https://geekyschmidt.com/tags/hardware/Recent content in Hardware onHugo -- 0.160.1enCopyright © 2002–2025, Nicholas Schmidt; all rights reserved.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 17:26:00 +0000https://geekyschmidt.com/post/2026-04-18-dreamme-x40-rooting/Sat, 18 Apr 2026 17:26:00 +0000https://geekyschmidt.com/post/2026-04-18-dreamme-x40-rooting/<p>I’ve deployed numerous iRobot and Neato units over the years. My previous iRobot fleet served faithfully for five years; they are easy to repair, but their performance has fallen behind, and the mandatory cloud tethering is a strategic disadvantage for any privacy-conscious home.</p> <p>The Dreame X40 Ultra is a superior piece of hardware, but to truly own it, I had to strip away the cloud requirement.</p> <h2 id="the-mission-local-control">The Mission: Local Control</h2> <p>To achieve full autonomy, I used <strong>Valetudo</strong>. It replaces the cloud interface with a local web server, keeping the data off external servers and locked within my IoT VLAN and Home Assistant instance.</p>