With 01.13.28, my S5 Max has developed a number of bad behaviours. Here's another one. It has added areas to rooms that cannot be reached because they don't exist. See the area pointed to by the red arrow below, and also the two areas pointed to by blue arrows. This map shows a room clean of the room at the top, which also has the dock. Note that the robot came out into the hallway and spent several minutes bumping against the wall trying to reach this area.
I don't mind this as I mind the complete lack of a way to remove the nonexistant area. Sure, I can make it a no-go zone, but why not allow editing maps to remove areas that are not there? Didn't the previous firmware add new areas in gray and not add them to a defined room?
Here's an even better idea .. make map creation and additions a switch in the app such that Map Creation/Addition is enabled upon first use, and can be enabled at any time. But you could also turn it off telling the robot NOT to add new areas it mistakenly thinks are there, and NOT to create a new map just because positioning without preselecting the right map doesn't work 90% of the time.
It seems to me that Roborock is focusing on the out of box first time experience to the detriment of ongoing use of the product. I estimate that I've been spending 3-4 hours a month correcting the robot's mistakes, remapping, and trying to figure out workarounds to problems. My old vacuum just worked including the carpet beater bar. Only downside is having to push it.
But here's the thing .. the first six weeks I had the S5 Max (starting in October), I absolutely loved it. The maps it drew were perfect, and I could easily switch between maps from the home screen. I never heard "invalid map" and maps under Map Manage loaded first time every time. Whatever firmware came out after that (which removed map selection from the home screen) caused it to behave badly, and 01.13.28 made things much worse. So I will ask again .. how can I go back to the original firmware I had (as of October 2020, and before map selection was taken away) and stay there?
We are sorry we've updated the app settings. Right now, we can't switch back to the original one where you can select floor level on the right side. But you could follow the pic below to switch maps.
For your suggestion about adding a feature to edit map, we will forward it to our tech team and hope they could manage it in future.
I know the multiple step way to get to a map. But you didn't address the issue of how to handle an area that has been incorrectly map and added to a room. There's no way to get rid of it. As a result, the robot goes into other rooms trying to access it, but that area doesn't exist. This wastes time and battery.
How do I remove the area pointed to by the red area in the image I posted?
Sorry, there is no option to remove the area you marked. You can set invisible wall near them. Also, use wet cloth to clean the wall sensor and cliff sensors.
I would appreciate it if you'd take ownership of this serious problem. Of course, I've cleaned all the sensors. We are way beyond that. I've been trying for two hours to do a room clean of my hall and this is what happens:
Hi, thanks for your reply. It seems that the map has been messed up. We suggest you delete the current map and create a new one.
I bought an Q5 recently, and I am having the same issue, especially when it ran next to my sliding door to my porch (it thinks there is a whole new room outside). This really needs to be addressed and fixed.
We are sorry to hear about the trouble you are having with your device. The lidar sensor on top of the robot will see through the glass door and think there's room outside. You can set up no-go zone or invisible wall to block that room.
We will forward this issue to our tech team and hopefully they could optimize it in the future.