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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#391

Post by fullstop »

nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote: post #282
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.

Wow I found Rohorock a bit sucky so god knows how bad a Roomba is. My theory is to make a decent robot vacuum that can compete with a human and a $50 vacuum and a cheap mop... you would need a 5k price point.

I've been happy with the Roborock but I did not expect it to match the cleaning levels of a human. I can run it while I'm not there or doing other tasks, though, and it does a good enough job until I feel the need to intervene.

When I was looking at getting one, the iRobot one took hours / days to map out a house and it needed the lights on to do that. The Roborock model could do this in 15 to 30 minutes, and it could do it in the dark because it used LiDAR instead of a camera.

That was several years ago now, and iRobot _just_ added LiDAR to their latest models.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#392

Post by fullstop »

infecto wrote: post #387

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.

.. and iRobot _just_ introduced LiDAR, many years too late.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#393

Post by GuB-42 »

georgeecollins wrote: post #304
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 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?

What do you mean by "worry a lot about privacy"?

If it is a practical view of privacy, like the "I don't want others to know I have foot fetish" kind, or even typical operational security like not letting others know you own something valuable, then the concern is most likely minor. In fact, it may be a good thing that the data goes to China instead of in your own country, because there is a border somewhat protecting you.

If you take a more general approach of just making less data available about you on the internet, for things like targeted ads, AI, etc... Then US or China shouldn't change much and you should avoid connecting your robot to the internet in the first place, most work without it for the simple "clean" function.

Now if you are a US citizen and a patriot, then yeah, it matters.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#394

Post by freen »

georgeecollins wrote: post #304
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 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?

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to predict what new information can be derived from the combination of different datasets collected from your devices.

Especially as the N of datasets grows.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#395

Post by somehnguy »

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.

The only ones worth getting have Lidar. I've had a 'random path' one before and it was like you described. My Lidar one runs every day with only a rare issue when I leave a cord strung across the floor or similar.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#396

Post by LunaSea »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #349
LunaSea wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So stealing trade secrets is legal in China? Or do they publish all their IP on a government site for all to see?

They introduced more and more IP laws due to requirements from the WTO[ https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/completeacc_e.htm... ]. At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies, and now we're at the stage where there's essentially legal parity. Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions. But now they're getting to the point th…

> At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies

Funny how that works.

> Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions

Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China? I don't remember seeing that in the WTO rules.

> Some further reading [0] could be a book like To Steal Is An Elegant Offense from William P. Alford for a longer history of the relationship to IP within Chinese society.

Thanks for the book recommendation!

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#397

Post by pintxo »

hackernewds wrote: post #382
grosswait wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because regulation is bad, according to the current executive?

Politics aside, the FDA applies a very generous amount of regulation (mostly justifiable), not sure we want to pay multiples for our consumer electronics, as it (mostly) shows acceptable behavior and rearely kills anybody.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#398

Post by baggachipz »

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.

Chinese companies don't have quarterly financial metrics to report to shareholders, which result in severe punishment if the "growth at all costs" strategy isn't followed. This means chasing quarterly profit over innovation, because it's much easier to milk an asset for as long as possible until suddenly it isn't and you're left behind. But that doesn't matter when the pressure is entirely placed on showing financial growth three months from now. Chinese companies are allowed to strategize for the long term, and receive assistance from the CCP to dominate foreign rivals.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#399

Post by jmyeet »

kqr wrote: post #289
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…

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!

At this point I trust the Chinese government way more than almost every US tech giant.

I don't own a "smart" speaker. I've never liked the idea of having an always-on cloud-connected microphone in my house. Like, it's just asking for trouble. I don't necessarily assign malicious intent here. It's just a recipe for disaster.

But if you made me choose between an Amazon or Meta "smart" speaker and a Huawei speaker, I'm choosing Huawei.

As for robot vacuums, I don't see a reason they need to have a microphone. I wouldn't want one that did. I think I'd also prefer they had a LIDAR rather than a camera too but I can see that cameras can do things that LIDAR can't.

Anyway, I find these deep distrust of the Chinese government to be very... selective, given what our own governments are doing and I'm sorry but our tech giants are out of control.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#400

Post by red-iron-pine »

atwrk wrote: post #307
jgalt212 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on which nations you care about. How would you feel if Roomba devices were controlled by North Korea, for example?

That was kind of my point, I don't buy any of these surveillance appliances. But answering as a hypthetical roomba owner: As I am from the EU, this new ownership would actually be better for me. The US already mandates spying with devices like these, and has been caught multiple times doing so already. It is also known to share info with the domestic services, the latter point not being true for China.

the US does not mandate spying with roombas -- wtf are you smoking?

China absolutely shares info with all of its national police services, intelligence services, and military. Depending on the company these PLA may literally own some / most / all of the organization.

I am not in the US or China, and on balance I am less worried about the Chinese blowing my house up, but don't pretend they're nice, or that they're your friend. I don't want them having my data any more than I want the NSA, Research & Analysis Wing, or the NK Reconnaissance General Bureau.

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