Strange robot vacuum navigation with firmware 1.6.173

For Christmas I got a new robot vacuum. The beta firmware 1.6.173 adds great features (spot cleaning and multi-floor), but I noticed some weird behavior.

  1. When requesting a room cleaning for my living room, it went to an unrelated room. (IIRC, it didn’t vacuum anything.) The next time, it vacuumed two unrelated rooms. Sometimes room cleaning works.
  2. When spot cleaning a hallway the basement, the robot did it. Then, it went to an unrelated area before returning to charging station. Here’s a screenshot showing the vacuum in the wrong spot
  3. I mapped my top floor with a door closed to a large room. Later, I remapped it, but there were two versions of the map depending on which screen I was on.
  4. When selecting two adjacent rooms to clean, it treated them separately. I mean, it cleaned then one at a time, including their borders, instead of ignoring the border between the rooms. Image:

I’m also running beta 173.

  • Is the dock on a level surface, and not carpet? (I’ve been able to get away with having it on low-pile Berber.)
  • Check that the charging bars line up when it tries to dock. I’ve seen it do weird things when it can’t dock first try.
  • If it can’t find the locating IR light (between the charging bars) it will start scanning other areas.
  • Nearby reflective surfaces can also confuse it, for example it was not having a good time when I had the dock in the laundry room (one of the few places with a hard floor) facing the appliances. It was trying to dock with the appliance until I stopped it.

You can remove the unwanted map with the Edit button.

I haven’t seen it cleaning the wrong selected room(s).

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The basement is all a shorter regular carpet (except the bathroom). It’s not berber.

I’m not sure the dock is the problem in the basement because the robot didn’t visit close to the docking station before making a bee line for the other corner of the room, Also, on the top floor, the same carpet has not been a problem for docking. I still will try another (carpeted) location.

Thanks for the good tips. I found the flashing IR light (visible on a smartphone), but I don’t see anything in the basement that would confuse it. This area has two couches, one chair, and a big portable speaker. There’s little metal.

I didn’t mean an extra floor. I mean the same floor had two different layouts depending on the screen of the app. It was something like the main screen (choose a room or spot clean), customize rooms, or list of floors. IIRC, it happened after the robot incidentally noticed a new room that wasn’t on the initial quick map (because the door was closer earlier). I’m not sure, so I will pay more attention next time.

Oh, so you were seeing what the robot had mapped most recently. When you customize you will only see the map that was saved (same as in the floor list). The one on the main screen is just what it has in temporary memory.

Related…

How did you get the beta firmware if you just got it for Christmas?

I’ve had mine since launch and can’t seem to get it

I got mine earlier in December and I immediately updated it to beta 173. All I did was get the beta Wyze app (Android, Become a Beta Tester – Wyze), went to Account > About > Beta program and added Wyze Robot Vacuum, it then offered up 1.6.173. I had no issues updating, it didn’t take a long time like some people had happen.

Note, there is currently no beta Android app, so 2.27.33 supports the beta 173 firmware just fine and it still has the beta program in about (unless that only shows up because I’m still subbed for future Wyze app betas).

There is apparently a list of robot MAC addresses allowed to get the beta, but I assume that is just whatever is coming after 173. Maybe I was just lucky that mine was somehow already on the list?

173 is not the Christmas Beta, it has been out for some time (8/18/21), it has most if not all the main listed features though. The only missing feature I’m aware of is base station editing. I sure hope map saving improvements (at least have more control) are going to be a thing too.

Just got confirmation that a Factory Reset MAY erase the maps. So it would be really nice if there was a way to export them.

image

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So crazy, I believe I’ve been in the beta for a while (but I forgot to opt in at first). Either way, I’ve only gotten 1 update (I think) to my vacuum since launch (and zero beta). Really hoping to get some new features soon!

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I have had similar issues. Today for example it was scheduled to clean my fireplace room. It went into my living room instead. Even when I stopped it and manually had it clean my fireplace room (den), it did the same thing. It also showed on the map that the docking station was in a different part of the room. It randomly will vacuum the wrong room. Very frustrating.

Try holding the power down and allow it to power off. Wait for a bit and the power it on again. See if that clears up the problem.


Did that and still having issues. The blue dot on the pic is where the docking station should be. Also, that Fireplace room is more square and not sure where it gets that non-existent hallway on the bottom right. the rest of the rooms look ok.


I manually chose Fireplace but you can see where it was and notice the docking station moved too in the pic though I have not physically moved it.

Have you opened a ticket and created a log of this issue. If you have, please submit it here as well. If not, I would do this first as Wyze can review the logs to see what is going on. After you do that, try the items below.

It looks like the map rotated. I have found it easier to do perform a quick map to establish an updated one. I do this occasionally when I get new apps or Firmware.

The only other option I could think of is to clear your cache from within the app, log out of the app and restart the phone. Then when you logon again the cache should be rebuilt

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The last option worked but I did submit a log. Log ID is 449957.

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@WyzeBaohua

@sbeach_72 had issue with the Vacuum and the map being rotated. They provided the log # 449957 for review. Wanted to make sure you were aware of this as this is another log you could potentially use in trouble shooting Map Issues.

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For what it’s worth, I’m running 1.6.173 and I’ve noticed that some of the changes they recently made (wasn’t like this before a few weeks) have messed with the mapping. I’m thinking it’s more on the App side and not the robot side, as these popped up recently.

It now prompts you to “update changes to the map,” if changes are detected on a cleaning run, such as something like having a closed door (sometimes you have to). That’s fine, but it resets all of the names and makes it so you can no longer edit or select existing rooms if they were behind that change (closed door).

So it’s safe to say, this beta maybe a work in progress.

My robot vacuum has mostly been working fine (still 173 firmware), but yesterday it would not update its position or history on map during cleaning. It looked like it was at the dock the whole time, even though it was cleaning correctly. I cleaned a few rooms separately, and in the cleaning history, most are missing. Presumably, this doesn’t correctly age the accessories (e.g., main brush).

However, I noticed a cool new feature: cleaning history has a playback button.

Overall the hardware and app are great, but the software needs some bug fixes. I’m worried the engineers are working on “the next big thing” instead of this. The 173 firmware was released in August.

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