351–360 of 839 posts
robot vacuums never made economic sense over a maid service
But I am aware that in e.g. some parts of Asia the maid service is dirt cheap.
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.
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…
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An employee of that company sells footage of you to a scam center. They then blackmail you.
[flagged]
There were various in depth investigations by media and law enforcement across countries, here is a US source
https://www.uscc.gov/research/chinas-exploitation-scam-cente... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/world/asia/scam-centers-m... https://apnews.com/article/asian-scam-operations-cybercime-f...
German source https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-china-clamping-down-on-scammers...
...
Etc
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…
But it turns out that an economy based on rent extraction and enshittification can’t in the long run compete with one based on a real economy of industry, agriculture, and public services.
We should have privacy laws including mandated user control of user data. In my view, scaremongering around China just demonstates how uncompetitive the US is, in the long run. We should set our sights higher than merely begging to trade one form of technofeudalism for another.
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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)..
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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…
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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…
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…
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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…
Everyone acts like the C8 corvette doesn’t exist when they shit on American cars. Actually GM is an innovative awesome company. The C8 has topped many “top car” lists since it came out in 2020. The reviews on it are universally excellent and it gaps pretty much anything that the turn-signal hating BMW crowd manufactures both in literal performance and in design.
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Bambu wasn't good enough? Perhaps BEVs are?
BEVs most certainly aren‘t. Chinese EVs are strongly competing on price. Based on my own experience with them (n=4). They are very good as a EV, solid as a rolling smartphone, but not leading as being a car. Given the choice, I still would prefer a BMW EV any day. However, batteries as a commodity are a good example where china is leading as volume and R&D leader
They are more than capable. I have just looked at what BMW, Mercedes and Audi have on offer. Then compare what Zeekr and Xpeng has on offer (7X, G9). Quality wise they feel the same or even better.
While I agree as a "complete car" the full package might not quite be there yet. But that is from a European perspective as they mostly are focused on their home markets. But this is changing. This is then simply iterating for product/market fit.
Personally I find the major problems in chinese cars are the software. That is the easy fix and they are getting closer with each iteration.
So much that today I would choose a Zeekr 7X but choose to postpone as the software was too annoying (adaptive cruise control, lane assist, sign recognition, auto brake, audio cues).
The big loss we have with EVs are servicability. But that is a universal problem with all automakers.