Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum - not possible to start from frontend

I have a question regarding this platform:

https://home-assistant.io/components/switch.xiaomi_vacuum/

It took a very long time for this platform to initialize the status of the robot:

But it is not possible to start it with the switch from the frontend. Does anyone have some suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Hi,

I just received my robot but can you please tell me how you extracted the token/key?

I am stuck at chapter 8 from the FAQ.

Hello @eterpstra

To perform instruction point 8, you need to have the Java development kit installed. Download it here:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html

Execute the code with the command prompt (Windows). To open the command prompt, press the Windows key, enter “CMD” without quotes and press the enter key.

Adjust the example code, so that it links to the actual “abe.jar” file on your harddrive. To show you an easy example, I downloaded the ADB Backup Extractor and I placed it on the root of my C drive. See the image below. Also mind the coffee icon before the file “abe.jar”, which means that the Java Development kit has been succesfully installed:

To perform instruction point 9, you need a tool like 7zip. Download it here:
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

To perform instruction point 10, you need to install a tool like SQLite manager for Firefox. First download the Firefox browser. After that, download the addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/

Please let me know if it worked out.

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With the latest version of Home Assistant, I can start the robot from the frontend. Great!

Thanks @HAppy for the extended instructions, helped me to get there in the end.

Stupid errors I made along the way with Windows 10 that may help others…

Update to newer JDK if yours is a bit old. I had to reboot afterwards too.

Start ADB cmd prompt in the same folder as the ADB files sit in if you haven’t added it to windows path (shift right click from GUI).

Start .ab extractor the same way, navigate to your the ADB Backup Extractor folder and shift right click if you don’t now how to >cd your way there. I found it easiest to just copy the backup.ab file here so I didn’t need to change directories.

My phone was android 8 and encrypted so I ended up running the mi-home app on another old device to get around the being forced to create a password. I couldn’t get it to work when trying to extract with password.

When you have all that done and you open up the miio2.db notice that there is also a miio.db which you will see first if you list by name and open by mistake if you have an itchy trigger finger. This is not the one you want! It does not contain devicerecord and if you do open it by mistake you don’t need to redo the whole process like I did.

If you have a Xiaomi Hub, or Xiaomi Cam, or possibly other devices they have a token too! I waited a couple of hours for my robovac to get past unavailable before I realised I had used the wrong device token, I had mistakenly thought it was an app token.

Good to see that you also got it working @BarryHampants! And nice to see that you’ve added your learning points, so that others don’t have to struggle like we did :smile: