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🤖 Roomba 105 Combo – How I Finally Got the Map to Save (After Almost Giving Up)
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone else struggling with the same issue. I’ve got a Roomba 105 Combo, and getting it to save a map turned out to be way more frustrating than expected.

I tried multiple times to get it to create and save a map. It would run through the whole cleaning cycle, return to the dock, show “Finalizing map”… and then… nothing. No saved map in the app. Just silence.

Here’s what happened:

❌ What didn’t work:
- 🏠 Letting it create a map for the entire floor in one go — no map saved
- 📶 Strong Wi-Fi, app and firmware fully updated — still nothing
- 🗺️ Watching it clean, but the map didn’t show live in the app
- 🔁 Tried 4–5 times, changing the layout, doors, moving the dock — no success
🔍 What I discovered:

1️⃣ If the map isn’t rendering live during the cleaning, it will not be saved
That was the key. If you don’t see the map drawing in real-time on your phone, stop the run — it won’t be saved anyway.

2️⃣ Having the mop installed messes with mapping
For some reason, the105 Combo seems to treat mapping differently when the mop is attached. Once I removed it, things improved immediately.

✅ What finally worked:

Here’s the exact process that finally worked for me:
1. 🔄 Removed the robot from the app (Settings > Remove Robot)
2. 🆕 Re-added it as a new device
3. 🚫 Did NOT attach the mop
4. 🚪 Started a cleaning run in just one closed room
5. 👀 Watched for the live map — and this time, it showed up
6. 🏁 Roomba returned to the dock, showed “Finalizing map”, and… the map actually saved! 🎉
🧠 What I learned:

The Roomba 105 Combo is very sensitive during map creation. A single pause, error, or lack of map rendering can make the entire run invalid — without warning.

💡 Tips if you’re stuck:
- 🧹 Start with just one room
- 🧼 Remove the mop before mapping
- 📲 Make sure the live map is visible during the run
- 🙅‍♂️ Don’t touch or move the robot
- 🔁 If needed, reset and try again from scratch
Hope this helps someone avoid wasting hours like I did. Let me know if you’ve found other tricks with the 105 Combo — or if yours behaves differently. Happy mapping!
June 7, 2025
🤖 Roomba 105 Combo: First Impressions

I recently got the Roomba 105 Combo and wanted to share some early thoughts for those considering it. I’ve tested it for a few days now, and while the experience started off a bit rocky, it ended on a positive note.

❌ What I Didn’t Like

The robot got stuck during the first firmware update. I let it run for around 3 hours, but nothing happened.

After some research, I found out this is a somewhat common issue. The fix involved removing the battery manually.

I had to unscrew the back panels and carefully disconnect the battery connector — not exactly user-friendly.

Once I did a hard reboot, the following update installed with no issues.

✅ First Impressions (Post-Fix)

The vacuuming is efficient and quick. Mopping is also decent, especially for everyday maintenance.

You can choose between vacuum only, mop only, or both combined, depending on your needs.

⚙️ Usability

I couldn’t figure out how to send the robot to clean just Room 2 directly. It seems you have to create a schedule for that, rather than triggering it on the fly.

🧼 Cleaning Quality

The cleaning performance is good — it leaves a few light streaks, but nothing major. For regular upkeep, it works well.

Despite the early trouble with the update, it was easily fixed and didn’t leave a bad taste overall.

📦 Conclusion

The Roomba 105 Combo made a decent first impression. While the initial setup could have gone smoother, especially with the firmware hiccup, the device redeemed itself with solid cleaning performance and useful functionality. If you’re okay with a bit of setup tinkering, it’s shaping up to be a good home cleaning companion.

June 4, 2025
Geeky RoundUp #1
Hello,

In this series I am sharing a bunch of links related to geeky things. The geekier, the better.

Here are the links…

One:

4 Reasons To Buy Roomba 105

The reasons:
- LiDaR navigation
- Good reviews
- Good price
- Good previous experience with older Roomba
Two:

WordPress celebrated Women’s Day with Style

Three:

Morning Habits That Make Your Day More Stressful

My favorite: Skipping Breakfast (or Eating Junk)

Four:

SteamOS now runs on Lenovo Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally

If you are a gamer, this news might make you happy.

Five:

7 Things You Need to Know Before Deciding to Become a Graphic Designer

My fav: You’ll Always Be Learning

Six:

15 commands for Linux noobs

If you want to start learning Linux, you need to check this out.

Seven:

Monitor your Linux system like a pro

If you’re a sysadmin, this is for you.
May 26, 2025
TP-Link Tapo L530E Smart Wi-Fi Multicolor Light Bulb – Review
In this article I will make a detailed technical review for the TP-Link Tapo L530E smart Wi-Fi multicolor light bulb.

I will jump directly to my opinion, for the fellows that don’t want to read all the technical details, but might find my opinion regarding the device useful.

What I do not like about the TP-Link Tapo L530E:
- I struggled to configure it at first, needed to switch the light ON/OFF a lot of times until it “reached” pairing mode (it did not blink 3 times and did not provide the Tapo WiFi network)
- I needed to create a dedicated 2.4 GHz WiFi network in order to be able to pair it (before this, I had both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks with the same name)
- I feel that the lightbulb could “give” more light when configured at 100% brightness, especially in big rooms.
- It only has two default themes (relax and party) – I feel that more could have been present by default, like, for example, something for Cinema.
What I like about TP-Link Tapo L530E:
- Very good value for money
- It has an Away mode (you can set an away time interval and the device start randomly in this time, simulating that someone is home)
- You can also include the brightness level in the schedule, so this is great
- Good Alexa and Google Home integration
- It does not require a hub
Worth mentioning:

If you turn it ON and OFF a lot of times without any pauses, the smart light doesn’t respond anymore when used via the app. You don’t see any error in the app, the bulb does not go offline, but it does not respond to any commands. It usually recovers by itself in a couple of minutes, without having you to do anything.

This is how changing the colors and using the available themes looks like:

This being said, now I will continue with the detailed review:

The main features of TP-Link Tapo L530E:

Programmable and dimmable multicolor E27 light bulb. It is nice that you can create different ON/OFF schedules or use the timer to make the smart light bulb run for only a configured interval.

The TP-Link Tapo L530E does not require a hub to work and can be configured with a 2.4 GHz WiFi connection. However, a hub enables you to configure different automations and setups (for example, do this if another compatible device does that.)

The TP-Link smart light bulb can be configured from both Android and iOS via the Tapo App, which you can download for free.

Also, because of the TP-Link cloud, the Tapo smart light bulb can be accessed and configured via the internet, not requiring you to be in the same LAN.

The lightbulb outputs 806 lumens, which is similar to a classical 60W light bulb. The light is decent, but it’s a little insufficient if used a single light source in a big room.

The TP-Link Tapo L530E smart light bulb does not have support for Apple HomeKit, SmartThings or IFTTT, but integrates very well with Alexa and Google Home. This is an important limitation you should be aware about.

The smart light bulb monitors the power consumption, displaying usage statistics for Today, Past 7 Days and Past 30 Days. This is not much, but if you have more devices that are able to monitor the power consumption, you can figure out which hardware appliances are the ones that use the most of your energy and maybe plan to replace them, to save on costs.

I find the Away Mode really useful. It allows you to configure the time interval when you are away from home and in this interval, the TP-Link Tapo L530E turns ON and OFF at random times, to simulate that there is someone home. This alone doesn’t save you for being burglered, but it is a nice security enhancement.

Another useful thing is that you can share the access to your TP-Link Tapo L530E device with another user. I shared the access with my wife, so we/or she can also turn ON/OFF the lightbulb, when needed.

The Auto mode has two functions, Auto Match that adjusts the temperature of the light to match the natural lighting from dawn to dusk (it runs with a brightness level similar to the natural light) and the second one, Auto Compensate which compensates the lack of natural light (example: the light turns on automatically on a dark corridor, if there is no natural light). I find the Auto Compensate feature more useful, as the other one turns on the light during day, which is don’t find really helpful.

TP-Link Tapo L530E – The configuration

The configuration of the TP-Link Tapo L530E is pretty straight forward, as the options are self explanatory. I will only provide some photos of the options available there.

Verdict:

With everything being said, the TP-Link Tapo L530E smart color light bulb is good enough for its price. I would buy it again, even though I have discovered its limitations and struggled to configure it.
December 27, 2024
Quick Guide: How To Reset The TP Link Tapo Smart Light Bulb (And Setup It From Scratch)

Short introduction and utilization scenario:

A TP-Link Tapo Smart Light Bulb is a useful addition to your house, even if you don’t really want or need a smart home, with lots of sensors and hardware appliances.

The devices are good value for money and work over WiFi, without requiring a hub (extra device to control it).

For example, I use it as a programmable light, as my wife cannot sleep if it’s completely dark in our bedroom. I configured the light to “run” at 1% brightness and use with a basic night lamp. I also created an ON/OFF schedule, so my lamp turns on every night at 21:00 and turns off at 07:00 in the work days.

Another useful scenario is to use the Away mode, so that the light bulb turns ON and OFF at random times, when you are not at home.

You can either reset your TP Link Tapo smart light bulb via the Tapo Application, or by using the light switch.

You might need to reset your TP Link Tapo smart light bulb, for example, if you have previously configured it to work on a different network or simply you have forgot the login credentials.

I tested this on my TP-Link L530E smart light bulb multicolor, but the same guide works for other Tapo smart light bulbs as well.

Use the light switch to reset your TP Link Tapo Smart Light Bulb:

If you cannot access the device via the app (maybe it has already been used with an account you don’t have access to), do this:

Use your light switch to turn the device ON and OFF three times. Make a one second pause between each ON/OFF.

When the reset has been successfully done, the smart light bulb will blink three times.

Remove the TP Link Tapo from the Tapo App to reset it:

Open the Tapo app

Click on the Smart Bulb you want to reset

Click the hexagonal icon on the top right corner

Press Remove.

Confirm you want to remove the device.

This is everything, I hope this quick guide helps you reset your TP-Link Tapo Smart Lightbulb.

TP-Link Tapo L530E – Initial setup

Unscrew the old bulb and replace it with the your smart Tapo light bulb.

If everything is fine, the smart light bulb will flash three times telling you that it’s ready to be connected to the Tapo app. If not, reset the device.

Next, you need to create a TP-Link account, if you don’t have one already. This is a very straight forward process, but you need to enable the location permissions, so that the app knows when it’s sunset and sunrise for your timezone.

After you have successfully logged in to your TP-Link account, the next thing you have to do is press the plus button to configure your device.

Select Lights and choose Tapo L530/TL13E.

After you hit Next, the Tapo App will need to connect to the Tapo_Bulb network. Press Connect.

Next, the app will ask you to connect to the network where you want to configure the smart light bulb and will require you to provide the password. For this step, I needed to configure a dedicated 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi network (but you may be lucky enough to not need this).

After this, choose a name for your smart light bulb, assign it to a room and pick an icon.

You’re almost done. What you have to do next is check if there is a firmware upgrade available and after performing the upgrade, configure the time interval when the smart bulb is allowed to update itself.

This is all. Written here, it seems more complicated than it actually is, trust me.

December 27, 2024
My 3 Reasons For Buying My Kid A PlayStation 5 Disk Edition

Long story short: On the long term, a gaming console is cheaper and more hassle-free, compared to a gaming PC.

My kid is a 9 year old that mostly plays Fortnite and Roblox, but he watches some ~~guys that scream all the time~~ gamers on Youtube and dreams of becoming a gamer as well. He also has a Nintendo Switch, but that does not seem to be enough anymore.

This year in June, when the planets aligned properly for his Zodiac sign, I agreed to buy a PlayStation 5 for him. This was the next step in creating his gaming environment. Some time ago, he wanted a gaming PC, but lately, he was more inclined for PS5 and I took advantage of that.

He already uses my old work laptop, where he plays Garry’s Mod, so there is no real need for a gaming computer right now.

Why I prefered to buy a Playstation 5 and not a gaming PC?

PS5 is cheaper than a gaming PC

The initial idea was to buy a gaming computer, but a console is cheaper if used over a long period of time. The initial acquisition price is lower and it guarantees that all the new games work.

The gaming computer may be good now, but it might require hardware upgrades in the future, if you need to play all the new games.

For the PS5, you might need to buy an external SSD and after that, you are good to go.

Also, I find the PlayStation 5 to be quite stable, after the initial setup it’s really struggle free for the parents. I cannot say the same thing about a gaming computer, as a lot of things could go wrong there (trust me, I know, as I work in IT and have done Windows support a while back).

After some analyses and a little convincing, I decided to buy the PlayStation 5 Disk Edition, even though the PS5 Digital Edition has a smaller price.

I can sell the game DVDs when my kid gets bored of them

It was a mandatory requirement that the gaming console has disk support. After using the Nintendo Switch for over 2 years, I learned that digital games might be cheaper, but they cannot be sold, when not needed anymore.

I don’t know how other kids behave, but my kid doesn’t play a game after he had already finished it. Or after he decides that the game is boring.

So, if the game isn’t digital, we can sell the game and use the money to buy other games.

Unless the digital games are VERY VERY VERY cheap, I buy games on external support, because I can resell them.

I can buy cheaper refurbished games

Also, another reason for buying a PlayStation 5 Disk Edition is because I have the possibility to buy refurbished games. There are many sites where you can find good as new games at smaller prices, compared to the ones on the Playstation store.

For example, I bought two Spider Man games for less than 60 Euro, from rebuy.de. More exactly, Marvel’s Spider Man 2 (80 Euro normal price) and Marvel’s Spider-man: Miles Morales (60 Euro normal price).

And the good thing about this is that I can sell the two games and use the money to buy other games. And this doesn’t work if you buy digital games.

PS: I know that PC games are cheaper than PS5 games, but my kid does not play too many games, so the PS5 is still a good option for us. Also, a gaming console does not require any maintenance on my side.

December 27, 2024