Configuring Wifi for a Samsung Powerbot without the Remote

I bought a Powerbot vacuum a month or two ago, minus the power pack and remote.

I figured it would be straightforward, but ended up spending a lot of time tracking down an SLPS-250FFOT charger, then finally the AU adapter for it.

Only today did I manage to plug in my robot vacuum and... 

Immediately failed to install the SmartThings app on my Samsung A11. What the actual fuck. How is your legacy SmartThings classic app supported on this phone, but your rewrite isnt?

I installed the classic app, started and...

Error downloading countries list.

Why. What server did you kill off in June 2020 that you shouldnt have?

After a bunch of googling and an angry review later, I found my old S7 and installed the SmartThings app, as my battery dwindled rapidly.

Setup new device, vacuum, and.... wait what. Press the CLOCK button on the remote to put it into AP mode, so I can connect wifi?

I didnt get a remote. A replacement is $75AUD. My bargain bot is turning into a nightmare.

One forum poster suggested they got past this step, but not how.

It turns out if you switch it off with the emergency switch, and it has no wifi, it is open to configuration.

Oh thank god.

So now, with the help of a party hat and homeassistant, I have a robot vacuum that is cleaning my house when I leave for the pub.

Office supplies & the internet, part 2

So I put the question out there, what else can the internet disrupt?

It occurred to me that I've seen the other side of it as well - pick, pack & dispatch in a warehouse environment.

It's been a while since I worked in a warehouse, but I do remember a lot of the physical work that was involved - everything from driving a forklift, to wrapping by hand (pallet wrap is awesome, like a giant roll of gladwrap) or unloading a container.

So it's a little bit freakish to move from where things were 6 years ago - a forklift was a luxury in the south road warehouse I was in - to see the internet having rocked up and connected all of the warehouse packaging supplies you can possibly need to the end customer.

I used to see some things out there - pallet wrapping machines or friendlier pallet jacks - that I would have considered in the realm of warehousing science fiction six years ago.

I never got to use cool toys like an Orgapack strapping tool - on a good day, I got the non crappy stanley knife and packing tape dispenser for a few hours.

I don't think you could ever fully automate a warehouse, but the internet provides a heck of a big step towards it.
The stuff linked to above is only the cusp - supplies, for humans, and a few automated tools. What happens when you take the already ubiquitous warehousing logistical systems (there's a barcode on every carton, product, etc), throw in smartphone apps to replace handheld barcode scanners, add wifi and semi-automated forklifts or other machinery?

MIT has some of the answer. Check this out - a nerd with a smartphone and megaphone guides an autonomous forklift outdoors.

There's no premade routes, and the only thing special about the forklift are the after market addons.

It seems likely that we're going to end up with machines ordering their own supplies from each other, loading those supplies onto a B double or similar truck, driving themselves in a road train, unloading themselves, and humans stepping in for the "oops" moments or to do the finese work - things where it still remains too expensive to put an industrial robot on.

RFID tags and the existing barcodes mean that you don't have to have a perfectly organised system either - you just ping the pallet you want, or read the barcode on the packaging - the whole lot begins to self organise enough.

Push a little further and break down those barriers between backend and frontend systems, and it leads to only one conclusion: clicking that purchase link will give you command of a semi autonomous robot army within 5-10 years from now.

Neat.

pySerial and Roomba

So when I'm not looking for the ghost in the machine, I seem to be spending a fair amount of my time pining for a Roomba.

It isn't even because I have a low-mess problem that obviously needs robotification (I mean, who doesn't have one of those), but because the damned thing comes with an open interface.

With a little bit of expense, I could remote control my Roomba with nothing more than a laptop, really long serial cable, and a whole bunch of Python.

From there, it's only a hop, skip and a jump to a day of internet fame with a wiimote roomba, and then it's on to rule the world program away my household hygiene issues.

The biggest obstacles I seem to have is only the worst website in the world and simply not having much of a decent idea for exactly what I would use my roomba for...

So lets hear it: 3 best applications for a robot slave you can come up with.

My best friend, the ghost in the machine.

Is it a ghost in the machine or my best friend, Dave?

The Washington post has a good piece up about the human connection with military robots - worth the read if you design anything.

This has to be my favourite part:

When Greg Harbin was piloting one of the first Predators over Bosnia from his desk in Hungary, he wasn't actively trying to become the first UAV operator in history to be awarded a medal. He was trying to avoid becoming the first UAV pilot to incinerate a schoolyard full of children.

The then-32-year-old Air Force captain's bot was "dead square right over the city" of Mostar, looking for snipers, when its engine conked out. As it spiraled down, still carrying 2,000 gallons of fuel, Harbin could see on his screen, through the cross hairs of the nose camera, that "it was dead-centered on that school. If I'd allowed that thing to hit into that school, could you imagine?" he recalls. "I would be the first guy in the history of the world to kill somebody with an unmanned aircraft."

Using the kind of fancy flying he'd learned as a fighter pilot, and only the 15 minutes' worth of battery power he had left, he miraculously pulled the bot out of its spiral and found an airstrip run by the French. To make sure the barely-under-control bot didn't hit all their transport planes, he intentionally crash-landed it on their runway. "The French were pretty funny on the radio. They didn't know what it was. They videotaped the whole thing."

But that's not the significant part.

As he was struggling to bring the bot down without an engine, he could see "the ground coming real fast." He dropped the landing gear, flared the wings, pushed the stick forward and then started fumbling around at the bottom of his desk chair.

He had bonded so tightly with the machine hundreds of miles away that he was searching for the lever that would allow him to eject.

It reminds me very much of a story by Colin Kapp: Gottlos. Worth the read if you can find it...

Robots, Robots, Robots

Ever wondered what it would be like to do that robot soccer thing? Get an AIBO and make it kick stuff?
I love this kind of nifty stuff, but I couldn't find a decent toolkit that was free enough for me to start developing in. Or it was written in something I didn't know.

Then, I found Robocode. It's aimed at people who don't know how to code, with the aim of teaching them the fundamentals of Java. You have tanks that basically have to destroy each other. It's fiendishly easy to get a start in, but not so easy to do well in. Right now, after having little success with individuals (weave, damn you, weave!) I'm having a crack at teams.
Though I'm making no progress, I'm thinking about the problems better.
I'm thinking about what was taught to me in the Army cadets, about flocking boids, about animal hunting patterns, about learning from your mistakes and about everything.
Stay tuned for some productive code!