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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#221

Post by the_real_cher »

lvl155 wrote: post #214

Where is Lina Khan who struck down the acquisition? Read the comments from the FTC. That was from less than two years ago. I am all for antitrust but Lina Khan was inept as they come in terms actually dealing with anti competitiveness in the tech. This is called dumping. Long-term dumping but it is what it is. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/...

So an American company (amazon) was going to buy iRobot, but that was struck down by the courts.

Now a Chinese company is buying them and there's no problems.

is that the background on that?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#222

Post by jhanschoo »

cluckindan wrote: post #197
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be a problem with many companies. Chinese companies are innovating aggressively while others don’t. You see that with 3d printers where Bambu is kicking ass. I remember when GoPro did a drone and it simply wasn’t good. Or American carmakers are trying to turn back the clock on electric instead of embracing it.

The Chinese government is heavily subsidizing 3D printers by granting tax deductions up to 200%. https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-prin...

So why would 3D printer companies in China bother innovating rather than sit back and cash the government check?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#223

Post by Xelbair »

moooo99 wrote: post #189
dmantis wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's so weird nobody makes a thing you can trust. I would happily overpay 3-4x for the good vacuum without the cloud and the need to do some hacking with valetudo, with an official service and support for the device. Yet nobody is willing to take the money. They'd rather go bankrupt..

> I would happily overpay 3-4x for the good vacuum without the cloud and the need to do some hacking with valetudo, with an official service and support for the device. Yet nobody is willing to take the money. They'd rather go bankrupt.. I feel like you are over estimating market demand based on your own preferences. Been there, done that. Most techies under estimate how little normal folks care about privacy, cybers…

>Most techies under estimate how little normal folks care about privacy, cybersecurity and stuff like that.

No, we just think that this security nightmare should be regulated, and companies should be forced to keep sane security standards and not abuse data gathered from users.. and there's this weird idea of owning thing you were sold, i know - its' a bit weird.

Just like when you go buy some food you don't have to think if it is safe to eat.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#224

Post by 6510 »

LightBug1 wrote: post #186
devsda wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people like to say that it is American companies that innovate and Chinese companies just copies. This may be true in certain areas, but I think some Chinese companies do take the idea and then they iterate on the product to the point that it outshines the original product all while the original company refuses to act. Sure there are initial product R&D cost overheads but I don't believe that's the only reason…

Yeah, "Chinese companies just copies" was 10-15 years or beyond. No way is that relevant now. I've been wondering about why this is. With no evidence, I wondered if one of the reasons is the long term result of the many design and engineering graduates (I notice an incredible amount in the industry I work in) who were educated in the "best western uni's" and have now returned home and grown up. They were a honeypot f…

While I would love to attribute it to their culture of hard work I believe the credit should go to the combined effect of poor choices made in the west. You cant begin to list our spending on bullshit directly nor instances of money intended for useful things that was lost in bureaucracy. China does this too of course but we are so much better at it.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#225

Post by expedition32 »

aurareturn wrote: post #142
simonjgreen wrote: post #81

This is the cost of complacency. They were ahead for so long then the likes of Roborock just left them in the dirt. I remember the first time I tried one of the Roborock devices, and until then I have been a long time Roomba user (like, 20 years). I just couldn’t believe how much better it was. And iRobot just stubbornly refused to iterate on their fundamental products.

It is complacency or is China just accelerating? It's not surprising that China wins in these things. Just go to Shenzhen. Hardware designers, parts, machines that make the parts, factories, etc. are all within driving distance. You can't compete unless you also have offices there, hire Chinese workers, compete in China. American companies need to start designing in China, not just made in China. Ford themselves said…

It's funny that we are running into the same problem that the British had with China in the 19th century:

China doesn't need or want anything from the West, they do not trust the West and they certainly do not want to rely on the West.

The last time the British came up with the ingenuous opium plan. But that backfired into the communist takeover in 1949.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#226

Post by typewithrhythm »

mlrtime wrote: post #206
p0pularopinion wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally think both attitudes are a too simplistic look. Basically, the most common pattern with „commodity“ tech seems to be like this. Western companies go ahead and expend a lot of R&D to establish a new market or validate a market need. Chinese companies go ahead and flood the market with slighly worse but significantly cheaper versions of said product (often forcing the „inventor“ company to take a significan…

That makes sense, are there any expamples of the Chinese leading in a market + R&D yet?

Every category I can think of where China is near-first there is some international manufacturer that has a better product.

Several areas where there are much higher volumes or outstandingly better value though. Things like automotive lidar, construction assemblys (like double glazed window units), consumer electronics like quadcopters.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#227

Post by Epskampie »

meindnoch wrote: post #198
stavros wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Valetudo on my early Roborock model and it worked great for many years. Unfortunately, the battery gave out and it's somehow DRMed, so even though everything else works fine, the vacuum refuses to work because it doesn't like the new battery. It's the worst kind of e-waste, it's only waste because someone decided I should buy a whole new vacuum when the battery dies, but Valetudo is otherwise good. Just never…

Did you look inside the old battery? It may well be just a bunch of 18650 cells with some electronics in a plastic case. Just desolder the old cells and solder on new ones. I did the same for my wife's cordless vacuum, and it works better than new, because the new cells are about 2x the capacity of the originals.

This is only good advice if you're good at soldering and know details about cells like which ones have in-built protection.

Otherwise you're just creating a fire hazard.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#228

Post by dv_dt »

miki123211 wrote: post #147
jack_tripper wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now they learnt that Chinese can do marketing too. Roborock didn't win because of doing marketing, they won by being technically superior and word of mouth, in spite of lack of marketing, at least in the west. Same how Japanese cars beat US made cars in the 1980s even though US cars had the most amount of advertising in the media. Even Steve Jobs said in the 90s that US brands have the best marketing and win all mea…

This is replication. THe Chinese seem to be extremely good at taking western products and just layering on tons of incremental improvements, which make their versions that much better. It's the Western companies that actually come up with the original idea, whatever good that does them.

That's a generalization with some truth, but in this case it was blatantly obvious that iRobot was not putting much effort into improvement - or was not effective at improvement. They basically ignored the moat and relied on their headstart to the point that even brand new entrants to the market could equal or overtake them in an initial product offering.

And the business model aspects they relied on for their protective moat - e.g. mass commercial electronic production - was generalized and massively optimized in China (not just for vacuum robots but mass commercial electronics).

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#229

Post by baq »

mlrtime wrote: post #206
p0pularopinion wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally think both attitudes are a too simplistic look. Basically, the most common pattern with „commodity“ tech seems to be like this. Western companies go ahead and expend a lot of R&D to establish a new market or validate a market need. Chinese companies go ahead and flood the market with slighly worse but significantly cheaper versions of said product (often forcing the „inventor“ company to take a significan…

That makes sense, are there any expamples of the Chinese leading in a market + R&D yet?

Bambu wasn't good enough? Perhaps BEVs are?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#230

Post by lvl155 »

the_real_cher wrote: post #221
lvl155 wrote: post #214

Where is Lina Khan who struck down the acquisition? Read the comments from the FTC. That was from less than two years ago. I am all for antitrust but Lina Khan was inept as they come in terms actually dealing with anti competitiveness in the tech. This is called dumping. Long-term dumping but it is what it is. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/...

So an American company (amazon) was going to buy iRobot, but that was struck down by the courts. Now a Chinese company is buying them and there's no problems. is that the background on that?

They struck it down because they said it hurts competitiveness based on faulty economic arguments. It was clear even two years ago that the market was extremely competitive with much cheaper iRobot copies. Lina Khan just didn’t want Amazon to save an American company. Plain and simple. Anybody in the robotics field in MA could have told you iRobot was struggling and that Amazon was throwing them a bone to keep those engineers afloat.
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