About 5 of them are Dyson, seriously where is it already?
iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
21–30 of 95 posts
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#22iRobot can't really see the market need while competitor like neato and LG are offering better product with lower price. In China market, Xiao Mi and other local copycats are also selling well.
Where's the innovation at iRobot? Where are the self driving garbage cans and self driving beach coolers? Where's the quad copter that brings you a beer? This is a neat submarine article for them, but it seems to highlight a kind of complacency that other firms can innovate around.
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#23Ah, they mean 20 percent of the vacuums sold this year. Since a vacuum is not something that gets replaced each year (or every 5 years even?), it will take quite a while for robots to reach 20 percent of all existing vacuums, if ever. Anecdotally the only person I know who owns a roomba used to work for iRobot.
If we assume a fixed lifetime of n years for vacuums, it will take at most n years to get to 20%.
If we assumed a half-life of n years, then robot vacuums will only ever approach 20% asymptotically and won't ever reach it.
(We could get over 20% if robot vacuums have a longer lifespan than regular vacuums. I'm tempted to write a simulation over different failure curves but I really have better things to do.)
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#24Ah, they mean 20 percent of the vacuums sold this year. Since a vacuum is not something that gets replaced each year (or every 5 years even?), it will take quite a while for robots to reach 20 percent of all existing vacuums, if ever. Anecdotally the only person I know who owns a roomba used to work for iRobot.
And I'd add to that: in the USA (with a bit of extrapolation).
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#25Question: how good are Roombas at actually cleaning? With an actual vacuum, I can turn it high or low, or press it harder or easier, or stick it at weird angles to make it clean. How good are Roombas in comparison?
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Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#26Dominating the robot vacuum market has never been irobots problem. They still haven't figured out what's next.
This is a similar story to Fitbit and GoPro, once you've own the market you're after, then what?
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#27More like 5%.
Let's say there's one vacuum for every 20 people (household of 4 or so, 1/2 households who can afford it own one, 1/2 households can afford it), that's 350 millions vacuums.
They've sold 14 millions robot vacuums to date, let's say 25% are broken/not in use, that's 10 millions.
10/350 is 3%. According to some web page I just googled, IRobot has 60-65% market share, so accounting for competitors that's 5% of vacuums.
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#28I have a roomba and never use it :( The tiny compartment that holds the dirt is too small. And I'm constantly having to dig out my wife and daughter's hair. Granted, it's 5+ years old - maybe they've improved. But in my experience it just doesn't have the strength and capacity to be something other than a conversation starter. Oh, and it keeps getting stuck in the living room...
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#29Question: how good are Roombas at actually cleaning? With an actual vacuum, I can turn it high or low, or press it harder or easier, or stick it at weird angles to make it clean. How good are Roombas in comparison?
A human can do a better job, but they are actually pretty good.
I had one about five years ago, and so long as I pressed the "clean" button every day when I left my flat it was good enough that I only manually cleaned every two weeks or so.
My place was ideal though, all on one floor, with no steps, and polished wooden floorboards + thin carpets only.
I expect modern ones are better in terms of suction, battery life, and I know that you can schedule them so that removes the element of having to remember to press the button
Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market
#30The consumer in me wants to try Dyson's robot vac http://www.dyson.com/vacuum-cleaners/robot/360eye/360-eye-ni...