Hi, I am unable to login to the iRobot Home app. My specifications are:
Samsung Galaxy S7 (SM-G930F)
/e/OS 1.20-r-20240221382013-stable-herolte
I have deinstalled the app and cleared the cache and storage from the App Lounge but the issue persists. More specifically, I can select the country and language. Then I can choose to login or sign up. It doesn’t matter which option I choose because in both cases the app keeps loading and doesn’t proceed to the actual login. I am aware of the list of apps which work or do not work on /e/OS however this app is not included. Maybe it is just not possible to get this app to work on /e/OS but I wanted to ask it first before searching for an alternative to get to use the app.
just have to enable the trackers (it’s one of them, but I don’t remember which) for the first login/launch. Once you do that, just turn them all back off and it never bothers you again about anything, works fine.
(go under settings, advanced privacy, click on app trackers not the switch, then click on Apps (next to trackers) - sometimes you have to click on trackers first and then back on apps in order to populate the list…
scroll down to iRobot, turn on the trackers.
Then go and open the app, login and you’re good. (go back and do it all again in order to then turn them off)
As a general recommendation, if you have IoT devices in your home, and you’ve granted them wifi access, you can protect yourself from invasive data collection by installing the Pi-hole (i.e. DNS sinkhole) application on your network.
The setup is fairly simple:
Connect an always-on computer to your router. (A Raspberry Pi running Raspberry Pi OS is great for this because it’s ultra cheap and doesn’t use much electricity.)
Install Pi-hole on the Raspberry Pi or other computer. (Check their website for instructions.)
Adjust your router settings to use the Raspberry Pi/Pi-hole to handle DNS requests.
In the Pi-hole dashboard, load one or more of the recommended publicly available tracker-, ad-, malware-blocking lists from Github.
Apply regular OS updates to the RPi (or other computer), and to the Pi-hole application (and loaded blocklists).
Once that’s up and running, you can monitor all the traffic from any connected device on your home network: robot vacuums, video-streaming boxes, “smart” TVs, “smart” doorbells, phones, “smart speakers” listening microphones, computers, etc.
You can observe every behind-the-scenes connection, blocked or allowed, in the Pi-hole dashboard, using a web browser on any computer or phone on your network. You can also manually block additional connections or entire domains from there.
Note that devices connected to a VPN service may or may not bypass Pi-hole’s DNS filtering, dependent on whether or not the service gives you the ability to use your own DNS instead of theirs.
You’d be surprised at the thousands of daily connections many of these IoT devices make, transmitting who-knows-what to who-knows-where.
Thank you for the recommendation. I have added installing Pi-hole to my to-do list. Do you recommend using a separate network for IoT devices? Because this would have been my next step.
The only questionable device I’ve ever used is a Roku, which I kept on my main wifi network, but with Pi-hole guarding the exits, so to speak. The Roku is currently unplugged, though. I’ve graduated to a computer-connected TV for streaming via privacy-respecting web browser with NoScript extension (plus Pi-hole).
At the moment the only IoT device I have is this robot vacuum. And I don’t think it is ever turned off unless the battery is completely depleted. Better safe than sorry and setting up a seperate network and the Pi-hole. Thank you for your insights.
Tracker-blocking smartphone apps like Blokada 5 and Tracker Control (which are essentially like Pi-hole for your phone) can block unwanted connections from “rogue” apps there. Useful when you’re out and about on mobile or public wifi, and not on your protected home network.
Let us know what you discover after you set up Pi-hole at home.
