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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#331

Post by tbrownaw »

wccrawford wrote: post #283
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 funny thing is that Bambu didn't innovate. They just made it work really, really well. I've owned a few 3d printers, including a kit printer, and the Bambu doesn't have any tech that other printers don't. They just always work well, and are easy to maintain. Others are finally catching up, though. Snapmaker really scared them with the U1 (which is getting insane reviews), and Prusa has finally stepped up and star…

> didn't innovate. They just made it work really, really well.

I thought that was the difference between "invention" and "innovation"?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#332

Post by delfinom »

p0pularopinion wrote: post #188
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…

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…

No, as someone in the western side of product development things. The problem is studied in the standard MBA course for Strategy, without even China mentioned.

First-mover advantage, which comes from R&D into new markets is short lived no matter what. It is critical for firms that hit new ground to find ways to continue to grow their position and market as soon as they can. Copy-cat firms always always come, even big western megacorps love to come in and push out the little western corps, this is typically what is taught in said MBA class. Depending on the market, making newer products that are cheaper is absolutely something a firm must evaluate if there is a demand for it that can be a position and a threat to them.

It's simply the song and dance of the business lifecycle. It's one of the many reasons why 90% of startups fail.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#333

Post by ssl-3 »

cogman10 wrote: post #249
miniwark wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets go with the usual reminder: de-soldering / soldering Li-ion cells can be super dangerous. With a bit too much of heat it can fire or even explode...

It doesn't quite explode. Instead it shoots out a super hot flame that is nearly impossible to put out. Imagine having a blowtouch that you can't extinguish or touch which is likely rolling around.

That sounds exactly like one of the kinds of deflagration (aka low-speed explosion) that seems worthwhile to discourage people from invoking.

"Hey, the worst case is that you get jets of super-hot flames that are impossible to extinguish!"

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#334

Post by gambiting »

actionfromafar wrote: post #310
newswangerd wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious about this too. I’d worry about a local burglar having this information, but what can a Chinese tech company do with this data that I should be concerned about?

First, just the evergrowing tracking of everything, it's just unwholesome in general. Second, why assume a random Chinese tech company will manage to keep this information to themselves? I wouldn't exactly bet against some terabytes of videos appear on some torrent indexer. Now, combine with modern AI tools for sifting for what you are interested in, and it might hit closer to home for someone.

>>Second, why assume a random Chinese tech company will manage to keep this information to themselves?

I never assumed American companies kept this data to themselves so nothing has changed in that regard.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#335

Post by legacynl »

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.

That guy from smarter every day had a great youtube video about why that's basically impossible in the US right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY

I'm not a fan of big coorps either, but these changes happened gradually over time, starting way back in probably the 50/60s. The blame is with the companies and the US government back then for allowing this critical knowledge to be lost. But Roomba didn't exist back then, and the problem is bigger than a single company.

The only real solution is for the US government to invest heavily in regaining this capability for the coming 25 years. But doge and trump axed any chance of this happening so though luck i guess.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#336

Post by wewxjfq »

jack_tripper wrote: post #98
hurturue wrote: post #3

They outsourced production to China thinking that they can just do the marketing in US. Now they learnt that Chinese can do marketing too.

>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…

> I still have no idea why westerners assumed "Chinese can't innovate, they can only replicate".

Did they? For how often online comment sections about China need to point this out, I can't remember seeing this claim being made in reality ever. China has been the next big thing for the past 25 years. And if people pointed out that Chinese products were of low quality, well, that was certainly true. Japan and Germany were also at one point known for low quality products.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#337

Post by stavros »

ssl-3 wrote: post #328
stavros wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, if you want to think I broke it, you're free to. The fact remains that my battery connections were correct, the voltages were right, but the vacuum didn't work with either the battery I made or the new one I bought.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#338

Post by adrian_b »

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.

There is a huge difference between "some protection" and blocking the competition for many decades, because an incompetent patent office has approved many exaggerated claims, either about things that are obvious and well known by anyone in the field, but nobody was shameless enough to claim them in a patent before, or else about things that the patent filer is completely unable to do in the present, but they are claimed in the patent for the case when someone else will figure how to do them in the future.

Today the vast majority of patents are not intended for any kind of licensing and they might be even completely useless if licensed, but they are only intended for preventing competition in the market where the patent owner is active.

In order to be useful, a patent system should start to require again that the inventor shows a working prototype that demonstrates all the features claimed in the patent. Moreover, the patents should expire much faster, certainly not later than after 10 years from being issued. Perhaps a longer validity could be accepted for patents owned by individual inventors, but in any case not for the patents assigned to the employers of the inventors, as most patents are today. Also, patent owners should offer "Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory licensing" (FRAND), otherwise the patent should be invalidated.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#339

Post by lotsofpulp »

kqr wrote: post #289
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…

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!

What is not for sale today, can be for sale tomorrow. Even Apple and Alphabet, should their leaders see greater market value in selling data rather than not selling it.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#340

Post by delfinom »

nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote: post #286
NetOpWibby wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well now I’m sold

Dont be. Source: tried roborock and dream. They are both useless because you spend so much time troubleshooting it dealing with stuck issues you may as well get the cheap vac out.

I have used Roborock for ~7 years and now own 3 of them (different floors/areas). Absolutely no issues.
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