Roborock S8 teardown

I recently acquired the new S8 from Roborock to replace my rapidly failing roomba.

While I am patiently waiting for Dennis and Hypfer to add Valetudo support, I thought I’d have a peek inside to see if this model will be any more serviceable or maintainable than my current vacuum.

From what I’m told, the S7 and the S8 are supposed to be pretty similar so here’s to hoping that it’s not too much more of a wait.

This is another one of those quick “I wish that was easier to find when I was googling it” posts.

For a project, I needed a small relay module to switch a few mains loads. I chose this generic looking relay module from AliExpress because it was powered by an ESP32 and featured ethernet connectivity.

AliExpress is full of generic looking relay modules but this one is branded dingtian-tech

The Frigate NVR project is a relatively new entrant to the home security camera DVR space. Like most immature yet popular software, it has a killer feature - very good object detection that just works™ and robust Home Assistant integration.

My beloved coffee maker of 10 years has finally died 😢. Parts are no longer available from either the manufacturer or the second-hand market.

Taking advantage of a (slight) holiday sale discount, I pulled the trigger on a coffee maker that’s designed to be repairable forever. The perpetual serviceability is a side effect of an ultra-simple design; this coffee maker has zero intelligent features which means there’s next to no remote control or customizability.

I love the Sonoff-S31 smart plugs. They’re cheap, well made and - most importantly - trivial to flash with ESPHome and integrate into Home Assistant. They do have one obvious draw back, though; optimized for a “traditional” US style outlet. When you try to deploy them to a power strip, you end up loosing about 50% of the outlets on the strip!