Best Robot Vacuums for Home Assistant: Local Control with Valetudo and HACS
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The best robot vacuum for Home Assistant in 2026 depends on one question: do you want local control or are you fine with the cloud? If you want it fully local, a Valetudo-rootable Dreame or Roborock is the answer. If you just want solid entities and don't mind a cloud round-trip, Roborock through HACS is the easy path. I've run three vacuums through Home Assistant, rooted one, and fought the Ecovacs integration for an afternoon. Here's what actually works.
Bottom line: For Home Assistant users in 2026, a Valetudo-rooted Dreame gives the best fully local experience, while Roborock via the HACS integration is the easiest cloud-connected pick. Robot vacuums are still mostly Wi-Fi devices, so unlike sensors they don't ride your Zigbee mesh. The Valetudo project supports dozens of rootable models.
New to all this? Start with our Home Assistant setup guide before you try to add a vacuum.
Why Is Home Assistant Integration Tricky for Robot Vacuums?
Most robot vacuums are cloud-first Wi-Fi devices, so local control isn't guaranteed the way it is with Zigbee sensors. The vacuum talks to a vendor server, your phone talks to that server, and Home Assistant has to either go through the same cloud or be cut out entirely. That's the core friction.
Why does this matter? Because a cloud-only vacuum stops responding to Home Assistant the moment the vendor's servers hiccup or the company sunsets the app. Local control means your "clean the kitchen after dinner" automation keeps firing no matter what happens to the company behind it.
There are three integration paths, and picking the right one before you buy saves a lot of grief.
What Are the Three Ways to Connect a Vacuum?
The path you choose decides how much control and reliability you get. Local is best, cloud is easiest, and rooting sits in between on effort.
- Cloud integration (HACS): Community integrations like the Roborock or Xiaomi Miio components talk to the vendor cloud. Easy, but cloud-dependent.
- Local rooting (Valetudo): Flash open firmware onto a supported Dreame or Roborock and cut the cloud out completely. Fully local, no account.
- Built-in integration: A few vacuums expose a local API or work through the official Home Assistant integration without rooting.
For the cloud path, you'll install integrations through HACS. For the fully local path, the Valetudo project maintains a list of rootable models and step-by-step guides. Rooting voids your warranty and takes an hour, but the payoff is a vacuum that never phones home.
The Best Robot Vacuums for Home Assistant in 2026
Here's my ranked, tested shortlist. These are the picks I'd actually buy for a Home Assistant home, depending on how much local control you want.
| Vacuum | HA path | Local control | Room/zone cleaning | Approx price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreame L10s Ultra | Valetudo root | Full (rooted) | Yes | $550 |
| Roborock S8 | HACS (cloud) | Partial | Yes | $750 |
| Roborock Q Revo | HACS (cloud) | Partial | Yes | $600 |
| Ecovacs Deebot T30 | HACS (Deebot) | Partial | Yes | $650 |
| Valetudo-rooted older Roborock | Valetudo root | Full (rooted) | Yes | varies |
Dreame L10s Ultra is my top pick for control freaks. Several Dreame models are Valetudo-rootable, which means full local control, live map data in Home Assistant, and room-by-room cleaning with zero cloud. The rooting process is documented and reversible on most units.
Roborock S8 is the easy-mode champion. The Roborock HACS integration exposes battery, status, room cleaning, and even map images. It's cloud-connected, so it depends on Roborock's servers, but the entity support is the most complete of any cloud vacuum I've tested.
Ecovacs Deebot T30 works through the community Deebot integration. Setup is fiddlier than Roborock and the integration occasionally needs a restart after a vacuum firmware update, but once stable it exposes the controls you need.
How Do You Get Room and Zone Cleaning in Home Assistant?
Room and zone cleaning needs the vacuum's map exposed to Home Assistant, which both Valetudo and the Roborock HACS integration provide. You send a service call naming the room or a coordinate box, and the vacuum cleans just that area. This is the feature that makes a vacuum genuinely useful in automations.
My favorite automation: when the kitchen motion sensor goes quiet for 30 minutes after dinner, clean only the kitchen zone. That's a single service call with a zone defined on the map. Without map access you're stuck starting full-house cleans, which nobody wants at 8pm.
The map card from HACS draws the live map on your dashboard, including the vacuum's position and the no-go zones. It's one of those touches that makes Home Assistant feel finished.
Do Robot Vacuums Work with Matter or Zigbee?
No. As of 2026, robot vacuums are Wi-Fi devices and are not part of the Matter or Zigbee device specifications. They don't join your Zigbee mesh and they don't appear as Matter devices. If you're mapping out protocols for the rest of your home, our Z-Wave vs Zigbee guide covers what actually uses those radios.
That Wi-Fi dependence is exactly why local rooting matters more for vacuums than for most devices. There's no local mesh fallback, so without Valetudo your only local option is whatever the vendor chooses to allow.
What Vacuum Automations Are Worth Building?
The whole point of putting a vacuum in Home Assistant is automations the vendor app can't do. Once the vacuum exposes status, battery, and room entities, a handful of routines pay for the setup effort almost immediately.
Here are the ones I actually run day to day:
- Clean on departure: When everyone's phone leaves the geofence and it's a weekday, start a full clean. The house is empty, so the noise bothers nobody.
- Targeted post-dinner clean: When the kitchen motion sensor goes quiet for 30 minutes in the evening, clean only the kitchen zone. One service call, one room.
- Do not disturb: Pause the vacuum automatically if a video call starts or the media player switches to a movie, then resume afterward.
- Bin-full reminder: Track clean cycles and push a phone notification after a set number, since most cheaper vacuums don't nag you to empty the bin.
- Low-battery hold: If the vacuum drops below 20% mid-clean, send it to dock and notify you, rather than letting it strand itself under the couch.
None of these need the cloud once you're rooted with Valetudo. Even on a cloud HACS integration, they run from Home Assistant rather than the vendor app, so you get one dashboard for everything.
The honest catch is reliability. A cloud integration occasionally drops after a vacuum firmware update and needs a reload. A Valetudo-rooted unit avoids that entirely, which is the strongest practical argument for rooting if you lean on these automations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I control a robot vacuum locally in Home Assistant?
Yes, but usually only after rooting. Flashing Valetudo onto a supported Dreame or Roborock gives full local control with no cloud account. Without rooting, most vacuums route through the vendor cloud via a HACS integration, which works well but depends on the company's servers staying online.
Does the Roborock Home Assistant integration show the map?
Yes. The Roborock HACS integration exposes a camera entity with the live map, the vacuum's position, and room segments. You can trigger room-specific cleaning from automations. It is cloud-connected, so it needs internet and a working Roborock account to function.
Will rooting my vacuum with Valetudo void the warranty?
Almost certainly yes. Flashing open firmware voids the manufacturer warranty and carries a small risk of bricking during the process. The Valetudo project documents the steps carefully, and the result is a fully local vacuum, but do it with eyes open on a model you can afford to experiment with.
Which vacuum brand is easiest with Home Assistant?
Roborock, by a clear margin. The community HACS integration is mature, well-documented, and exposes more entities than any other cloud vacuum. Ecovacs and Xiaomi work too but need more troubleshooting. For zero-cloud control, Dreame wins because so many models are Valetudo-rootable.
Which Robot Vacuum Should You Buy?
If you want the cleanest Home Assistant experience and don't mind an hour of setup, buy a Valetudo-rootable Dreame and cut the cloud out entirely. If you want strong integration without flashing firmware, the Roborock S8 through HACS is the easy, reliable pick. Skip any vacuum that only offers an app with no community integration, because that's a dead end the day the vendor loses interest.
Robot vacuums are the rare smart home device where the cloud question really bites, since there's no local mesh to fall back on. Choose your integration path before you spend $600, and your floors will clean themselves on schedule for years. Still choosing a coordinator and hub for the rest of your setup? Our best smart home hub guide covers that decision in detail, including which controllers play nicely with a mixed Wi-Fi and Zigbee home.