Troubled robot vacuum-cleaner maker iRobot, abandoned by Amazon after regulators effectively doomed the web giant’s takeover offer, has warned investors it may not survive the next 12 months.
https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
iRobot not even on the list despite being the original de facto vacuum robot OEM
Not trying to make this sound like nyah, nyah or anything…
But here’s where I’m glad I never got into that genre of “robotic” assistants. Happy to clean my floors by hand, thank you.
Wonder what kind of illumination this situation might be shining on the current “AI assistant” craze…?? 🤷♂️ 🤷♂️
I’ve got pets and just having the hair off the floors on a regular basis without having to spend 20 min a day hauling a vacuum around strikes me as being a nice labor savings. But I haven’t sprung for one yet.
If cost is the main issue, you can find a refurbished slightly older Eufy model on Amazon for $80, which I would consider well worth it. I have two dogs and I pull a large handful of hair out of my robo-vac every day.
I have cats, and two Eufys, one for each floor. I don’t run them every day since the cats are all shorthair and it takes a bit to add up, but it’s nice to just let it go for a bit and check in.
And do that. Don’t assume the vacuum is strong enough to suck things all the way in. They can easily be clogged the first run through and then you’re just pushing crap around. Should carry the lesson over to any automation. Trust to a certain level, but know what it can and cannot do and when to step in.
Have dog, considered same.
But, I live alone and don’t bother to vacuum everyday.
Haven’t yet found the cost/benefit to be worth it. 🤷♂️
My robo cleaner is just not connected to the internet… No app, no one can kill it remotely…
IMO, this thing was one of my best investments ever. Saved me days of time…
Do you beat your clothes on a rock down by the river too?
Nice. Might buy one when it’s on sale for $30
Oof, as an American company the rest of the world is boycotting them too.
Yup, they are toast. I dont think the Americans have realized how much permanent damage Trump has caused.
I highly doubt his voters will ever realize it. People who voted for him have single digit IQs. Other Americans warned them before hand.
Democrats have known from the moment he was elected. Republicans are starting to figure it out now that they are feeling the effects. Of course, they were the ones who caused it so…
They’re really not though, maga fascists, actually believe this is a mere speed bump on the way to the promised land…
Economists will literally say anything to perpetuate capitalism/the status quo.
All the economists here (Canada) are saying this is an absolute disaster that will cause a recession. No reasonable person believes these tariffs are a net positive.
“Many economists are saying that the market was due for a correction…”
I’ve seen that comment a few times in the last few days. They’ll say ANYTHING to support Dear Leader.
Not only boycotts, it’ll also be a prime target for retaliatory tariffs. So for even those that don’t care about the boycott, a Roomba will cost at least 25% more than the equivalent robot vacuum made in Korea.
They’re about to learn about the world stage
Once they are cut off from the parent company they will go rogue and attack in the night…
And clean up the crime scene…
You saw nothing
When I got my first robot vacuum I was too impatient to wait for the battery to fully charge before trying it out so when I started it up it was only able to clean a small area before it had to go back to charge. Very exciting though!
Anyway I went to bed not realizing that once it was fully charged it would resume cleaning. So approximately 1am the vacuum wakes back up and starts cleaning. In my sleep-addled delirious state I had absolutely no idea what the fuck was going on. Suddenly it sounded like there was a jet engine in my room and I couldn’t even tell where it was coming from until I jumped out of bed and there were red lights coming at me.
Saw my life flash before my eyes. Little fucker might as well have been a terminator.
I’m pretty sure somebody will buy the data iRobot robots collected during their cleaning time :-)
I wonder how valuable that data even is, or to who. I figure the data consists of accumulated cleaning time, location, surface area which could be used to extrapolate some socio economic stats and offer insight how to best market these devices. And also technical data about the devices. Both of which I’d wager are probably useful to companies in the same business.
We’ll see who buys them in a year :D
Not just surface area, based on algorithms it can also determine type of appliances, furniture layout, routines, habits and a lot more when combined with other datasets.
Their products are like 5 years behind their competitors. It’s inevitable.
I rarely use mine, but can I block them from using the Internet and they’ll still work?
Do you not see the logic of my plan?
Yes, but it just seems too heartless.I’m just going to leave this here: https://github.com/awesome-vacuum/awesome-vacuum
I’m glad my old, non-smart one still works fine. It slams into things and says, “Roomba needs help” or something when it eats a sock or wire I missed. But at least it will outlast the company’s servers.
Pretty much inevitable. Nowadays there are so many robot vacuum cleaners from different brands, and everyone has more or less figured out the tech so they all work pretty well. (I have a Roborock, and have nothing to say about it other than it keeps the floors clean and doesn’t cause me any grief.) There’s no moat, so consumer market success is purely a matter of manufacturing and cost efficiency, and iRobot obviously would have a huge upfill fight against Samsung, Xiaomi, and a thousand other light consumer goods makers.
I bought a roborock Q Revo the other week, and it works great at vacuuming and mopping.
I changed its spoken language to Chinese though, to remind me who I’m living with.
I thought this was a funny gag, until I changed my router and wifi, and then had to update the robots wifi connection with all the voice prompts in chinese
i bought a roomba 2 years ago. It wasnt the cheapest, but it was the only company that isnt some cheap, chinese knockoff brand. American designed and operated still had some advantages for me at the time.
This was before USA plunged into facism though. Now i’m not sure what i would buy.
So my vacuum will likely not work in 12 months. Niiiice.
Another company squandering their patents and market advantage. Reminds me of TiVo.
I love my TiVo. I had to find someone to repair my current unit because it’s an antenna version. They don’t have/make new antenna versions.
This. I know someone who used to work there. They wouldn’t enforce the patents in China to the point where you could drop in Roomba subassemblies in competitor robots and they would still work…
TiVo had such an excellent UI. DVRs became common, but all the ones I saw had such inferior interfaces. Such a shame.
I bought and hacked a TiVo unit and used it for years in a place where the service wasn’t available. I miss that thing.
The movie wasn’t very good either
