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• v0.2.0-rc.17 01703c1929

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  v0.2.0-rc.17 Pre-release

  Cody Bryant released this 2026-08-14 10:06:26 -07:00 | 114 commits to main since this release

  Thanks to @CryingPecan, whose LitterHopper robot
  on ESP 1.4.4 is behind much of what's below. Protocol detail lives in
  docs/devices/litter-robot-4/.

  Added

  • The CLI remembers your robots. provision saves the serial, broker and CA
    under ~/.whiskerless; later commands run bare, and every flag still overrides.
  • robots, use and forget list, pick and drop saved robots — damaged
    profiles are shown as such and can still be removed.
  • A second robot inherits the saved setup — each prompt offers what your robots
    already share, so you type only the serial and the WiFi password.
  • No secret is ever saved: the broker password is per-run (WHISKERLESS_PASSWORD),
    the WiFi passphrase is never kept, the factory certificate is never touched.
  • whiskerless --version, and a bare whiskerless prints an orientation
    instead of a usage error.
  • The CLI shows liveness and color: a spinner on the BLE scan (heartbeat lines
    when piped), banners on the dangerous prompts, NO_COLOR honored.
  • The README covers the whole journey: prerequisites, per-platform installs
    including Homebrew, everyday use, upgrading, the rc channel, uninstalling.
  • Clean cycle and Reset buttons are back, and they work — they synthesise the
    panel's own button press. Proven on ESP 1.1.75 and 1.4.4.
  • Empty cycle and Power buttons, disabled by default and named (danger);
    the CLI gains empty-cycle and power, which prompt first.
  • Pet weight actually works (raw ÷ 100, the cloud's own units) — recent rc
    builds doubled the reading.
  • LitterHopper support: connected, fill gauge, and an out-of-litter alert the
    firmware never raises; the entities enable themselves at the first dispense.
  • Litter level as a percentage — self-calibrating over time, or pinned
    instantly by one button press with the globe filled to the line.
  • New entities: last cat visit, last visit duration, waste drawer last moved,
    panel brightness for bright and dark rooms, and excess-weight detection (the
    stuck-scale condition the robot otherwise only shows on its panel).
  • Activity-derived entities survive a restart instead of reading unknown
    until the next cat visit.
  • New install channels: Homebrew, .deb/.rpm and standalone Linux binaries
    for amd64 and arm64 — none of them need a system Python.

  Removed

  • LitterRobot4Client and WhiskerlessAuthError — nothing used them, and
    the client was a third, already-drifting copy of the write-verify loop.

  Fixed

  • The hopper level no longer reads unknown for days after a restart — a gauge
    stranded in the restore cache is carried into the saved options at every startup.
  • brew install sisyphusmd/tap/whiskerless works again (the formula pinned a
    bleak whose build backend Homebrew cannot build), and every release now
    install-tests the formula before the tap publishes.
  • A mistyped path is a sentence, not a stack trace: ~ expands everywhere,
    every provision answer is checked at its prompt (including that the CA really
    is a PEM), and file or broker errors print one line — --debug for tracebacks.
  • The serial validator rejects the model number (LR4-0301-00-US) printed
    beside the real serial on the label.
  • --dry-run marks everything it prints, so a simulation no longer describes
    writes that never happened.
  • Hopper entities no longer disappear from a robot that has one — the upgrade
    sweep accepts a recorded fill gauge as proof, since only a dispense produces one.
  • Handling the robot no longer counts as a cat visit — a visit requires the
    beam actually broken, which a hand on the bonnet does not do.
  • The globe motor fault sensor watches the activity stream too — the state
    document stayed at 0 through a real fifty-minute fault.
  • Hopper detection means litter actually delivered — the link register fires
    healthy on a bench and "disconnected" on a refill, so nothing reads it anymore.
  • A robot that dispenses but rarely reports its link keeps its hopper telemetry.
  • The hopper level survives a restart — the last gauge is remembered instead
    of reading unknown until the next dispense.
  • Event sensors appear only once their fact has been reported — some firmware
    never emits a drawer event or a weight, and those sensors sat unknown forever;
    a one-time sweep applies the same standard to existing installs.
  • Last cat visit updates on every robot — it stamps from occupancy, not only
    from weight events, which one robot never sends.
  • Cat detection no longer mistakes weight on the scale for a cat — occupancy
    uses the bit that tracks the animal, not the one a misseated bonnet holds.
  • Fewer unknowns while calibration settles: the calibration reference shows
    the built-in default (marked so) and the hopper level a labelled estimate.
  • The weekday sleep schedule arms every day, not just Sunday.
  • The panel sleep and wake times can actually be set — they now write the
    per-day registers instead of one the firmware only computes.
  • Litter readings are suppressed while the globe is not level — mid-cycle the
    sensors see the globe, not the litter.
  • robotStatus 10 is the clean cycle, and the boot cycle and filter wizard
    are mapped too — unmapped, their readings published as real litter levels.
  • whiskerless set night-light-mode auto works — every accepted spelling
    used to crash.
  • The declared Home Assistant minimum is correct (2025.3.0, not 2025.2.0).
  • Every settings write is verified by read-back, multi-register writes no
    longer lose parts, and broker failures print instead of raising.
  • The hopper no longer drops to unknown on a non-disconnect link code, and one
    dispense cannot prove an empty hopper on its own.
  • The out-of-litter alert judges against your robot's own learned floor —
    floors differ per unit, and a fixed cutoff could cry empty while litter flowed.
  • A restored excess-weight alarm clears once the robot reports the pan clear,
    instead of re-firing on every later visit.
  • A restored globe-motor fault can clear after a missed clear event — a clean
    cycle completing without a fault event is the proof.
  • A detection re-sweep no longer disables entities you enabled yourself.

  Changed

  • Auto-calibration got a statistics upgrade: a median-based outlier gate keeps
    in-band anomalies (a paw reads like an overfull globe) away from the litter
    anchors, and the hopper floor is learned from declined-into flatline runs — in
    both directions, so a floor that moved up is found as readily as one below.
  • Breaking: binary_sensor.<robot>_waste_drawer_removed is now
    sensor.<robot>_waste_drawer_last_moved — the robot never says which way it moved.
  • Breaking: clean cycle wait time is a number (3–30 minutes), not a select.
  • Breaking (library): Hazard.MOTOR, MotorCommandError and allow_motor
    are gone — a written press is the same event as a physical one. Power still
    requires allow_dangerous.
  • Breaking: switch.<robot>_panel_sleep_mode is now a binary sensor — the
    firmware refuses direct writes, so the switch could only fail; the weekday
    schedule entities are the control.
  • Last visit duration ships disabled and enables at your robot's first report —
    not every robot emits it, and it is not a firmware split.
  • Release binaries and the macOS installer carry the version in the filename
    (whiskerless-<version>-linux-x86_64); the scheme is in packaging/README.md.

  Downloads

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  • whiskerless-0.2.0-rc.17-linux-arm64
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