I need to buy my out of town grandparents a robot vacuum cleaner. They have no Internet at their place and, apart from setting up the machine, I won’t be able to help them use it. Can you guys recommend me something that my technologically challenged grandparents can use without an Internet connection? Also due to recent massive inflation and devalueation, my finances are quite limited. Xiaomi mi robot vacuum mop 2 pro is right around my budget but it needs an active Internet connection.
The Roborock vacuums can work without wifi but you lose the advanced functionality. Apparently you can flash them with an alternative firmware and get back the advanced functions with local only control.
https://valetudo.cloud/
I just flashed my Roborock S6. It did take a day, but it worked like a charm. Never soldered in my life before this or rooted a phone.
Valetudo still requires wifi, it just doesn’t require an internet connection.
Without wifi you’d need something with physical start/stop buttons on the robot, or with a separate remote control - not sure if anything like that exists (many robots have buttons on them but usually only very basic controls, nothing for schedule cleaning etc)