MapLoader

Map Backup/Restore for Xiaomi Vacuum and Roborock

Description

MapLoader is a NodeJS based service, running on the robot that listens to MQTT commands.
Available topics:

rockrobo/map/load
rockrobo/map/save

The message payload is the name you want to give the map backup or the name of the backup you want to restore.
For example DefaultMap, Groundfloor, or UpperFloor

The map bundles are saved to /mnt/data/maploader/maps/...

Messages to the save topic will create or overwrite a backup of the current map to a folder with the given name.
Messages to the load topic will copy a map backup back to the working directory of the robot.

Example usage:

Restore the map after the robot damaged/lost it
Load different maps for different floors in your house (you might need a charging dock on each floor to get that working)
Reset your map to the master map where all doors are open. (Helpful for room-based zone cleaning, which sometimes fails because a door was closed on the last cleaning cycle and the robot has no idea how to enter the room now.)

Attention:
To get a loaded map to become visible in the Xiaomi Home app, start a full clean of the robot.
You can cancel the full clean after 1-2s, the map will be loaded now.
The robot shouldn't start to move in this short time, it just starts the vacuum motor.\

In combination with a smart home solution like FHEM/iobroker/HomeAssistant that already support the vacuum robots,
you can automate the process of restoring -> start cleaning -> cancel cleaning even further.

Requirements

Just a rooted device with SSH access.
DustCloud or Valetudo are not needed, works with devices using the original Xiaomi Cloud and App.

Installation

1. Root the device and log in as root per SSH

2. Install needed packages

apt-get update
apt-get install nano wget xz-utils

3. Install NodeJS to /mnt/data/node/ (don't use apt to install, as we don't have enough free space on the root partition)

mkdir /mnt/data/node
cd /mnt/data/node

Get the link for the current NodeJS ARM7 binary package from here: https://nodejs.org/en/download/
Download and extract (replace <version> and <distro> with the content of the file you downloaded):

wget <link from above>
sudo tar -xJvf node-<version>-<distro>.tar.xz -C /mnt/data/node/
rm node-<version>-<distro>.tar.xz

Add the NodeJS path to the profile of the root user:

nano /etc/environment

Add /mnt/data/node/node-<version>-<distro>/bin to the PATH variable.
Example:

PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/mnt/data/node/node-v10.16.0-linux-armv7l/bin"

Append this line at the end of the file (replace <version> and <distro> to match the path of your node installation):

NODE_PATH="/mnt/data/node/node-<version>-<distro>/lib/node_modules"

4. Test your node installation
Log out of SSH and login again to load the new environment variables

node -v

Output should be the version and not a command not found error

5. Create Symlinks\

sudo ln -s /mnt/data/node/node-<version>-<distro>/bin/node /usr/bin/node
sudo ln -s /mnt/data/node/node-<version>-<distro>/bin/npm /usr/bin/npm
sudo ln -s /mnt/data/node/node-<version>-<distro>/bin/npx /usr/bin/npx

6. Install the Node MQTT module (replace <version> and <distro> to match the path of your node installation)

cd /mnt/data/node/node-<version>-<distro>/lib
npm install mqtt --save

7. Install MapLoader
Download the content of this GIT and copy maploader.js and the maps subfolder to /mnt/data/maploader/ on the robo.
Edit maploader.js and change the IP adress in line 3 to the IP of your MQTT Broker.

nano /mnt/data/maploader/maploader.js

Manual Start for Testing

cd /mnt/data/maploader
node maploader.js

When you publish MQTT messages to the topics rockrobo/map/save and rockrobo/map/load on your broker, you should see console messages about the copied files.

Autostart

Install the Node module Forever (replace <version> and <distro> to match the path of your node installation)**
Forever monitors started node scripts and ensure that they are getting restarted, in case they exit in case of errors.

cd /mnt/data/node/node-<version>-<distro>/lib
npm install forever -g

Autostart the node script through forever at boot time:

crontab -e

Add the following line at the end of the file (replace <version> and <distro> to match the path of your node installation):