February 22, 2026
Dust busters or trust busters?
Man accidentally gains control of 7k robot vacuums
He tried a gamepad; ended up lord of 7,000 vacuums—cue panic and memes
TLDR: A DIY app accident exposed control of about 7,000 DJI robot vacuums due to a server bug; DJI quickly patched it. Commenters swung between memes about a “vacuum god” and serious privacy fears, arguing over cloud-only gadgets and whether AI tools make these blunders easier to abuse.
Reddit crowned a new deity today: the “dust overlord.” A tinkerer tried to steer his DJI robot vacuum with a game controller and, thanks to a sloppy server check, briefly had access to about 7,000 similar bots worldwide. He says he didn’t hack—an AI helper just showed how the app talks to the cloud—and he could see live video, toggle microphones, and even map out floor plans. He told [The Verge] and DJI rushed out a fix, per [Popular Science]. The crowd? Equal parts howling and horrified. metalman summed it up: “accidentaly a god, a sucky kinda god.” Memes flew about commanding crumb-minions and “Skynet, but with mops.”
Then the food fight began: cloud convenience vs. home privacy. Skeptics blasted a $2,000 vacuum that needs a camera and constant internet, demanding local modes and kill switches. Pragmatists shrugged—every smart gadget is basically a webcam on wheels, just patch fast and move on. Another camp worried AI coding tools make slipups easier for amateurs to exploit. In a rare truce, broom people and bot people agreed on one thing: your living room shouldn’t be a beta test. DJI says the fixes are live; commenters say trust will take longer to clean.
Key Points
- •A software engineer found a backend security flaw while building a controller for his DJI Romo vacuum.
- •The flaw granted access to live feeds, microphones, maps, and status data from ~7,000 vacuums across 24 countries.
- •Azdoufal informed The Verge, which alerted DJI; DJI states the issue is now resolved.
- •DJI says it patched the DJI Home vulnerability with automatic updates on February 8 and 10.
- •The incident underscores broader risks of cloud-connected home robots and the role of AI coding tools in exploiting flaws.