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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#251

Post by kleiba »

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…

> Are there any good robo-vacuum cleaners that will still clean your floor if the internet is down?

What do you mean? Why would you need an internet connection for a vacuum cleaner?

(Sorry for asking, I've never owned a robot one, plus I am old.)

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#252

Post by willis936 »

vjk800 wrote: post #92
willis936 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a roomba i5 fully stop working earlier this year. It said it couldn't connect to the internet but I believe what it meant was "some aspect of the remote server has decayed to the point that it no longer works with this platform". I threw it in the trash, vowed to never let this happen again, and got a valetudo machine. I think the lights have been off for some time already.

We moved this year and couldn't get my old(ish) Roomba i5 to work in my new wifi easily. I've been meaning to debug the problem further, but if it can be confirmed that it's an iRobot issue and there's nothing I can do, it would save some effort. It sucks, though, that I can use my fucking vacuum cleaner because a remote server of the manufacturer has decayed. Does anyone know if there are robotic vacuums that work f…

I can't give 100% confirmation, but it was working one day and not the next, with no changes to my network along the way.

Yes, it is an absolutely infuriating state of affairs and one could claim we were naive to not see this coming. Needing to be this cynical is the root of crisis of trust. The only thing we can rely on is that everything is a race to the bottom.

That being said, there aren't many commercial offline robot vacuums. I bought a secondhand roborock unit that is on the approved list put out by valetudo. I got one that required some disassembly to flash, which maybe lowers the market price. It's been working great and the home assistant hooks are working. There isn't a company on the planet that is in between me and my robot vacuum now.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#253

Post by lionkor »

kleiba wrote: post #251
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…

> Are there any good robo-vacuum cleaners that will still clean your floor if the internet is down? What do you mean? Why would you need an internet connection for a vacuum cleaner? (Sorry for asking, I've never owned a robot one, plus I am old.)

Lots of modern appliances connect to the Internet, have multiple computers inside that need updates, maintenance, maybe subscription payments, and that need to phone home everything they see, hear and do.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#254

Post by cs702 »

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 mobile, camera/microphone-equipped robots already inside people's homes and offices.

More than 40 million is a lot. For comparison, the US has ~132 million households.

---

[a] https://www.ft.com/content/239d4720-aee4-443d-a761-1bd8bb1a1...

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#255

Post by darkwater »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #220
darkwater wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vorwerk makes really good hardware and home appliances. Its only negative part is the almost pyramidal sales style. It's not really pyramidal as in the scam, because you actually buy something and you don't need to become a seller, but it uses "regular housewives" [1] as sellers. [1] at least 30 years ago, now many of them do also another paid work (not Vorwerk-related) on top of unpaid house chores.

Any idea why they just sat on the product? Even today, I feel the product is unmatched. Zero creep factor (ignoring later cloud offering)..

Well, I don't know how much you can innovate in that space, while keeping things reliable for decades like Vorwerk does. I own a (2n hand) TM31 that's probably 15 years old now, and I have friend with the TM21 (I guess?) which is like the first version and it has over 20 years now and it's still perfectly working.

Last versions, with big LC touchscreen, recipes on a cartridge o downloaded from Internet, and now I read that latest one can reach 160C to caramelize things or can do slow cooking.

I mean, I don't feel like they sat on the product, although the other day I saw a cooking robot from some other (japanese?) manufacturer which had 2 bowls in the same machine to cook 2 things at the same time. That seems an interesting feature Thermomix is missing.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#256

Post by anomaly_ »

typewithrhythm wrote: post #226
mlrtime wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense, are there any expamples of the Chinese leading in a market + R&D yet?

Every category I can think of where China is near-first there is some international manufacturer that has a better product. Several areas where there are much higher volumes or outstandingly better value though. Things like automotive lidar, construction assemblys (like double glazed window units), consumer electronics like quadcopters.

I recently bought a handheld spectrophotometer for work (color assessment). The product from the leading US company (X-Rite) is ~US$15k in my market. I bought the Chinese equivalent for US$3k. Maybe if I needed guaranteed nine 9s of colour accuracy the US product would be worth it, but for 95% of users in the market, the Chinese product is more than fine.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#257

Post by lionkor »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #159
rgovostes wrote: post #151

One of the privacy fears stoked about iRobot years ago was about them "selling maps of your home to the highest bidder" for advertising purposes. E.g., https://gizmodo.com/roombas-next-big-step-is-selling-maps-of... 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? How much would Charmin pay to know I have two rooms with t…

> 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.

Nothing to hide, huh

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#258

Post by willis936 »

garbagewoman wrote: post #88
willis936 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a roomba i5 fully stop working earlier this year. It said it couldn't connect to the internet but I believe what it meant was "some aspect of the remote server has decayed to the point that it no longer works with this platform". I threw it in the trash, vowed to never let this happen again, and got a valetudo machine. I think the lights have been off for some time already.

You threw ewaste with batteries in the trash?

I pulled the battery.

As an aside, I will say that municipal waste has antipatterns for responsible waste disposal. Someone could:

A) disassemble their ewaste, remove the battery, look up which of 10 days a year they can drop it off, and pay a $50+ fee

B) quietly put it in their trash

I'll let you guess what most people are actually doing.

Contrast this with car batteries where manufacturers pay for batteries that are not responsibly handled and consumers are incentivized to dispose of them responsibly with a financial carrot. The manufacturer pays for the disposal, passes that cost on to the consumer, and the consumer gets the money back when they responsibly dispose of it.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#259

Post by djmips »

stavros wrote: post #238
meindnoch wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did. Still, DRM.

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

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#260

Post by aurareturn »

ksec wrote: post #240
aurareturn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is complacency or is China just accelerating? It's not surprising that China wins in these things. Just go to Shenzhen. Hardware designers, parts, machines that make the parts, factories, etc. are all within driving distance. You can't compete unless you also have offices there, hire Chinese workers, compete in China. American companies need to start designing in China, not just made in China. Ford themselves said…

There was an interview from a Chinese Founder and he said something that I think accurately sums up the difference. US R&D may be on top in some areas especially AI or Frontier Tech. But it is at best 2x better than China. What sets Chinese companies apart they can have product from Lab to market and manufacturing at scale that is at least an order of magnitude faster than US, not to mention a lot cheaper. Motorola S…

  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 China at the top. I think it's kind of neat for this generation to witness it.
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