So the FTC blocked Amazon's acquisition of iRobot in January 2024 and now China gains control of the assests for a bargain? Another stupid application of antitrust.
I believe it was the EU rather than the FTC which killed the deal.
Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#52>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, deni…
It appears that it was the EU which blocked the deal rather than the US.
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#53iRobot's failure is that they made a bet to use CV instead of Lidar for their mapping robots for a long time until it was too late. That made their affordable, non-mapping robots far far worse than only slightly higher priced lidar robots, while their mapping robots were too expensive for mass appeal and were still worse at navigation than up-market lidar based robots. Ultimately they were simply outcompeted.
Neato, which had a robot vacuum with LIDAR, shut down in 2023. That's not the key problem.
Binocular vision ought to be good enough for a vacuum. It's short range compared to the inter-camera distance. Vehicle object ranging at distance is much tougher and can be fooled.
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#54robot vacuums never made economic sense over a maid service
I'm not sure that's fair but you need the right house layout and right practices in terms of cords/clutter/etc.
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#55So the FTC blocked Amazon's acquisition of iRobot in January 2024 and now China gains control of the assests for a bargain? Another stupid application of antitrust.
I believe it was the EU rather than the FTC which killed the deal.
I would assume the US market was a bigger concern, but hard to know for sure: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/...
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#56My 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.
I guess. If I need to vac a room, that's probably 5 minutes work to pull out a broom vac and do it.
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#57People are mentioning alternatives, but do any of them have the repairability of a Roomba? The maker was famous for keeping parts readily available for even the oldest models, and making it so replacing parts was easy (although I've heard that in mid-2024 they started on some model making wheels, chassis, and motors an integrated unit that the user cannot easily service).
If you were happy with your Roomba you could keep it running for many many years. You only needed to buy a new Roomba if you wanted new features.
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
That's great, but I'm not sure I'll ever feel comfortable putting a camera attached to a mobile robot inside my home.
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#59My 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…
Depends on your tolerance for filth (not a value judgement). You don't know how messy your enviroment is untih you see a robovac fill cannisters of shit each week. Having baseline for cleaniness helps with allergies. Like everything you can optmize for some big QoL gains, i.e. i basically just whip crumbs from surfaces straight to the floor knowing it'll get picked up. The solution for 2 level homes is 2 robovacs, cheap second hand, going to get disgusting anyways, replace filters and bristles. A few 100 dollars to have 80% clean floors is pretty life changing. Does not replace need for manual vaccing nooks and corners every once in a while.
Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges
#60If you've used any non-iRobot vacuum alternatives in the last 5 years and ever owned a Roomba in the past there should be nothing surprising about this headline. It's shocking to me how good Roborock mop-vacuums are for example, Eufy vacuums are nice as well. They still run into unavoidable issues, but they're: much quieter even at their highest setting; show you how they map out the space; allow you to easily custom…
i got roomba less than year ago, because it was hard to find well reviewed non-mop vacuum with docking station that sucks all the dirt out.
> non-mop vacuum
Such a good point. Vacuum wars website has no way to filter out vacuums without mop (my house is mostly carpet, I do want a good product but they are all with mops nowadays).
It's such a common issue with sites like this. It's either all products or products WITH this feature. No way to find products WITHOUT this feature.
Anyway quite happy with my Mova which is a rebranded Dreame.