mirror of https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo.git
120 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
120 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Why Valetudo?
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category: General
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order: 6
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---
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# Why Valetudo?
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First of all, please do **not** try to convince people to use Valetudo.
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We all know how terribly it usually turns out when people try to convince their friends to use linux on their desktop.
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Using Valetudo only makes sense if you understand its goals and feel like they are important to you. Everything else will fail.
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It is perfectly fine to continue using the cloud if you don't really care about its downsides.
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Do not flame people for doing that. You can be a bit snarky about downtimes, lag and other cloud shenanigans though :)
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## Goals
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### Vendor-agnostic abstraction
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Valetudo should enable you to stop caring about your choice of vacuum robot as all supported models should (best case) behave pretty much the same.
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This is great because it eliminates vendor lock-in and prevents you from having to re-learn UI/concepts/etc. The cost of this however is,
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that some vendor-specific quirks like a special feature might not instantly or ever be available in Valetudo as they may not make sense in a generic abstraction.
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### No cloud connectivity
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Removing the cloud has a wide range of benefits.
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#### No server dependency
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The obvious upside of this is that all your data stays on your robot.
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It also means that you won't need to have a working internet connection just to control your local vacuum robot anymore.
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Commands usually execute much faster and more reliable, as they don't have to detour through some server in a datacenter
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far away from you, which might be overloaded or even on fire.
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Furthermore, the robot will continue working even after the vendor has ended support for that model and shut down the
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corresponding servers. This is a huge issue with IoT devices. They brick all the time because the vendor
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- gets sold
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- changes its business model
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- runs out of venture capital
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- is bankrupt
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- gets hacked
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and more.
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#### No forced updates
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You also don't have to fear forced firmware updates that paywall or even entirely remove a previously available feature.
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Bricked devices caused by faulty forced firmware updates are also an issue that seems to happen from time to time.
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One might for example push an update with extremely verbose logs enabled, leading to your flash wearing out and bricking your whole car.<br/>
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You can't just not update to prevent those situations. It is also very hard/impossible to prove that a defect was caused
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by the manufacturer.
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Overall, forced firmware updates IMO are a very scary thing, because they clearly demonstrate that you're not the owner
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of the device you've bought. One might argue that you also buy this "managed update service" with the device, however
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is it really a service if you cannot opt out?
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#### No account required
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By using Valetudo, you don't need to give anyone your phone number or e-mail address just to use the robot you've bought.
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This way, it will never be part of a data breach as it was never stored in the first place.
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Did you know that there's a german word for that? *Datensparsamkeit* — privacy by design
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You also don't have to periodically read some hard to understand 200-page ToS where you're basically forced to agree to
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whatever the vendor wants from you as there often is no way to deny it while continuing to use the product.
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#### No marketing
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With Valetudo, you won't get any ads. You won't get push notifications notifying you about new product launches.
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You won't get nagged by your property to upgrade to a new model or buy these new accessories for your existing one.
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You also won't get emails from a third party trying to cross-sell you something.
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#### Downsides
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The downside of not using the manufacturer-provided cloud services is that now you're responsible for installing (security)
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updates, allowing for remote connectivity to e.g., control your robot while not at home etc.<br/>
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All that fancy cloud stuff.
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### No phone app required
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Many consumer IoT devices require you to have a smartphone to run the vendor app to provision and control it with no way of using your
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desktop computer, laptop or a smartphone with a different operating system than android/iOS for that.
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With Valetudo, you get a webinterface that can be used by any device with any operating system capable of running a recent
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multi-platform browser including desktops, laptops, smartphones and maybe even your smart fridge.
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At times, thanks to the fully responsive design, the experience can even be _objectively_ superior to what the vendor provides.
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Some users for example reported that some vendor apps do not play well with tablets and instead just display the phone-optimized
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views in an upscaled way on the large tablet screen, wasting all that screen real estate on black borders.
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### Open Knowledge
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Valetudo is released under a permissive license. You're free to understand and modify your instance of Valetudo as you like.
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There's a lot of documentation. The code is pretty well-structured and features comments where required.
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Even if for example the Valetudo Companion App were to become delisted from the store-thingy of your operating system,
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you'd still have everything you need to be independent of that. Even if GitHub goes down, it doesn't matter.
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Git is decentralized by default. Use a local backup. Use a backup somewhere else.
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Valetudo however will **not** force-feed you information.<br/>
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You will have to be willing to read and understand the information available.
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## Further remarks
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Please note that Valetudo has no customers.<br/>
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It is provided free of charge with no warranty whatsoever.
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Using Valetudo does not grant you the right to decide how to run the project, what its goals are, what its priorities are, etc.
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This is different from using your robot as intended by the manufacturer, because in that situation, you're a paying customer.<br/>
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If this is important to you, usage of Valetudo might not be a good choice.
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