Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges • Hacker News Board

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#631

Post by thefunnyman » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:02 PM UTC

krosaen wrote: post #622

Anyone have experience with https://valetudo.cloud ? Seems like could be a good solution to using best rated (chinese) vacuum's while mitigating privacy concerns. I am bummed that US robovacs aren't that competitive. Rooting for Matic, though currently don't seem to be as good as Dreame / roborocks [1] (can't go under furniture, apparently take longer to clean same area, tout "vision only" as a feature while charging…

Yup, been using it on an older roborock s5 for several years now. It's excellent and works flawlessly with home assistant. Cannot recommend enough. The robot running its own webserver while it cleans my apartment is still so funny to me.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#632

Post by palmotea » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:02 PM UTC

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #591

jasonkester wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think that this is actually the only viable strategy for a hardware product company in the current world. As soon as your product is successful, it will be cloned by dozens of Chinese companies and dumped on the market everywhere. Any update you make from there on out will…

I wonder why nobody has tried to beat the Chinese companies at their own game. The whole schtick is: take a product that people like, vertically integrate and drive down costs. This is like the purest form of capitalism.

> I wonder why nobody has tried to beat the Chinese companies at their own game. The whole schtick is: take a product that people like, vertically integrate and drive down costs. This is like the purest form of capitalism.

I think there are a lot of different reasons:

1. A lot of those Chinese competitors are involved in extremely intense cut-throat competition, which drives a lot of innovation that benefits a lot of stakeholders except investors (IIRC the term is "involution"). The the US, the investors a almost literal kings and their returns are paramount, and they'll even throw their own country under the bus if it means their returns are higher.

2. The US (in-general) has been letting its manufacturing capabilities wither for decades, while China has been building them up. Even if you wanted to beat the Chinese companies at their own game, the skills, suppliers, and scale to do that aren't available in the US anymore.

3. Working conditions in China are atrocious and pay is lower, which really helps if you're trying to undercut on cost.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#633

Post by nickff » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:02 PM UTC

jm4 wrote: post #597

qwerpy wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American with a strong personal interest (kids) in keeping the country strong and competitive in the future, it seems bizarre to cheer for our largest adversary to gain advantages over us.

To be fair, shopping at Amazon is nearly the same as shopping at some Chinese company. They bring in Chinese products by the boatload, warehouse them here and offer 2 day shipping. That's virtually their entire retail business and value proposition. It's a slightly curated selection, easy ordering and fast shipping. You can buy all the same stuff for less at Ali Express if you don't mind waiting 3 weeks. I don't mean…

>"To be fair, shopping at Amazon is nearly the same as shopping at some Chinese company."

Have you actually used AliExpress? I use both Amazon and AE, and the former definitely offers a lower-deceit, easier to use, and better customer experience. Amazon powers most of the web, whereas AE regularly has massive bugs (I was completely unable to sign in for over a month due to a UI bug last year).

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#634

Post by toddmorey » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:05 PM UTC

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!

this age, feels like the most dangerous thing the Chinese government could do is sell that data back to our government.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#635

Post by keeda » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:08 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #580

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that basically the reason patents exist? If you're really the first, you should be able to get about a 20 year head start.

No-name chinese cloners selling on Amazon don't care about patents.

While those patents are not enforceable in China (unless equivalents were also filed in China -- unsure if they would be worth much) they would be when imported to the US. This is one of the reasons the ITC exists, and it played a prominent role during the smartphone patent wars. So at least the US market would be protected from knock-offs.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#636

Post by osiris970 » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #537

Aurornis wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’d prefer we send access to China? The comment above was pointing out that we blocked the acquisition that would have kept it in the country.

The US government is more likely to be a threat to my personal freedom than the Chinese.

The emergence of a totalitarian state compared to a liberal democracy (for all it's faults and current state due to voters making bad choices) is so much worse for everyone in the world. Us included

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#637

Post by osiris970 » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:15 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #499

mattmaroon wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you called a Chinese person to respond to a crime?

Is that an option I’m not aware of? Do chinese police even carry firearms? edit: most don’t ( https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries... ) So, given that, I would choose 100/100 times to deal with Chinese police over the US ICE/police murder squads if I had an option

In the U.S. you have free trials, in china you don't. What are you even talking about.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#638

Post by xnx » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:15 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #594

xnx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume the US market was a bigger concern, but hard to know for sure: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/...

IRobot says it was the EU: https://media.irobot.com/2024-01-29-Amazon-and-iRobot-agree-...

Wrong link? I don't see how that applies to the EU more than the US.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#639

Post by locallost » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:17 PM UTC

nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote: post #286

NetOpWibby wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well now I’m sold

Dont be. Source: tried roborock and dream. They are both useless because you spend so much time troubleshooting it dealing with stuck issues you may as well get the cheap vac out.

I've had a few issues, but they're far from useless. The issues are, e.g. a sofa has tapered legs so the end part is very low to the floor and basically invisible so the vacuum gets stuck there. I've placed a rag that stays there above the leg and nobody sees it or cares except the robot.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#640

Post by LexiMax » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 6:19 PM UTC

IAmBroom wrote: post #505

olalonde wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Unless you are a Chinese citizen, it arguably makes more sense to grant access to the Chinese government rather than the US government. The PRC generally shows little interest in non-citizens while the US government frequently goes after people beyond its borders (e.g. Meng Wanzhou, Changpeng Zhao, Sam Bankman-Fried, Julian Assange, Kim Dotcom, etc.).

> The PRC generally shows little interest in non-citizens Aside from attempting to subvert democracies with botfarmed divisive politics, sure.

> Aside from attempting to subvert democracies with botfarmed divisive politics, sure.

When Twitter had its recent VPN reveal, what actually took me by surprise was how many divisive accounts weren't from China or Russia, but from regions of the world like Turkey, India, Africa, and South America. Sure, they could be spouting divisive politics to push an agenda of someone who is paying them, but the simpler answer might be that they spout divisive politics because it earns them money in terms of advertising dollars.

And that's the real problem, IMHO. The subversion of democracy isn't happening because of China, Russia, or any number of adversarial countries, but because our social media companies don't care enough about our country or the people living inside it to meaningfully crack down on ragebait engagement farming.