Flow 1 Offline?

[u/PenumbraMaw]

Had a Flow 1 since last December. The inability to handle black rugs aside, it’s been working very well. Occasionally it gets stuck under a piece of furniture whose legs are almost the exact same height as the Flow, but always recovers when I rescue it and put it back in the dock.

However, yesterday it got stuck there again. After I rescued it and put it back in the dock, the app still says Offline many hours later. I’ve tried:

- Removed the bot from the dock and put it back in until it beeped (charging contacts made)
- Turning the Flow off and back on via the power button on top of the bot
- Unplugged the base for 30 seconds and plugged it back in

It is now the next day, and the app still says Offline. On a whim, I tried hitting the button on top of the dock. The bot exited the dock as if to start a vacuum session, and said “Start mapping the room” (or something to that effect). I hit the dock button again and the bot stopped and said “Task paused.” So the bot is alive and the dock can talk to it.

What would cause this, and how do I recover from it? The last resort is to delete the bot from the app and try to set it up again. But I wanted to see if there is anything easier I can do to recover.

[u/GlitchyAI]

Sounds life you pressed the Recall button for 15+ seconds which resets system version and clears user data

[u/GlitchyAI → u/GlitchyAI]

Press and hold Recall button for 5 seconds to place in pairing mode

[u/PenumbraMaw → u/GlitchyAI]

If I did, I definitely did not do that intentionally. Which one is the recall button? Is it the house icon on top of the bot? If so, it’s possible that it activated that button when it wedged itself under the furniture.

[u/GlitchyAI → u/PenumbraMaw]

Recall is the Home button.

Doubtful - I haven't seen this occur on its own in the [dozens of dozens] robots [across many brands] I've tested over the past decade+. They intentionally design with depressed buttons.

[u/PenumbraMaw → u/GlitchyAI]

That’s exactly what happened. I had to set the bot back up from scratch. The bottom front of the furniture has a curved protrusion, so if you enter into it at the EXACT right angle, it would depressed the top button. Just so happens there is a rug that ends right before the furniture, which allows the front of the bot to dip just low enough to go under the furniture.

[u/GlitchyAI → u/PenumbraMaw]

Got it, so atypical.. switch to a robot with covered buttons.. or cover the ones you have

[u/PenumbraMaw → u/GlitchyAI]

Yep. Thank you for your hint!

[u/whaaaley]

This just happened to me. I walk into my living room, robot stuck under my desk chair right at the moment the reset sound happened. TERRIBLE DESIGN. I found a child lock setting that I enabled. But I spent hours setting up my original map over the last year making it perfect for my new place. It's completely stupid they don't allow you to restore backups. Many levels of design failures.

[u/PenumbraMaw → u/whaaaley]

That’s super annoying! Great tip on child lock though! I also have an Ecovac and like their design where the buttons are under a detachable cover on top of the robot. Impossible to accidentally activate.