I’ve just bought a Roborock S8 and whilst i have got everything working i’m currently having a dilema between which app to use.
I had issues with the Roborock app so tried the mi home, which also had issues. Eventually i realised the issue is special characters in my wifi password which i fixed so both work now. I’ve been using the roborock app and it works fine. Everything is good and integrates to HA.
I only have notifications configured at present through HA. I want to take it to the next level and be able to clean zones, rooms, sent it to a specific location to empty the bin etc. This is where i’m now having the dilema should I switch to using the Mi home app. Everything i see online seems to be automation with the Mi home app. I can’t find any integrations with the Roborock app (granted its probably only recently gotten better and more usable.)
So … Should i switch to mi home or stay with roborock app and battle out how to do all my automations?
p.s - My S8 works perfectly fine with the Roborock app - assuming it will also be fine on the mi home app
The concept of Home Assistant is to become independent from Roborock and Xiaomi anyway. The only thing you need is an integration with Home Assistant (which you aparantly have) and then you can use the Home Assistant app.
That is exactly why i want to switch over to home assistant. However, with the Roborock app I don’t have access to the maps, routines, zones, or a way to find co-ordinates etc. Hence why i was considering switching to miu home app for which it seems a lot of people have created automations for. My worry is I think the Roborock is better and more feature rich for my robot vac. Hence my dilema
Ahh now I get it, you mean you considder switchinig to a different robot vac instead of app. That makes sense. Most robot vacs do expose a map, and as far as I can see, also Roborock does as you can read here: Roborock - Home Assistant. Explain what you exactly want the most.
I also have understood you already own the Robovac. Why don’t you just try it with Home-assistant and see what it could do? I am willing to help you with questions, even tough I gave a dfferent brand robot vac. (neato).
Ok i think i might have explained it wrong. So I have the Robovac S8 linked to th eroborock vac, and i can use it in the app all good. The roboroc app integration is native in HA so I have added that too. I can now get notifcations from the robovac via HA to my pushover app. I want to be able to run routines, select rooms to vac, zones and go to sepcific co-ordinates all inside HA (rather than using the app). It seems everyone is using the Mi home app and not the roboroc native app. If i look at the comparisson it seems the mi home app is less feature rich if used directlhy with the robovac, however it seems more feature rich in HA (you can get the map, zones co-ordinates) etc.
As such i’m struggling to find ways of doing things (if there even possible) using the roborock app integration.
So i’m basically wanting advice from the community if anyone recommends me to stay with the roboroc app or switch everything to the mi home app and integrate it with HA via 3rd party hacs add-ons
Ok, Sorry for misunderstanding you. As far as I can see in the documentation, the Mi app seems more designed for the older models up to the S5. Also, the Roborock integration seems to have enough functionality to do what you want from within HA. But since I do not own that model, maybe I am not the right person to answer that question in detail.
Thank you for all the help. I took the plung and tried the mi app - I think the app works the same but i couldn’t get access to any of the entities in HA. I will try and connect it again some time and see if i can make it work better.
From my research it looks like i can’t get access to the coordinates using the roborock app - I can only get these if i use the mi home app. This means i can’t do zone cleaning or get the robovac to move to any specific location which is a shame!! (unless anyone has managed to get that working)