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• v0.2.0-rc.8 bc18560ffd

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  v0.2.0-rc.8 Pre-release

  Cody Bryant released this 2026-08-11 14:20:03 -07:00 | 139 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 clean cycle and reset buttons are back, and this time they work: they
    synthesise the same button press the panel sends. Proven on ESP 1.1.75 and 1.4.4.
  • Empty cycle and Power buttons, disabled by default and named (danger) — an
    empty cycle dumps the globe into the drawer, and Power takes the robot off the
    network. The CLI gains empty-cycle and power, which prompt first.
  • Pet weight actually works. Recent rc builds doubled the reading; weights now
    match the household scale (raw ÷ 100, the cloud's own units).
  • LitterHopper support: connected, fill gauge, and an out-of-litter alert the
    firmware itself never raises. The hopper entities switch themselves on the first
    time a hopper reports.
  • Litter level as a percentage. It calibrates itself over time; one button press
    with the globe filled to the line pins it immediately.
  • New entities: last cat visit, last visit duration, waste drawer last moved,
    and panel brightness for bright and dark rooms.
  • Activity-derived entities survive a restart instead of reading unknown until
    the next cat visit.
  • New install channels: brew install sisyphusmd/tap/whiskerless, .deb and
    .rpm for amd64 and arm64, and standalone Linux binaries for both. None of them
    need a system Python — the audience is someone provisioning a robot from a laptop
    that has none.

  Fixed

  • A robot without a LitterHopper no longer grows hopper entities. The dispense
    burst turns out to fire on hopperless robots too, so it no longer counts as proof
    a hopper exists — only a real hopper link report (0x57) switches the entities on.
  • Event sensors now appear only once their fact has actually been reported. Pet
    weight, last cat visit, and waste drawer last moved start hidden and switch on at
    their first real report — some firmware never emits the drawer event or a weight,
    and those sensors read unknown forever there. A one-time sweep on upgrade applies
    the same standard to existing installs: sensors whose values were real stay, hopper
    and visit-duration detections re-prove themselves at the next report (a robot with
    a real hopper re-enables within one visit), and phantom entities disappear.
  • Last cat visit now updates on every robot. It stamps from the occupancy signal
    itself, not only from weight events — one robot has visits but has never weighed
    anything, and its visit sensor stayed empty.
  • Fewer unknowns while calibration settles. The litter calibration reference
    shows the built-in default (marked source: default) instead of unknown, and the
    hopper level shows a labelled estimate until the empty floor has actually been
    learned.
  • The weekday sleep schedule now arms every day. It is a per-day bitmask, not a
    switch, and turning it on armed Sunday alone — so it looked fine if you tested on
    a Sunday and did nothing all week.
  • The panel sleep schedule can actually be set. The sleep and wake time entities
    wrote a register the firmware only computes, so they never did anything.
  • Litter readings are suppressed while the globe is not level. Mid-cycle the
    sensors read the globe rather than the litter, and that was published as a level.
  • robotStatus 10 is the clean cycle on every firmware; the old map called it a
    cat pause. The boot cycle and the filter-change wizard are mapped too — both move
    the globe, and while unmapped their readings published as real litter levels.
  • whiskerless set night-light-mode auto works. Every spelling the command
    accepts used to crash — and it is the command in the README quickstart.
  • The declared Home Assistant minimum was wrong (2025.2.0), so a user on 2025.2
    could install this and watch it fail. It is 2025.3.0.
  • Every settings write is verified by reading it back, a multi-register write no
    longer loses one of its parts, and broker failures are reported rather than raised
    as a traceback.
  • The hopper no longer drops to unknown on a link code that is not a disconnect, and
    one dispense can no longer prove an empty hopper on its own.

  Changed

  • Breaking: binary_sensor.<robot>_waste_drawer_removed is replaced by
    sensor.<robot>_waste_drawer_last_moved. The robot reports that the drawer moved
    and never which way — nine codes turned up across removals and insertions alike.
  • Breaking: clean cycle wait time is a number (3–30 minutes), not a select. Move
    automations from select.<robot>_clean_cycle_wait_time to
    number.<robot>_clean_cycle_wait_time.
  • Breaking (library): Hazard.MOTOR, MotorCommandError and allow_motor are
    gone. A written press is the same event as a physical one, so the robot's own
    interlocks apply either way. Power still requires allow_dangerous.
  • Last visit duration needs ESP 1.4.4, so it ships disabled and switches on the
    first time a robot reports one. On 1.1.75 that register has never appeared, and the
    sensor would otherwise read unknown for the life of the robot.
  • Cat detected follows the scale, not the sensors looking into the globe, so it
    can stay on for hours after a cat leaves. Automate on it as "the robot is busy
    with a cat" rather than "there is a cat in the box right now".

  Downloads

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  • Source code (TAR.GZ)
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  • whiskerless-0.2.0~rc.8.aarch64.rpm
    0 downloads · 2026-08-11 14:45:47 -07:00 · 26 MiB
  • whiskerless-0.2.0~rc.8.x86_64.rpm
    0 downloads · 2026-08-11 14:45:47 -07:00 · 26 MiB
  • whiskerless-linux-arm64
    0 downloads · 2026-08-11 14:45:47 -07:00 · 26 MiB
  • whiskerless-linux-x86_64
    0 downloads · 2026-08-11 14:45:48 -07:00 · 26 MiB
  • whiskerless-macos-arm64.pkg
    1 download · 2026-08-11 14:21:50 -07:00 · 11 MiB
  • whiskerless-macos-x86_64.pkg
    1 download · 2026-08-11 14:21:52 -07:00 · 12 MiB
  • whiskerless_0.2.0~rc.8_amd64.deb
    0 downloads · 2026-08-11 14:45:47 -07:00 · 26 MiB
  • whiskerless_0.2.0~rc.8_arm64.deb
    0 downloads · 2026-08-11 14:45:47 -07:00 · 26 MiB