May 6, 2026, 6:06 am | Read time: 3 minutes
Vacuum robots are generally useful devices. However, anyone bringing such a helper into their home should know that modern devices do more than just vacuum. They record video, listen in, and create digitized floor plans of your home. Such data is of great interest to people with malicious intent. Sammy Azdoufal had no malicious intent but still gained access to images and other data from thousands of vacuum robots. TECHBOOK reports on how this happened in this article.
Sammy Azdoufal works as an AI manager at a French company that arranges vacation rentals. He also owns a DJI Romo, a modern vacuum robot. He shared his experience with the online portal “The Verge.”
Initially, he just wanted to connect his vacuum robot to his PlayStation gamepad to control his household helper with it. To establish a connection, the AI expert used Claude’s assistance. Through Anthropic’s AI system, he had an app created to access his vacuum robot’s data.
No Illegal Hack
In conversation, Azdoufal emphasizes that he did not intend to conduct an illegal hack. He was only interested in the data on his device. But shortly after launching his app, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
He received responses not only from his DJI Romo but from about 7,000 other vacuum robots of the same model series worldwide. Moreover, the AI tinkerer had complete data access and could control the foreign devices, Sammy Azdoufal later assured in an interview.
Alarmingly, all data was stored unencrypted on servers. There, he browsed through live camera images, floor plans of the respective users, and other private data that no one should have access to. If these data had fallen into the hands of cybercriminals, it would have had unpleasant consequences for the manufacturer DJI.
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DJI Tried to Downplay the Problem
Only Sammy Azdoufal was confronted with this, purely by chance, because he tinkered with his vacuum robot in his spare time. He recounts how he then contacted DJI via email to point out the security issue.
The company sent a response attempting to downplay the security gap. Allegedly, the software developers were already aware of the open gateway before Sammy Azdoufal’s access. Strangely, the gap was closed immediately after the AI tinkerer contacted DJI.
DJI further claimed that access to live videos was only “theoretically” possible. However, Sammy Azdoufal provided practical proof to the reporters at “The Verge” that he could access live data with his app.
According to DJI, the security gap is now fixed. As Azdoufal documented on his X account, this is only partially true. For example, the live video of his own DJI Romo vacuum robot can be viewed without encryption. This should actually be prevented by entering a PIN.
Program Code Freely Available
At least access to other vacuum robots from the Romo series with the AI-generated app is no longer possible. However, the program does the job it was originally created for. Sammy Azdoufal can now control his DJI Romo with his PlayStation gamepad.
For those interested in the app: The French AI tinkerer has uploaded the program code and instructions to the open-source portal Github.