its results! After 2 minutes he cleaned the surface 85%, and after 6 minutes he cleaned it completely!
Among other things, the robot vacuum cleaner did a great job cleaning corners and crevices! The noise level of the gadget is comfortable 67-68 dB.

As you can see, Mijia Robot Vacuum Cleaner fully justifies the numerous positive “advances” given to it. He’s powerful, stylish and smart. And, most importantly, I am always happy to do the work that you, perhaps, do not particularly like.

Instructions. After you install the voice packs on the Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum Cleaner robot vacuum cleaner, daily cleaning will cease to be boring, the vacuum cleaner will have a shower (in some cases, the soul of a bully), and your guests will be pleasantly surprised to hear the cheerful voice acting of your electronic pet Instruction

The manual is suitable for Mi Vacuum Robot Cleaner 1st and 2nd generation.

For firmware you need a PC with Windows operating system.

Next, you need to unpack the downloaded file to the root of the C drive and run as administrator.

Open the system file of the utility called win-mirobo.ini with a notepad for editing and enter the ip-address and token of your vacuum cleaner. After that don’t forget to save your changes.

You can find out the ip-address and token of your vacuum cleaner in the Mi Home application.

IMPORTANT: If you have an application installed from the Play Store, uninstall it and install MiHome.APK You can download it on the Internet, for example from here.

You will not be able to see the token in the Mi Home app from the Play Store.

in the Mi Home app, connect to the vacuum cleaner

go to options

then open general settings

go to the network information item (in it you will find the ip-address and token of your vacuum cleaner)

IMPORTANT: In order to start loading voice packs, the vacuum cleaner must be on the charging station and have at least 20% charge. This is an artificial limitation to avoid problems.

Run the win-mirobo.bat file located in the root folder of the downloaded utility.

After starting, a window with a command line will open where, if the connection is successful, the ip-address and the charge level of the vacuum cleaner will be indicated in the first two lines. Below there are three numbered menu items. You need to select item 2. it is called Flash voise package. Accordingly, press the number 2 on the keyboard and press Enter.

Next, you need to choose any package you like. Enter the required number and press Enter.

Then the installation time will count down (no more than 15 seconds). When OK appears instead of the time confirming the completion of the installation, press any button on the keyboard and close the program window.

After simple, the above-described manipulations, your vacuum cleaner “will find a soul”, will speak in Russian.

The table below shows only some of the voice packs and some of the phrases that the robot pronounces in response to certain actions.

Xiaomi, robots, tokens and everything else everything. Spoiler alert: not all tokens are created equal

Got on the occasion Xiaomi PM2.5 air quality detector.

I tried to install the corresponding Home Assistant component, but it failed. Puffs in logs, swears, but doesn’t work:

Twisted and forgot. Until the next day the monitoring service began to send me alarming messages about repeated errors in the logs in my mailbox:

There can be many reasons for this error, I already forgot to think about the Air Quality Monitor activated in the settings. He knocked off his feet in search of a problem, but it turned out to be him. Disconnected, forgot.

On the weekend I decided to figure it out. It turned out that despite the fact that the documentation for the component provides a link to obtain a token for the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum robot vacuum cleaner, the tokens for different Wi-Fi devices from Xiaomi are different, so my token lovingly stored in my grandmother’s box from the vacuum cleaner did not ride here. I had to engage in excavation.

Getting a token

At some point, Xiaomi removed the openly lying token from the sqlite database of the Mi Home application, and the method of picking out the application backup on the big brother was left only for necrophilic enthusiasts who were ready to install the old version, extract the token and return everything as it was. This method was left to the very end, given that most of these instructions describe the extraction of a token for a robot vacuum cleaner, which I already have.

Then the turn came to an application from the tough Aryan guys Flolevac, which, according to rumors, allows (allowed) to get a token from a config export file. But here, too, there was a bummer, because at some point the configuration on the SD card was stored in encrypted form.

In the meantime, the npm package miio was also tested, which seems to be able to extract a token in the discovery mode of the home network. Everything ended with the expected result, even connecting a laptop with 5 GHz to 2.4, in which the robot lives, did not help, miio kept deathly silence and pretended that there was not even the spirit of Xiaomi devices in my home network.

Rescued, at first glance, a dumb modification of Mi Home from one enthusiast of picking someone else’s APK files. Looking ahead, I must say thank you to him, because everything worked out. And this idea is weird because the “improved” application is a hellish cocktail of uncontrolled code and a huge list of permissions that the original Mi Home requires. Having plucked up the courage, I nevertheless decided to launch it on a tablet, where there are no important data or applications. And, lo and behold, the required token was found in the “network properties” window (which also took quite a lot of time to search for), which (surprise!) Differed from that for a vacuum cleaner.

Important: if, when launching the Mi Home application, you specify the region Russia (as recommended), no device previously registered in the China (Mainland) region will be found. Fortunately, this can be easily fixed by setting the correct locale.

The network properties window is unique for each Mi Home device, it can be called from the menu, in the upper right corner of the screen of a specific device, be it a vacuum cleaner or an air quality sensor.

The application can be found on the author’s website, bet at your own peril and risk.

How to flash a Xiaomi vacuum cleaner into Russian

Robot vacuum cleaners from Xiaomi have gained popularity in our market in the smart home segment. They keep many homes clean, but make sounds in English. But you can talk with your Xiaomi vacuum cleaner in the same language. How to do this, now we will tell you.

To do this, you need an Android smartphone and a vacuum cleaner itself. This instruction is suitable for both Xiaomi Roborock Sweep One S50 / S55 and Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum models.

To flash the vacuum cleaner, download the application (mirror) and install it, but do not run.

Next, you need to download the official Russian voice pack or choose another option from this archive. Place the language pack in pkg format in the memory of your smartphone, preferably at the root, excluding various folders.

Now it’s time to move on to the vacuum cleaner. Start the vacuum cleaner and reset the Wi-Fi settings. Depending on the model, this can be done by pressing the return to base and turn on or local cleaning and return to base keys within a few seconds.

After resetting the Wi-Fi on the vacuum cleaner, turn off the mobile internet and go to the Wi-Fi settings on your smartphone.

Find and connect to the passwordless hotspot your vacuum cleaner is distributing.

Now run the installed application.

The app will automatically detect your device’s token, two orange keys are activated. You need to click on Flash Sound.

Next, select the desired voice package, after which its installation will begin.

After a couple of seconds of flashing, the application logs will stop updating, which will mean the end of the voice pack installation process. Now the Xiaomi vacuum cleaner has become even closer to you and is ready for further connection in Mi Home.

If the software is not flashed, 50 lines will appear in the log with the indication Trying to flash the firmware. In this case, you need to completely reset all the settings of the vacuum cleaner and try again. If your smartphone does not allow you to install the application, then go to the following path: “Play Store”. “Play Protection”. “Settings” and disable the item “Scan applications using Play Protection”.

No barriers with Xistore! You can also watch the video instruction:

Author: Andrey Kalinovsky

LIST OF SAVED NETWORKS

To view those Wi-Fi networks that can be accessed from your Xiaomi device, you need to go to “Settings”. “Wi-Fi”. “Saved networks”.

This section displays a complete list of networks you ever use, the password to which is stored in memory (or the network is open). But here, apart from information about the names, no additional information can be obtained. You can only delete the network that you do not plan to use in the future.

How to find a forgotten password of a connected Wi-Fi network?

There are situations when you need to enter the Wi-Fi password on an additional device. a smartphone, tablet or laptop. If the network is yours, and you know the password from it, then there will be no problems. But if you do not know the password or just forgot it, what to do in this situation?

Xiaomi engineers have foreseen the occurrence of such a situation and provided an easy way to solve it.

Your smartphone remembers all entered passwords from Wi-Fi networks and when it finds a familiar network, it automatically connects to it. How to view saved passwords from networks?

VIEW WI-FI PASSWORD

Having the barcode, about which we wrote above, it will not be difficult to find out the password. The program “QR Code Reader” will help us with this. Having scanned the code in it, you will receive all the necessary data: the name of the Wi-Fi network (SSID), the encryption method and the password to it.

If you don’t have a second device with a camera at hand, in order to scan a barcode, you can simply save a screenshot and then recognize it in the “QR Code Reader”.

As you can see, it is quite simple to find out the saved password using standard Xiaomi tools. But users who have ROOT rights have several more options to find out passwords, as well as make a backup, before flashing the smartphone.

SHARE WI-FI PASSWORD

In order to connect another device to a network that you have access to from your smartphone, you can use the “Share network” function. In this case, a barcode will appear on the smartphone screen, having scanned it with another device, you will automatically connect to this network.

IN THE PRESENCE OF ROOT-RIGHTS

The “Play Market” contains a huge number of programs that allow you not only to view passwords from all saved Wi-Fi networks, but also to create a backup copy. For example, consider the “Wi-Fi Password Master” program. The program interface is quite simple and intuitive, although there is no support for the Russian language.

We are more interested in the first “Recovery” tab. This is where all saved networks and passwords to them are displayed. The button at the bottom of the screen allows you to create a backup in the cloud. You can choose to save all networks at once. “Backup all”, or only specific ones. “Manual backup”.

The second tab “Cloud Backup” displays those networks that are already saved in the cloud.

Testing

Below are the results of testing according to our methodology, described in detail in a separate article.

Fan power	Running	Cleaning time, min: sec	%
Maximum	1	16:37	98.0
Maximum	2	15:51	98.9 (total)
Maximum	3	14:18	99.1 (total)
Silently	1	15:43	90.8
Silently	2	16:47	99.2 (total)

Additionally, the Full power option is enabled.

The video below was shot from above from one point, the base is at the bottom in the center, during processing, part of the video sequence is accelerated ten times, the Maximum mode with the Full power option enabled:

In the case of our test site, at the beginning of cleaning, the robot walks around the perimeter of the area available for cleaning, and then, moving in a snake, passes the inner part of the territory. The robot performed these procedures twice, which, most likely, is supposed to be done for small premises. The constructed map and trajectory are shown below.

The green dot is the location of the robot and the charging base. The robot easily enters narrow places that are only 50 mm wider than the robot body, and cleans there. When approaching an obstacle in front, the robot slows down a few centimeters before it, but usually continues to move until the bumper touches and the bumper movement sensors are triggered. If the obstacle easily moves, for example, a curtain, the robot moves it back a few centimeters (the bumper sensors do not work), but then it still turns away from the obstacle. When moving along an obstacle that reflects IR light well, the robot moves sideways to the obstacle, but does not touch it. And if the obstacle does not reflect IR light well, then the side part of the bumper periodically touches it. When walking around the perimeter or along an obstacle, the robot increases the rotation speed of the side brush. The video and map show that the robot’s navigation system often malfunctions, and the robot is strangely circling the two bottom corners. What this is connected with, we cannot even guess. Sometimes the snake walk became diagonal with respect to the walls of the fenced area, this can be seen in the video below (Silent mode, first pass):

For some reason, this affected not only the form of the trajectory, but also the quality of cleaning, since the robot left the corner uncleaned during the first pass, which can be seen on the map:

This behavior with a diagonal walk was repeated until we removed the robot from the base and returned it back, thereby, apparently, dropping its binding with a known room. The robot handles the base very carefully, it removes close to it, but does not touch or move the base from its place. Upon completion of cleaning, the robot switches the suction fan and brush drives to low power mode, then quickly, purposefully and as quickly as possible moves to the place in front of the base, turns around at some distance from it with its rear end with contacts to the base, slowly approaches it and, performing oscillatory movements, slowly docked. A rough determination of the location of the base is carried out, apparently, according to a compiled map, but accurate docking is carried out using passive beacons at the base itself. The robot can search for a base at the user’s command, even if it was not launched from it.

In general, the robot cleans quickly and efficiently. Turning on the mode with a low fan power Silent has almost no effect on the quality of cleaning (the uncleaned corner was more affected), at least for our test debris. After the first cleaning cycle, a little debris remains near obstacles and in small areas in the corners where navigation fails, the robot cleans up very well near the base:

After another two cycles, very, very little garbage remains (99.1% removed):

In the first in the local cleaning test, the robot lost its orientation due to black and almost non-reflective walls. Two boxes helped him stay geared and the cleanup was successful. The process is shown in the video below:

According to the manual, the size of the area to be cleaned is 1.5 by 1.5 m, which is what happened. A magnetic strip-insert from the refrigerator door seal works as a magnetic stop, but what kind of orientation of magnetization is needed and whether it plays a role, we did not find out.

Additionally, full-scale tests were carried out. For this, a plot of several rooms with a total area of ​​approximately 110 m² was fenced off in an office and relatively clean room. The room layout is shown below. On it, colored rectangles mark rooms available to the robot and a red circle marks the location of the base.

The robot snake cleaned the entire available area. Upon completion, the robot purposefully and by the shortest route returned to the base for recharging. On the map below, you can see how the robot cleaned the path from the last room to the base:

The robot cleaned for 93 minutes. In the case of such a large room, the robot breaks it up into sections of about 3.5 by 3.5 m, repeating in each the same cycle. bypassing the section along the perimeter, then bypassing the inner area of ​​the section with a snake and moving to the next section. Like all robots with navigation that have visited us on testing, Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum does not operate with such concepts as a room and walls, from his point of view there is some available area and obstacles on it, how the robot will bypass this area is determined by the order of obstacle detection and the algorithm cleaning, the robot does not divide the area into real rooms. According to the data from the appendix, the area harvested was 84 m², but we would like to remind you that from the 110 m² we indicated, a significant area occupied by furniture and equipment must be subtracted. According to the data from the application, I finished the work with cleaning with a charge of 38%, but due to problems with updating the information, this data may be unreliable. So in additional tests at the same fan power, the robot worked from full charge to a level of 19% (recall that at a level below 20%, the robot stops cleaning and returns to the base) worked for 103 minutes. That is, on a single charge in maximum power mode, the robot cleans an area of ​​approximately 120 m². Taking into account one recharge (and it is not explicitly stated anywhere how many times the robot can recharge and independently resume cleaning) in this mode, the robot can clean up to 240 m². In mode with reduced fan power, the maximum area is correspondingly increased.

At the end of cleaning the office, most of the debris has accumulated on the folded filter.

The easiest way, from our point of view, to clean the dust container and filter with a conventional vacuum cleaner with a slotted nozzle. However, this remark applies to all robotic vacuum cleaners. The side brush did not wrap anything around itself, and a little hair was wrapped around the main brush and dust mats began to form on the bristles.

However, the hairbrush was easily cleaned with my fingers, no need to use the cutter on the comb. Some concern is the amount of debris lodged in the gap between the actuator and bushing. Apparently, in order to prolong the life of the brush assembly, this place needs to be cleaned thoroughly and regularly.

The noise level depends on the selected mode:

Mode	Noise level, dBA
Silently	54.0
Average	57.0
Maximum	59.0
Maximum Apparent Power	61.5

Compared to others, depending on the mode, the Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum robot changes from quiet to moderately loud robot vacuum cleaner. The nature of the noise is not very annoying, but it is not comfortable to be in the same room with a working robot, especially if it operates in the mode of medium and maximum fan power.

When charging the vacuum cleaner on the base, the consumption from the mains is up to 37 W at the beginning of the process. If the vacuum cleaner is on and located at the base, then about 2.4-3.3 W is consumed from the network (Wi-Fi is on). If the vacuum cleaner is removed from the base, then the consumption will drop to 0.3 W. so much is consumed by the base itself, connected to the network. It takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes to fully charge (or rather, from 20% to 100%) of the battery.

Passport characteristics, delivery set and price. Functioning

For those who know Chinese, we recommend reading about the functions of the vacuum cleaner in the attached user manual. Those who do not know will either have to look for a translation of the manual (we did not find it) or translate it on their own, for example, using a mobile application.

The robot is equipped with an orientation system based on an infrared scanning laser range finder (lidar). The lidar is mounted in a turret on the top panel. Through the horizontal “loopholes” of this turret, you can see the lenses of the emitting laser diode and photodetector. The laser diode and photodetector are mounted on a rotor that rotates in a horizontal plane, and this is what allows the robot to receive data on the distance to obstacles with a 360-degree view of the horizontal 5 times per second. The manufacturer also indicates that the scanning frequency is 1800 samples per second, the distance to the obstacle is determined at a distance of up to 6 m with an accuracy of 2%. That is, unlike most models, the robot does not have to drive up close to the obstacle to determine its presence. In addition, remote sensing of obstacles and their geometry allows the robot to map the room and track its own location. The robot “knows” where it is, where the base station is (when launched from it), where it has already removed, where it needs to be removed and where there are still unexplored areas in the perimeter of the territory.

In theory, a changing environment. moving pieces of furniture or walking people and not people. can knock down the robot’s orientation, but in practice, walking around the robot is not forbidden, apparently, there is some algorithm for throwing obstacles that are not constant in time. You also need to take into account that the lidar works in a plane at a certain height from the floor, that is, everything that is lower or higher, the robot “does not see”. However, in case of “lower” the robot is equipped with a mechanical bumper and an ultrasonic obstacle sensor on it. The variant of obstacles located above the plane of action of the lidar, in theory, can lead to some problems, since the roof of the turret is located above this plane. Note that the height of the robot, even with a turret, is not very high (we got 81 mm to the top of the bumper and 95 mm to the top of the turret), which increases the area available for cleaning.

The axles of the driving wheels are located on the same diameter (350 mm) of the body circumference. Such a kinematic scheme allows the robot to make a turn on the spot without changing the boundaries of the area occupied by the robot, therefore the vacuum cleaner is distinguished by good maneuverability. The diameter of the driving wheels is relatively large (70 mm), and the travel of the hinges at the point of the wheel centers reaches almost 30 mm, so the robot overcomes obstacles of small depth and height without any problems. These wheels have a deep tread made of non-slip rubber-like material. Potentially, the robot is able to overcome obstacles with a height of somewhere up to 18 mm. approximately the same distance from the floor to the bottom point of the bumper of the vacuum cleaner, which is consistent with the passability, that is, the robot will not try to climb on what is most likely to get stuck. The robot weighs 3.8 kg.

When cleaning, the front side brush scoops up debris towards the center. Note the design of the side brush. flexible elastic leads (stitched at the ends for strength) end with a relatively stiff straight bristle. As a result, the brush works efficiently and does not lose its shape. The original element is a small tuft of bristles on the side surface of the brush sleeve, apparently, this should prevent hair, threads, etc. from winding up. on the brush axis.

The main brush should be able to handle the task of combing and throwing debris from the surface to be cleaned. Further, the debris is sucked into the container of the dust collector by a stream of air, where it, the debris, is retained by the filter. After passing through the fan, the air that has completed its carrier task is thrown back through the grate at the back of the robot. This model is not a vacuum cleaner in the classical sense, since the garbage is almost not sucked directly from the surface to be cleaned (except that very light dust).

The main brush end rotates in a sliding bearing, protected from hair and dirt by a plastic cover. Note, all the same bristles on the frame, which are designed to protect the drive and the brush bearing from debris getting into them.

The delivery set includes a special tool with a comb and a squiggle blade. It can be used to cut off coiled hair and comb out the brush.

The compartment in which the main brush is installed is fixed on the levers, therefore, with a stroke of about 9 mm at the edge farthest from the axes of the levers, it follows the floor relief, which increases the cleaning efficiency.

The dust container body is made of transparent plastic. However, the top panel lid is opaque, so it is impossible to estimate the actual filling of the dust container without lifting it. There is apparently no dust container overflow sensor, the volume of the dust container is relatively small, so the user will often have to look under the lid. The dust container has a lid on the front, which must be folded back when cleaning this container. The rear end of the dust container is blocked by an air filter. To exclude parasitic air suction, the joints of the branch pipe and the dust collector, as well as the filter and the suction grill, are equipped with elastic seals. Judging by the crossed out droplet, the dust container must not be washed.

The robot monitors the presence of a dust collector in its compartment, or rather a filter on it, for which a small magnet is attached to the filter frame, and there is a corresponding sensor in the compartment. A folded, fine-pored filter is protected by a coarse-mesh plastic mesh that traps large debris. Without this mesh, the folds of such filters become clogged with debris, which is difficult to clean out from there.

The manufacturer boasts a powerful fan with a brushless motor from the Japanese company Nidec installed in the robot. It is stated that the peak fan performance reaches 0.67 m³ / min, and the maximum vacuum is 1800 Pa.

The powerful fan is matched by a capacious battery. To get to it, you need to unscrew six screws on the bottom, one of which is under the seal, and remove it.

Most likely, the battery pack is made up of cylindrical cells of the popular size 18650, but we did not disassemble the battery, since it looks like there is no way to do this without significant damage to its appearance. The removed bottom demonstrates that the modules of the drive wheels, main and side brushes can be easily replaced if necessary.

Please be advised that this vacuum cleaner must not be used in a humid environment or on surfaces with spilled liquids. After contact of the vacuum cleaner with liquids, at best, you will have to clean it for a long time from the adhering layer of dust, and in the worst case, the vacuum cleaner may fail.

As far as we can understand, this model has two main cleaning modes:

• Single (double for small premises) cleaning of the entire available area.
• Cleaning a specific place. the vacuum cleaner is transferred to the right place.

Automatic start of cleaning provides a scheduled operation mode. in the application you can specify the day / days of the week and the time when you need to start cleaning.

According to the manufacturer, when starting from the base, the robot will clean either until it has removed the entire available area, or until the battery charge drops below 20%. In the second case, he will return to the base, charge the battery, then continue cleaning from where he left off. How many cleaning cycles with intermediate recharges the robot will be able to do is not specified.

Spatial planning of cleaning is ensured by means of restrictive magnetic tape (25 mm wide and 2 mm thick), which can be simply laid on the floor or hidden under (probably still thin) floor covering. Unfortunately, the manufacturer was stingy to invest the tape in the delivery set, you will have to buy it additionally, and, for example, Gearbest.com offers an Original Xiaomi Virtual Wall with a length of, apparently, 2 m for 16.63 with free shipping.

The vacuum cleaner informs about its condition with the help of an LED indicator. the rim around the rocker button. as well as pronouncing words, phrases and even long sentences in pure Chinese. If desired, this voice notification can be turned off, but only together with the ability to start cleaning.

This option, like many other functions, is available from a proprietary application installed on mobile devices with Android (apparently, iOS) on board. There is no official Russian version of the application, but if you wish, you can find and install an unofficial translated into Russian version from the APK file (although you will have to tinker a little more in order to also install a plug-in translated into Russian, designed to control a robot vacuum cleaner). Most of the screenshots shown here are taken for such a Russian version of the application and plugin.

After launching the application for the first time, you need to establish a connection with the robot, which must be within the range of the Wi-Fi network (and, apparently, only 2.4 GHz) with access to the large Network, since a global cloud service is involved in controlling the robot. On the one hand, this is good, since the robot can be controlled from anywhere where there is a connection to the Network, on the other hand, it is bad, since if there is no access to the Network or there is at least no connection with a cloud service (and this happens all the time), then there is no access to the robot, even if it and the mobile device are in the same local network. From our point of view, the most useful function is to display a map of the room made by the robot and the trajectory of the robot on it. You can control how the robot cleans and, if necessary, make adjustments to the arrangement of furniture, etc. in order to improve the quality of cleaning. The main page of the plugin displays the status of the robot, the map, the area harvested and the time for the last cleaning performed, as well as the current battery charge. At the bottom there are buttons for returning to the base, starting cleaning and switching the fan power.

Top right. a button for switching to pages with additional settings.

Appearance

The developers of Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum without much hesitation borrowed the designs of units and principles of operation from robotic vacuum cleaners that have been on the market for a long time. The donors were at least Roomba (see, for example, the article about the iRobot Roomba 980) and Neato (see, for example, the article about Neato Botvac Connected). Of course, there are, as it seems to us, original solutions.

The vacuum cleaner has an almost perfectly round shape in plan.

The bevel from the edge to the bottom helps to overcome obstacles, and some angularity at the top and a slightly pronounced rim on the bumper reduce the likelihood of the vacuum cleaner getting stuck under obstacles with little clearance.

The body is made of white plastic with a matte uncoated surface. On the one hand, this is good, since the light robot is noticeable in the dark and on a dark floor, so it is easier to find it, for example, under the sofa, when it gets stuck there, and the robot is less likely to be accidentally stepped on, on the other hand, the white matte bottom is easy gets dirty and difficult to clean. The top surface of the lid that covers most of the top panel is also white, but mirror-smooth. In the front there is a control panel with a mechanical rocker button, the rim of which is illuminated in white, orange or red, static or with a certain dynamics depending on the current state, a blue indicator of the Wi-Fi connection status and a tiny reset button. When the top cover is closed, only the rocker button remains accessible.

There is no handle for carrying the robot. The top cover covers not only part of the control panel, but also the dust compartment.

A mechanical bumper is installed at the front, which covers the entire front of the robot and enters the sides.

An ultrasonic obstacle proximity sensor is located behind the grille in the center of the bumper. On the right side of the bumper there is an oval cutout, behind which there is an auxiliary IR obstacle sensor, which helps the robot to move close to an obstacle (declared at a distance of 10 mm), if possible without physical contact with it.

In the back of the case there are an “exhaust” grille (right) and a grill (left) behind which, apparently, a loudspeaker is located, and in the center there are contact pads for charging on the base.

Turning the vacuum cleaner upside down, we will see four IR height difference sensors (dark windows along the edge in front and in front of the drive wheels), a roller on a rotating platform, a side brush, a compartment with a main brush, closed by a frame with limiting guides (carpet corners are not wound) and with an additional elastic fixed scraper, and two driving wheels on spring-loaded levers. An inconspicuous cover hides the Micro-USB connector, which is apparently used for diagnostics and a contact method for updating the firmware.

The base is relatively large and not very light.

The base body is made of white plastic with a mostly matte finish. Two rubber anti-slip pads are glued to the bottom of the base.

The bottom area is increased by a supporting skirt that projects forward. As a result, the base is quite stable and can be placed on the floor without any additional support. On the front panel of the base there is a large window made of tinted translucent plastic, behind which there are passive parking beacons (alternating strips of absorbing and reflective material). Below are the long spring loaded pads.

This design guarantees reliable contact between the robot and the base, even in slightly crooked parking. When pressed, the contact pads are not only recessed, but also shifted to the side, which helps to clean the contacting surfaces. The power supply is built into the base. Detachable mains power cable (uses two-pin barrel connector). Surplus power cable is stored in a special channel at the back of the base.

And for beauty and to make it less dusty, all this is closed with a lid.

The measured length of the power cord was 1.5 m (length of the flexible part). Base specifications: input. 100-240 V 50/60 Hz, output. 20 V DC up to 2.2 A.

There are no additional accessories and consumables in the delivery set, everything is at a minimum.

There is documentation. a printed manual and a quick reference, all, unfortunately, in Chinese. The vacuum cleaner is packed in a not very large modestly decorated box with a plastic handle.

Review of the Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum robot vacuum cleaner

This Chinese robot vacuum cleaner is equipped with an advanced orientation system based on the most reliable method. remote detection of obstacles and their configuration using a scanning laser rangefinder. The robot received a capacious lithium-ion battery, a powerful fan and support for remote monitoring and control using a mobile application, which, among other things, has the function of visualizing the built map of the room and the trajectory of the robot. Based on the results of our tests, we can assume that the robot’s software can still be improved, since the robot behaves strangely in some situations, which increases the cleaning time and sometimes reduces its quality. However, the manufacturer is definitely changing something, since only during the testing period the robot updated its software at least twice. Unfortunately, constant and unpredictable communication problems between the client program, the cloud service and the robot reduce the usefulness of mobile software and the enjoyment of using such a fun and useful home assistant.

Advantages:

• High cleaning efficiency
• Advanced orientation system and rational cleaning route
• Cleaning at least once after recharging
• Large maximum cleaning area
• Smart base station design
• Restricting movement with magnetic tape
• Fan power adjustment
• Scheduled cleaning
• Possibility of management and control using an application on a mobile device

Disadvantages:

• Complete lack of official Russification
• Constant loss of connection with the cloud service, which makes the mobile application of little use
• Poor equipment
• Small amount of dust collector