I usually start a whole floor cleaning before going to bed, with the expectation that it will complete it sometime during the night. Due to the size of the floor, I know it will have to return to base and recharge at least once during the run.
This morning when I woke up, I found the robot stopped in one of the rooms. The app shows that the run has covered 16 sq ft, in 2 mins, and the battery is at 33%. The robot is in standby and I can either let it vacuum or return to base for charging. I know this is wrong because I watched it done more than that last night before I went to bed. It ran at least 50+ minutes covering 100s of sq fts before I stopped following it in the app. Also, there’s no record of any other run in the app history during this time (so it’s not like it finished the run and then started this one again somehow)
Also, the location of the vacuum is wrong on the app. The app shows the robot to be in one place, but in reality it is in an entirely different spot in a different room.
This started to happen maybe a month or two ago, but not every time. So far, it only happened twice (but I have done cleaning weekly).
My robot is on 1.6.202 and according to the app, it’s the latest firmware. Has anyone seen this kind of behavior?
Try cleaning the contacts. I would be suspicious of the 1.6.202 update depending on when that showed up on your robot. You may also want to consider replacing the battery.
I’ve noticed that when the battery runs out unexpectedly (or the robot firmware crashes) it doesn’t have a chance to upload the cleaning history.
Personally, I break up the cleaning into separate jobs to avoid battery depletion, which is hard on the battery anyways.
I will give the contacts a thorough cleaning and see if that improves the odds of success. Like I mentioned, it doesn’t always happens, so not happening the next time doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, or the issue, whatever it was, has been resolved.
That said, in both times, when I woke up and discovered the issue, the robot has power left (this morning, it was at 36%. Can’t remember what it was last time), so somehow I wonder if it’s battery related. But firmware crash may be a real possibility. I have had this robot for close to 2 years now, and it used to work flawlessly until the 6 months or so. It may also be possible that it’s because I now have two units (one for the main floor and the other for the basement)? It seems that the app gets confused especially if I have both running at the same time. To reduce that possibility, I have now run one on Sat night and the other on Sun night.
The internal resistance of batteries increase as they age, eventually they can’t deliver the requested power at a voltage that doesn’t trip the low voltage cut-out early. It would look the same as a software crash.
