Roomba 620 infrared signals

Having been pondering it for a while, I recently bought an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner - the Roomba 620 which is the current entry model. For fun I took some photos with an infrared sensitive webcam (a trusty XBox Live Vision), and then measured some of the IR signal codes with my Raspberry Pi.

Note the four downward facing IR LEDs (cliff sensors)

Does the Roomba use IR illumination to follow walls?

Raspberry Pi XBMC infrared remote control

I've added an infrared receiver to my Raspberry Pi, tucked inside a PiBow case with its clear top layer letting it receive the signals. This lets me re-use an old DVD player IR remote to control XBMC running on the Pi.

IR sensor and cable hiding inside PiBow case

Basically I followed this AdaFruit Tutorial for adding an IR receiver to the Raspberry Pi, but not being in the USA I had to substitute parts which I sourced via eBay instead. Despite much searching, the shortest suitable jumper cables I could find (one pin to one pin, 1P-1P, and female-to-female, F/F) were 10cm long - which is a bit much to coil up inside the Pibow case but easier than soldering.

Blue Tit chicks hatched

Photos from Friday, six of the seven Blue Tit eggs have clearly hatched.

Food!

Broken egg shell to recycle

Blue Tit eggs

In addition to automatically monitoring my TrailCam, the garden based Raspberry Pi has continued to watch the Blue Tits in Bird Box III which have this year laid a clutch of seven eggs, averaging one a day.

No eggs

One week later, seven eggs

Raspberry Pi Trail Cam - Update

Its been two months since I posted the first set of photos captured by my Raspberry Pi trail-cam. Since the UK had some unexpected snow in March 2013 - during which the garden based Raspberry Pi continued to work just fine.

Pheasants in the snow

Bar missing some days where the SD card filled up, and a couple of occasions when for reasons unknown motion failed, the Raspberry Pi worked very nicely - despite the cold. There were a few more unexpected sightings in the last week...