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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#41

Post by ghaff »

My brother has a house that is pretty much custom-made for a robo-vacuum. One level, no transitions, they have pets. And they like it well enough (not an iRobot)--and it still gets tangled up in stuff from time to time.

I have a 2-level house. Even after some house work, one room that probably still has too high a transition. A lot of different surfaces (And I'm not religious with cords and the like.) I'm guessing that my house is a lot more typical of a lot of houses of any size that would justify an iRobot type of device.

Decided a few years ago that a broom vac just made a lot more sense.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#43

Post by henearkr »

IgorPartola wrote: post #16

I had a Roomba about 10 years ago. It was OK but required a lot of “handholding” to not run over cords, kids toys, etc. It just was not really worth it to use it in an environment where you can’t keep everything nailed down and off the floor at all times. Relocated it to a basement level where we had much more empty but sill finished space. The cat angrily pooped just outside her litter box and the Roomba ran right o…

> The cat angrily pooped just outside her litter box

This cracked me up, as it implies the cat had thoroughly planned her skirmish :)

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#44

Post by tguvot »

Izkata wrote: post #35
lazide wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a useful innovation in a robovacuum for at least a decade. What are you talking about? Biggest issue has been the flood of cheap chinese units on the market - like GoPro, they had nowhere to go, and got beat on price once feature parity was achieved (which didn't take that long).

Emptying into the dock instead of having to empty the robot's dustbin weekly and almost everything involving mopping in combined units is within that time range. Lidar mapping was also pretty rare a decade ago, Neato was the first and it took a while before others did it too, then there was apps for controlling no-go zones using those maps instead of variations of virtual walls, if they had anything like that at all.…

I got roomba with self emptying dock back in 2018 or so (i think the only one who had it before was ecovacs). same model also came with virtual walls.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#45

Post by pimlottc »

havaloc wrote: post #26
kayson wrote: post #25

Does anyone have recommendations for a robot vacuum that can handle dog hair and won't sell my floorplan to advertisers?

https://maticrobots.com/

And for the privacy aspect:

> At Matic, we believe your data should stay within your home.

> Matic's intelligence is localized on the device, and it never sends any of your data to the cloud for processing. That means no user information is ever sold, shared, or even collected in the first place.

https://maticrobots.com/privacy-policy

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#46

Post by prawn »

ghaff wrote: post #41

My brother has a house that is pretty much custom-made for a robo-vacuum. One level, no transitions, they have pets. And they like it well enough (not an iRobot)--and it still gets tangled up in stuff from time to time. I have a 2-level house. Even after some house work, one room that probably still has too high a transition. A lot of different surfaces (And I'm not religious with cords and the like.) I'm guessing th…

A friend has a robot vac and just puts it in a room, closes the door, and leaves it for a couple of hours. Avoids the issue of worrying about which areas don't have kids' toys around, Lego, cords, etc. Higher touch than is ideal, but if you're already working from home and the kids are at school, it can work.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#47

Post by ghaff »

IgorPartola wrote: post #16

I had a Roomba about 10 years ago. It was OK but required a lot of “handholding” to not run over cords, kids toys, etc. It just was not really worth it to use it in an environment where you can’t keep everything nailed down and off the floor at all times. Relocated it to a basement level where we had much more empty but sill finished space. The cat angrily pooped just outside her litter box and the Roomba ran right o…

The big thing for me was that hauling out a canister vac was just a big PITA. But I concluded that a 10 minute job with a broom vac (Dyson) dealt with 80% of the headache (and I had a monthly housekeeper anyway). A robovac just didn't really do anything for me and would have had various issue with cords or random stuff on the floor.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#48

Post by jmclnx »

>A hoped-for by acquisition by Amazon.com in 2023 collapsed over regulatory concerns.

I never understood why the US objected to this. Amazon was not in that business.

But you see acquisitions like Paramount that will eventually turn US media into a near monopoly with probably 2 or 3 players. Now we have a fight over who will pick up WB, I am sure who ever wins the fight will have the merger approved. But Amazon, denied.

FWIW, I have no love for Amazon, but they were not trying to buy a company like Walmart which will be far worse then buying iRobot.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#49

Post by nobodyandproud »

sudosysgen wrote: post #30
nobodyandproud wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vorwerk group. No idea, but it’s pointless imho. Roborock and Eufy (and other competitors) clearly either stole or reverse-engineered the tech. If the IP had enough value then I’m sure Vorwerk would’ve pursued it in court. But here we are.

There is not much tech to steal here. 2D lidar mapping is something a high schooler could do 10+ years ago, and that was their core tech. The value was in executing earlier and better, and applying existing tech to robovacuums. If they could have sued they likely would, this is a valuable market.

It’s not just mapping.

Also, I recall Neato was often purchased and cannibalized by researchers for its lidar.

This was all cutting edge 10+ years ago. Even today, the features it supported offline then is just matched at best today in 2025/2026.

Not exceeded; and often crippled when offline.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#50

Post by tguvot »

IgorPartola wrote: post #16

I had a Roomba about 10 years ago. It was OK but required a lot of “handholding” to not run over cords, kids toys, etc. It just was not really worth it to use it in an environment where you can’t keep everything nailed down and off the floor at all times. Relocated it to a basement level where we had much more empty but sill finished space. The cat angrily pooped just outside her litter box and the Roomba ran right o…

i watched via camera 12 years ago roomba spreading my dogs diarrhea all over living room (thanks god to tile floors). I connected to camera first time in a months just few seconds before roomba took first swipe over the poop. Still remember feelings of paralysis, despair and lack of control.

Despite this i still used roomba everywhere I lived.

latest roomba model actually has "poop detection".

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