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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#191

Post by MangoToupe »

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…

That's how it is today. The R&D will follow the manufacturing capacity, where it's cheaper and more efficient in every way.

The west was extremely foolish to think that IP would scale beyond national markets for very long.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#192

Post by dotancohen »

rgovostes wrote: post #165
cs02rm0 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The premise still strikes me as a ridiculous one: Am I possibly a more affluent customer because there is a high pile rug under the coffee table? I've no idea about rug pile depth, but I'd have thought a simple link between square footage and location would be a reasonable proxy for that affluency.

A simpler signal: Did I buy the $250 Roomba 105 or the $900 Roomba Max 705?

I'm not sure about that. The wealthiest people I know are also the most careful about where they spend their money.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#194

Post by goodpoint »

d_k_f wrote: post #141
furyg3 wrote: post #136

Are there any good robo-vacuum cleaners that will still clean your floor if the internet is down? I've had my Miele vacuum cleaner for 15 years now, and I bought it second hand. I can still buy bags and filters for it, and when the floor roller piece broke (something heavy fell on it) I was able to buy a replacement one for cheap. I see no reason why it can't go another 10 years. It feels like a very low probability…

Your best bet would be to check which models are supported by Valetudo, which is a local-only firmware replacement: https://valetudo.cloud/ and https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo

valetudo is just a hack, not a firmware replacement, and could be blocked by a firmware update from the OEM

plus it can void your warranty

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#195

Post by MangoToupe »

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.

> It's the Western companies that actually come up with the original idea, whatever good that does them.

Nah, they just had access to more capital. That hasn't been true in a while tho.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#196

Post by KeplerBoy »

stavros wrote: post #157
furyg3 wrote: post #136

Are there any good robo-vacuum cleaners that will still clean your floor if the internet is down? I've had my Miele vacuum cleaner for 15 years now, and I bought it second hand. I can still buy bags and filters for it, and when the floor roller piece broke (something heavy fell on it) I was able to buy a replacement one for cheap. I see no reason why it can't go another 10 years. It feels like a very low probability…

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…

Oh boy the creator of valetudo sure has an abrasive writing style. Whatever works for him, I guess.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#197

Post by cluckindan »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #107
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.

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...

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#198

Post by meindnoch »

stavros wrote: post #157
furyg3 wrote: post #136

Are there any good robo-vacuum cleaners that will still clean your floor if the internet is down? I've had my Miele vacuum cleaner for 15 years now, and I bought it second hand. I can still buy bags and filters for it, and when the floor roller piece broke (something heavy fell on it) I was able to buy a replacement one for cheap. I see no reason why it can't go another 10 years. It feels like a very low probability…

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.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#199

Post by closewith »

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.

Most techies vastly overestimate how much money most people have available for nice-to-haves like privacy, cybersecurity and stuff like that.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#200

Post by Mistletoe »

furyg3 wrote: post #136

Are there any good robo-vacuum cleaners that will still clean your floor if the internet is down? I've had my Miele vacuum cleaner for 15 years now, and I bought it second hand. I can still buy bags and filters for it, and when the floor roller piece broke (something heavy fell on it) I was able to buy a replacement one for cheap. I see no reason why it can't go another 10 years. It feels like a very low probability…

Just buy an old Roomba on Ebay. Mine doesn’t even know what the internet is. You push the button and it goes. There is a huge market of cheap aftermarket batteries for it.
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