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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#381

Post by intrasight »

coldpie wrote: post #316
hylaride wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the US business industry has become over-financialised to the point of self-sabotage. R&D and capital expenditure are seen as "bad" things to have on accounting statements. Combine this with Jack Welsh type CEOs who do everything they can to cut out "costs" on financial statements and you get organizations like GE turned into (badly run) banks. Cisco is now essentially a publicly traded PE firm that buys up othe…

Well the good news is we just destroyed our education and research sectors, too, so we'll catch up to China, uh... any day now...

I know, right? I think all we have to do is follow their lead in having near slave labor /s

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#382

Post by hackernewds »

grosswait wrote: post #303
mkagenius wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this can be a significant security issue for the state, why doesn't the government sponsor a security audit of the software. Does it upload the data or everything is done on the device? (Also, will have to keep up with the updates)

How does that provide any assurance against future changes that the public wouldn’t have any ability to know about.

So the govt implements rules and a panopticon for penalties. this works for the FDA, why wouldn't it for the FCC

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#383

Post by archermarks »

dwa3592 wrote: post #369

It was bound to happen. I had bought two different robo vaccums at two different times (in 2022[irobot], then 2025[eufy], both upwards of $400) - they both were pretty terrible and I ended up returning both of them. I can't believe people are still using these things. They get stuck when there is no reason to get stuck, they miss dirt that should be picked up.

I got a cheap Chinese one (no camera, wifi) in 2024 and it's been a game changer. Yeah it's kind of dumb but it runs every day and picks up an unholy amount of dust, cat hair, and the like. Maybe if you were already vacuuming every day they're pretty useless but for me it's been night and day. As another commenter said, they're also surprisingly repairable, and I bought a ton of spare parts before the tariffs went in.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#384

Post by wpietri »

dwa3592 wrote: post #369

It was bound to happen. I had bought two different robo vaccums at two different times (in 2022[irobot], then 2025[eufy], both upwards of $400) - they both were pretty terrible and I ended up returning both of them. I can't believe people are still using these things. They get stuck when there is no reason to get stuck, they miss dirt that should be picked up.

As a friend described the first generation: they're way worse than hand vacuuming, but way better than not vacuuming. So they're really only valuable for people who don't enjoy cleaning and don't have servants clean for them.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#385

Post by garbawarb »

tzs wrote: post #57

People 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…

This was the main reason I bought a Roomba last year. It wasn't clear to me that any competitor could match their repairability and availability of parts.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#386

Post by micromacrofoot »

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.

This is the cost of taking too much funding. Roomba could have remained a modest robovac company and continued indefinitely... they still sell millions of units. American corporate leadership in partner with VCs are chasing massive paydays and absolutely wrecking the companies they're running to do it.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#387

Post by infecto »

About time. They never iterated and made a better product. All of the roombas end up being bump sensor machines, the mapping is garbage. My $200 Roborock has lidar and works flawlessly compared to my roomba I bought 3 years prior for $700. Sure there is a gap on years but the difference is light years apart.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#388

Post by root_axis »

giarc wrote: post #375
georgeecollins wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The concern - for you, maybe nothing. However, the new company could say "turn on microphone for all vacuums in the DC area and send transcripts to us" (trying to capture private conversations of politicians. Or it could do the same for vacuums located new military bases or corporate headquarters. With transcription software and AI, it could simply record and transcribe every conversation it hears and look for import…

> However, the new company could say "turn on microphone for all vacuums in the DC area and send transcripts to us"

The old company could have done the same thing. I recognize that China is a u.s. geopolitical adversary, but when it comes to politics domestic adversaries are just as ruthless.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#389

Post by array_key_first »

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 don't understand how you can sell 40 million units and go bankrupt.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#390

Post by wombatpm »

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…

There was a video of a iRobot store employee sweeping up at closing time. I’m not surprised they are bankrupt.
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