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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#321

Post by horsawlarway »

anymouse123456 wrote: post #305
kqr wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our household (and I suspect many with us) bought a Roomba specifically to not give the Chinese government a roving camera in our home. Ouch!

This! I was a very early customer of Roomba and loved them when they came out. I had pets at the time, and the machine would consistently fail in about 14 months. I finally figured out that I needed to buy them from Costco, so that I could get them replaced. Rather than taking their lead and improving the product, they just sat there with the exact same product for like 10+ years. It was outrageous. I guess Rodney Br…

This is my take:

If the EU was concerned enough about Amazon taking them over in early 2024 to block the deal, I'm still concerned about a foreign owner in 2026...

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#322

Post by mattfrommars »

In one of the articles, they said Roomba were greatly affected by tariffs. Well, this company has been in business for a long time and should have figured out how to build roomba in the US, that would have been great innovation.

But like most US corp, they only cared about profits and stock price.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#323

Post by aqme28 »

elric wrote: post #281
RealityVoid wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mapping is very useful. I get the want to safeguard your data, but having smart navigation and obstacle detection just makes the product better.

Maybe mapping is very useful to you. The lack of it hasn't bothered me in the slightest. You also don't need mapping (or internet access) for obstacle detection. But I find that the old dumb roomba's bumpy nature is a good motivator to keep my place somewhat free of obstacles, which has other benefits. YMMV.

I like being able to tap my phone a couple times and tell it to clean out e.g. the area around my cat's toilet, or my kitchen floor after I spill something, etc...

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#324

Post by cs702 »

georgeecollins wrote: post #304
cs702 wrote: post #254

According to the Financial Times, Roomba has sold more than 40 million robotic devices, most of them robotic vacuum cleaners.[a] Many of those vacuum cleaners have cameras, can move around on their own, and are connected to the Internet. If they're taken offline, they stop working. Many have microphones too. The new Chinese owner will get control of a network of tens of millions Internet-connected, autonomously mobil…

I worry a lot about privacy in general but its hard for me to figure out the danger posed by my roborock. I suppose it has the floor plans of my house and knows we vacuum on Saturdays. It doesn't seem to know if the object passing by is me or my cat. Yes its on my wifi but so are half a dozen other foreign made gadgets. What is the concern?

Do you think the Chinese government would ever have reasons to "ask the company forcefully" to take pictures and/or record audio inside specific offices and homes?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#325

Post by snapcaster »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #293
aurareturn wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very unfortunately, they have passed escape velocity and there is no turning back. Unfortunate in what sense? And I am not sure how the West or even the rest of the world can do about it. The last 200-250 years seems to be an abnormal period in which China was not a superpower. Historically, China has always had 25-40% of the world's GDP. It's been so long that many generations have lived and died without seeing Chin…

It is unfortunate given China's abysmal stance on human rights, freedom of information, and pollution.

Compared to the current hegemony? you must have never felt yourself on the other end of "spreading freedom and democracy"

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#326

Post by snapcaster »

secondcoming wrote: post #290
AlecSchueler wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do American companies have to rely on artificial protections like IP in order to compete? Don't forget it's only "stealing" if you're culturally inclined to see IP as actual property, whereas in China the idea has long been that ideas are common good, even predating Marxism.

R&D is very expensive and you want some protection for having borne that cost. If a competitor can just swoop in and clone your tech then they’re at an immediate, unfair advantage.

Yet china's economy where IP isn't respected seems to contradict your point. Why doesn't that counterexample make you change your mind on this?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#327

Post by ramraj07 »

mattfrommars wrote: post #322

In one of the articles, they said Roomba were greatly affected by tariffs. Well, this company has been in business for a long time and should have figured out how to build roomba in the US, that would have been great innovation. But like most US corp, they only cared about profits and stock price.

Until this administration there was no mandate to move manufacturing home, and importantly why would any company forgo significant profit to match an ideological framework, unless the ideology is what they sell or market?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#328

Post by ssl-3 »

stavros wrote: post #267
djmips wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM feels like conjecture. You admitted to working on it, it's also possible you broke it / didn't hook it up correctly?

Maybe, but I also know how to measure voltages, and everything was fine.

Except, I guess: It didn't work, so it wasn't fine.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#329

Post by [deleted] »

horsawlarway wrote: post #318
bhouston wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not all live and functioning. In fact I suspect less than 10m are actively used. It is a company that has been around for years and it has run into sales issues that last few years with competition and their products have tech product lifespans of around 3 years I suspect.

Personally, I have a Roomba I bought in Jan 2019 that's still doing just fine (So 7 years now). Most of the parts are pretty easily replaced (genuinely pleasant surprise, as an aside) and the company stocked most replacement parts for a long time - I just checked again and I can still get parts for my model (I-series) incl batteries, wheels, brushes, filters, etc. Which is less than it used to be, but still enough to…

[deleted]

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#330

Post by foxes »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #293
aurareturn wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very unfortunately, they have passed escape velocity and there is no turning back. Unfortunate in what sense? And I am not sure how the West or even the rest of the world can do about it. The last 200-250 years seems to be an abnormal period in which China was not a superpower. Historically, China has always had 25-40% of the world's GDP. It's been so long that many generations have lived and died without seeing Chin…

It is unfortunate given China's abysmal stance on human rights, freedom of information, and pollution.

Compared to the previous dominant superpower of the last 100 years (USA)?
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