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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#711

Post by keeda »

jonfw wrote: post #652
keeda wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In theory, sure. In practice? Chinese companies ignore your patent, you waste money suing, it takes a long time. If you win? Good luck collecting damages from China, and have fun suing the next brand that starts selling the same machine in different plastic

That's why the ITC is so relevant here: it is relatively quite speedy compared to regular patent trials, and have the power to issue injunctions against imports (which is partly why it was relied on a lot during the smartphone patent wars.) So you may not collect damages from Chinese companies, but you can completely block their infringing imports into the US and deny them US revenue.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#712

Post by fullstop »

kccqzy wrote: post #709
fullstop wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coul…

I have a Roborock too. It is certainly good at quickly creating a reasonably accurate map, but it just gets stuck so easily. Things like going into an enclosed corner but unable to get out. Or going into a room, cleaning the floor just behind the door such that the door shuts and now unable to leave the room. I certainly cannot run it while not at home. It will just get stuck.

We must have different layouts or settings because I can count on one hand the number of times that it's gotten stuck.

Once it ate a piece of paper and jammed the main roller. The other times have been when it's managed to get itself under an area rug.

If I leave a door open it doesn't touch it. On mine there are settings which tell it to avoid bumping into things.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#713

Post by TeMPOraL »

btown wrote: post #415
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 general thing about state actors is that they have every incentive to have a dossier of compromising information on every foreign national regardless of current relevance, for potential use in the future. You could, for instance, someday be in a position where you have privileged access to data that becomes relevant to them, and thus your history becomes useful.

State actors also have finite budgets and do cost/benefit analyses. They don't really gain much for creating and maintaining deep dossiers on hundreds of millions of random foreigners.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#714

Post by throwaway_20357 »

jasonkester wrote: post #502
anymouse123456 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 think that this is actually the only viable strategy for a hardware product company in the current world.

Isn't there also the "premium" route? Charge ~3x the price of your Chinese competitor but provide a product that:

* is well designed

* can claim to be (at least partial) domestic manufacturing

* prioritizes repairability, offering a solid warranty, long-term software updates, and spare part availability

* uses high-quality materials to ensure longevity and refuses to compromise customer safety for company profit

If society no longer values these qualities, then we don't deserve better.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#715

Post by TeMPOraL »

wafflemaker wrote: post #620
prmoustache wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are tens of millions still in use. Unless you design your house and buy your furnitures taking these roomba into account, they get stuck nearly every where or at the first sock left on the ground by someone in your household. They have a number of wearable most owner will not even want to replace and will start being inefficient rather quickly. Add to that some battery wear and I don't think there…

>Dusting all the furnitures + objects on top of them With furnishing optimized for dust generation (less materials where the dust-shitting microbes live, like material curtains) and daily Roomba runs (plus eventual air filter running in the background) there is very little to dust off of surfaces. If there's little dust on the floor, it doesn't get kicked up and doesn't land on things. Ergo - Roomba makes dusting eas…

Keeping a basic air purifier (i.e. fan strapped to HEPA filter) at low power but constantly on would also help with the dust problem, I believe. There's not going to be much dust on things if it gets sucked out of the air before landing on things.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#716

Post by imp0cat »

mig39 wrote: post #611
delichon wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E.g. Tesla: * built a lithium refinery * produces its own battery cells * makes its own motors and drivetrains * makes its own car seats * owns and operates a fast-charging network * sells direct, bypassing dealerships * offers insurance integrated with vehicle data * develops its own autopilot AI

At this point, isn't Tesla another example of Chinese companies taking a product and making a better, cheaper version? A lot of Chinese EVs are much better and cheaper than the Cybertruck.

To be fair, a lot of Tesla's own models are better and cheaper than the Cybertruck.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#717

Post by graeme »

armonster wrote: post #512
crazygringo wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, those robots really don't solve a real problem as vacuuming and mopping are the easiest and quickest job when it comes to cleaning the house. Hard disagree, because vacuuming is something you often need to do daily . Spending 10 min/day becomes over an hour a week. That's a significant chunk. If you have smooth floors, running a Roomba kind of becomes a no-brainer. On the other hand, I only need to du…

I've never met anyone in my life who vacuums at that rate. Not sure if your personal germophobia counts as a counterpoint.

If you get a robot that automated it you'll feel the difference. Floors get a lot of dust. Especially if you have pets but even without.

I would not personally vacuum daily but having completely automated, vacuuming and mopping, every day has produced wonderful floors. Less work than what we did before too.

There's no germs involved here. Dustin on the floor is dirty socks, and you can peel crumbs and other things under foot under foot. It all goes away if floors are cleaned daily.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#718

Post by tgma »

pornel wrote: post #477
fny wrote: post #365

I'm all for antitrust, but it's a shame the Amazon acquisition was blocked.[0] iRobot was in a distressed state then, and immediately laid of 1/3 of staff when the deal fell through. I knew a survivor of that mess. Now this. 0: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/29/24034201/amazon-irobot-ac... 0: https://archive.is/rBn7z

Amazon wouldn't have kept the manufacturer alive by making Roombas better, but by making it more expensive for other manufacturers to sell their vacuums through Amazon.

What’s the basis for this claim except some ideology you possess?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#719

Post by ncruces »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #589
prmoustache wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are tens of millions still in use. Unless you design your house and buy your furnitures taking these roomba into account, they get stuck nearly every where or at the first sock left on the ground by someone in your household. They have a number of wearable most owner will not even want to replace and will start being inefficient rather quickly. Add to that some battery wear and I don't think there…

Yeah - they don't work well at all. And work from home is definitely incompatible with roombas. Those things are loud and run for a long time. Both ours are in the storage room collecting dust.

They're doing their jobs if they're collecting dust.

And I'll show myself out…

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#720

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

decimalenough wrote: post #701
abtinf wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your theory account for Dyson?

A lot of Dyson products are wildly overpriced and kind of shit, but people keep buying them because they look pretty.

Some are also quite good. I’ve rescued and revived over 6 Dyson hand helds. Almost all still work well.

There’s also a good after market ecosystem and 3D models you and print for various attachments.

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