u/jdigi78

Ever since the first version of my ESPHome firmware for the Litter Robot 4 self-cleaning litter box, I've been on the lookout for small improvements I could make to extend the longevity and user experience of the device along the way. I've made a few notable improvements already, but this is the biggest one yet.

The Litter Robot 5 introduced "WasteID" which determines if your cat went #1 or #2. It uses an inexpensive air quality sensor to distinguish the type of waste, and shortens the cycle delay for solid waste to better contain odors, since it doesn't need time to clump in the litter like urine. This information can also be useful for tracking the health of your pets.

I have full control of the ESP32 in the Litter Robot 4, so adding such a sensor on an unused set of pins was a trivial task, and the detection logic was surprisingly even simpler. You can see a graph of detected VOCs for both waste types in the graph on slide 4. With that, I have successfully implemented waste identification for the LR4, going by the similar, yet legally distinct, name "WasteSense". It can even be implemented on the LR3 once I publish the firmware for that in the coming weeks.

The mod guide and prerequisite custom firmware flashing guide can be found along with other documentation in the codeberg repo!

Dont know if this was done already.... sorry if someone else did it....

So my kid (10y) asked me... how long should the cable be to reach all the way there... me being a huge nerd... calculated it.

So the distance from 384 Queen St W where they hooked up to the center of the CN tower is 850ish meters... tower height is 553.... apply math and ... boom ..

They used a Kilometer long extention cord. (In real life they would need 11 x 300ft cables and a shorter one.)

*ai helped me generate the image.

Edit: (Corrected math of 300ft cables ... thanks jdigi78!!)

After 5 confirmed installs without issue things are looking good for my cloud-free LR4 custom firmware. Only one minor bug reported and already fixed in the latest update. You can find the latest pre-release here.

Multi-cat usage/weight tracking is coming in the next update and then I can focus on getting the project merged into ESPHome as an officially supported device.

I still have not received serial data captures from any LR3 owners so LR3 support is on hold until then. Please reach out if you are capable and willing to provide this data!

I have a cheap treadmill like this I occasionally wheel under my standing desk and I'm in the market for a better one. Are there any that connect to HA in some way for tracking time/distance/etc?

If not, any other ideas? I suppose I could keep it plugged into a smart outlet and track power use as an estimate if all else fails.

You can flash a pre-compiled firmware or build it from source yourself. More information and instructions are available here: https://codeberg.org/Joseph-DiGiovanni/esphome-litter-robot/

Will hopefully be upstreamed to ESPHome soon

You can flash a pre-compiled firmware or build it from source yourself. More information and instructions are available here: https://codeberg.org/Joseph-DiGiovanni/esphome-litter-robot/

PR to merge upstream coming soon.

Printed in 2 halves using the max height of my core one (270mm), PETG with 20% infill and a few solid layers every 90mm for extra rigidity. Glued in the middle and welded together on the underside and back. Stuck down with VHB tape.

It warped a little bit so you can see the seam here pretty clearly but at standing height you can barely notice. More importantly the robot clears it without issue and now the robot can vacuum and mop my entire apartment!

I use different email aliases with random words and numbers for every service, and one that has never been used for anything other than Cook Unity has suddenly gotten two spam messages like this. Nothing on my other aliases.

I use a personal website for my email addresses, not gmail or similar so there is no way it was randomly guessed either. I suspect Cook Unity has either had a user data breach or has shared user email addresses with a 3rd party who is misusing them in this way.

The PDF specifically looks like a Geek Squad invoice in both emails. If your email associated with your Cook Unity account has gotten one closely matching this format (Random subject with only a name and attached PDF of random letters and numbers) the past few days please leave a comment.

The indicator noise has randomly been extremely loud for a week or two now. It will be fine one day and back the next, sometimes rapidly switching between loud and normal. Happens with the hazard lights too since it's the same sound/speaker.

It's absolutely not a setting in the infotainment and I've checked all lights are okay while it's happening. Anybody else experience this? Radio is at comfortable listening volume for reference.

https://www.amazon.com/Bay-Enclosure-Swappable-Expansion-Tool-Free/dp/B0DD3GSSCX

If you know how to program it's a great opportunity to dip your toes into reverse engineering. As one of the lead contributors I am happy to help anyone willing to learn.

You can find the project here and a nicer graphic view of the progress here.

The contact page is a useless maze of prompts for product info and order numbers too.

You can find the original post here. After a really rough 5 weeks of use it finally started to split at a layer line. Its more of a rip in the perimeters as the infill is still holding it together just fine.

As stated in the original post, I used 95A TPU with 25% gyroid infill and an internal frame of 100% infill. You can kind of see the internal frame as the lighter lines in the first photo, or the check the last image in the original post to see what I'm talking about. This one still has a good bit of use left but I'll eventually be printing a replacement with 100% infill which I'm certain won't have this problem.