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Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

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Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

#1

Post by pc2g4d »

There is no robot vacuum manufactured in the United States as far as I can tell.

It seems crazy to me---these devices map out the interior of people's homes and businesses, often with cameras running and a wifi connection to the Internet. Talk about an espionage giveaway... all to a certain authoritarian country in Asia which manufactures 95% of the devices.

I used to be a big free trade advocate but have come to feel that free trade is something of a gift, which should be given mainly to countries whose vision of the world is compatible with ours. It also should not be allowed to undermine security-critical technologies and capabilities, such as electronics and microprocessor manufacture, etc.

In spite of recent tariffs and moves to restrict exports of sensitive technologies, the tech ecosystem in the US seems to be in a seriously impaired position.

If one were to push back against this and try to launch a robot vacuum product assembled in the USA of US-made components... what would it take? What are the economic impediments to doing this in a profitable fashion? Is there an economic policy that would make this feasible?

It seems there are a number of key components: * Microcontroller * Sensors - laser or lidar to map environment - something to determine floor type / depth * Bluetooth antenna to interface with a mobile app * Vacuum * Dust compartment * Dock to autoclean * Embedded software * Mobile app

Such a device would be an ideal candidate for training using reinforcement learning. (Has this been tried? Or is "robot vacuum" already a solved problem?)

My training is in software and machine learning. Yet it is in on the material side of things where the U.S. lags the most. There are so few physical things of relevance to modern life that we are making here these days, and even fewer at a competitive price point.

Would love to hear others' thoughts. Thanks

EDIT: A relevant article from 2011: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

Re: Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

#2

Post by talldayo »

There are local-only robot vacuum options: https://valetudo.cloud/

But you shouldn't ask yourself why it isn't possible. The question is why it's not successful, or why there's no demand. America is satisfied by foreign alternatives. We don't want secure devices, we want cheap and simple devices that come in pretty boxes with the labels we like. Roomba et. al wins because it caters to the lowest-common-denominator, the basest American that most shoppers embody.

And America, collectively, cannot care. You won't see a law demanding software transparency or firmware alternatives for domestic robots. We won't assemble them locally because our labor is too expensive, we won't manufacture the chips domestically because it's cheaper to import them. You won't see people owning USA-made Roombas for the same reason you don't meet people using a Purism phone instead of a Samsung/Apple handset; the market has spoken, and they are absolutely apathetic to anything but price.

Re: Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

#4

Post by bediger4000 »

"Robot vacuum" is not a solved problem. I've got a Roomba, and it mostly does the vacuuming, but sometimes gets "stuck" in the middle of the room, or maybe against a single wall. My Roomba's nemesis is chair legs, sometimes it gets under a 4-legged chair, but somehow can't find it's way back out. Comical, really. I enjoy my Roomba as something of a pet, but I have come to low expectations about vacuuming completeness.

Re: Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

#6

Post by pc2g4d »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #5

Software guy looks at hardware and thinks “how hard can this be”

No... I ask this question in all humility... but also frustration---my ignorance of hardware is part of my country's ignorance of hardware, because we don't make things here anymore, broadly speaking.

Re: Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

#7

Post by iamflimflam1 »

pc2g4d wrote: post #6
iamflimflam1 wrote: post #5

Software guy looks at hardware and thinks “how hard can this be”

No... I ask this question in all humility... but also frustration---my ignorance of hardware is part of my country's ignorance of hardware, because we don't make things here anymore, broadly speaking.

One way to think about manufacturing something is to see where the line is between assembly and manufacturing.

With electronics you might get your PCBs manufactured and assembled by someone else (it’s a specialised job that needs expensive equipment).

But you can do the design locally with skilled engineers.

With enclosures and plastic parts you need injection moulding setups - again a specialised thing to do. So you might also choose to outsource that.

But you have local people who do the CAD and mould design.

What you’ll end up doing is the assembly side of things - so someone else will be doing the actual hard manufacturing of parts and you’ll be plugging things together and packaging things up.

As soon as you realise that then it’s quickly obvious that should be done where all the component parts are being manufactured.

So, you end up just doing the R&D part.

But eventually you realise that your manufacturing partners understand and know a lot more than your local people.

So, you end up outsourcing everything to China…

Re: Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

#9

Post by GianFabien »

bediger4000 wrote: post #4

"Robot vacuum" is not a solved problem. I've got a Roomba, and it mostly does the vacuuming, but sometimes gets "stuck" in the middle of the room, or maybe against a single wall. My Roomba's nemesis is chair legs, sometimes it gets under a 4-legged chair, but somehow can't find it's way back out. Comical, really. I enjoy my Roomba as something of a pet, but I have come to low expectations about vacuuming completeness…

Same software as self-driving cars?

Re: Ask HN: What would it take to make a robot vacuum in the USA?

#10

Post by pc2g4d »

talldayo wrote: post #2

There are local-only robot vacuum options: https://valetudo.cloud/ But you shouldn't ask yourself why it isn't possible. The question is why it's not successful, or why there's no demand. America is satisfied by foreign alternatives. We don't want secure devices, we want cheap and simple devices that come in pretty boxes with the labels we like. Roomba et. al wins because it caters to the lowest-common-denominator, t…

It appears that Valetudo is an alternative firmware for existing robot vacuums. The OpenWRT of robot vacuums if you will.

I don't think it's accurate to say that it is simply us wanting cheaper things. There has been a deliberate trade and even monetary policy that has led to this outcome. It is a matter of policy that the expertise to manufacture such things no longer exists in the United States.

For example, the WTO trade rules the U.S. engineered and China's entry into the WTO facilitated the outsourcing by which managers of U.S. companies sold core industrial competencies out.

Another policy has been the maintenance of a strong dollar, bolstered by the petro dollar system. This makes U.S. exports on the whole uncompetitive.

The abandonment of vocational training in favor of a college-for-all approach has also undercut the skillbase that would be necessary to maintain a domestic electronics and devices industry.

In essence, you could see it as an abandonment of the working class in favor of college graduates, whose stock portfolios benefitted from the cheaper costs accessed in the Chinese labor market.

The America you are familiar with perhaps doesn't care. But many Americans understand that the trade and monetary policies have undercut their own earning potential, and they buy those cheaper Chinese goods with great resentment, simply because _there are no longer alternatives_ in a huge number of categories.

Eventually the dollar will lose its "reserve currency" status; eventually enough of the rest of the world will be developed enough, or trade relationships fraught enough, or free trade discredited enough, that the pendulum will swing the other direction. I suspect the swing has already begun. Part of my motivation for writing the original post---to test the waters.

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