Reviving a Dead Neato Vacuum with OpenNeato — Part X3: The Surgery That Wasn’t

New here? This is Part X3 — the final part of the OpenNeato series. Part X1 explained why Neato robots became “dumb” after Vorwerk shut down their cloud servers. Part X2 covered flashing the ESP32 firmware and configuring WiFi. This part was supposed to be about opening the Neato D3, finding the debug port, and wiring the ESP32 in. It didn’t go as planned.

Reviving a Dead Neato Vacuum with OpenNeato — Part X2: Buying the Board and Flashing the Firmware

New here? This is Part X2 of a five-part series documenting the process of following the OpenNeato project by renjfk on GitHub — an open-source replacement for Neato's discontinued cloud service. This is not our project; we're simply building it and writing it up. The full project lives at github.com/renjfk/OpenNeato. Part X1 explains the problem this solves and which robot models are supported.

Reviving a Dead Neato Vacuum with OpenNeato — Part X1: The Problem

New here? This is the start of Phase 3. If anything here feels unfamiliar, earlier parts of the blog have the full context — but you don't need them to follow along here.

Phase 2 Recap: From Two Motors to an Autonomous Robot — Part 21

New here? This is the recap of Phase 2 — the journey from a Raspberry Pi with no purpose to a fully autonomous, voice-controlled, web-dashboard-equipped robot that maps its surroundings. If you want the play-by-play, Parts 12 through 20 have it all. This is the "what we actually built and why it matters" version.

The Autonomous Obstacle-Avoiding Robot — Part 20: Phase 2 Boss Fight

New here? This part combines everything built in Parts 13–19 into one robot: autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance, camera-based steering, voice control, room mapping, and a web dashboard — all running together. If any individual piece feels unfamiliar, the part that introduced it is linked throughout. Otherwise, let’s go.

Simple Room Mapping with Raspberry Pi and HC-SR04 — Part 19: The Robot Remembers Where It's Been

New here? This part adds basic room mapping to the C101 robot — as it drives, it builds a simple grid map showing where obstacles are. The setup builds on Parts 12–18. If the Raspberry Pi environment feels unfamiliar, Part 12 has the full walkthrough. Otherwise, let's go.

WiFi Robot Control Panel with Flask and Raspberry Pi — Part 18: The Robot Gets a Dashboard

New here? This part builds a web-based control panel for the C101 robot — open a browser on any device connected to the same WiFi, and you get buttons to drive the robot, toggle autonomous mode, and enable voice control. The setup builds on Parts 12–17. If the Raspberry Pi environment or remote connection feels unfamiliar, Part 12 has the full walkthrough. Otherwise, let’s go.