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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#741

Post by JetSpiegel »

the_real_cher wrote: post #221
lvl155 wrote: post #214

Where is Lina Khan who struck down the acquisition? Read the comments from the FTC. That was from less than two years ago. I am all for antitrust but Lina Khan was inept as they come in terms actually dealing with anti competitiveness in the tech. This is called dumping. Long-term dumping but it is what it is. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/...

So an American company (amazon) was going to buy iRobot, but that was struck down by the courts. Now a Chinese company is buying them and there's no problems. is that the background on that?

The Chinese company has outstanding loans, it's not an "acquisition" per-se. It's the Chinese supplier getting made whole.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#742

Post by drdaeman »

throwaway_20357 wrote: post #714
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 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 * use…

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

Isn't it more like "if society has time to think about and can afford those qualities"?

If most folks out there have limited finances (CoL-relative, of course) and are just scrapping by, they'll buy the cheapest thing out there that just does the job (vacuums) and tend to ignore any extra luxuries, even if those would be more economically advantageous long-term (repairs/maintenance part of the TCO). That's simply because of the focus - it's more on the account balance, due bills and next paycheck, than on the implications for a more distant future. Crazy volatility and all the global rollercoasters like pandemics, wars, and all the crazy politicians around the world doesn't help regular folks' sensible decision-making at all, of course. The more stressed one is, the less rational they act.

People don't buy cheap junk because they don't value quality. They buy it primarily because of affordability reasons, or because their focus is forced to be elsewhere.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#743

Post by jamespo »

jack_tripper wrote: post #643
CamperBob2 wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except our companies do just that, all the time. Who is the Chinese Intel? The Chinese Microsoft? The Chinese Boeing? The Chinese NVIDIA? People forget that the US is still the #2 manufacturer in the world, and that's (apparently) without halfway trying.

>Who is the Chinese Intel? Zhaoxin makes X86 and countless make ARM and RiscV chips. SMIC being a foundry. > The Chinese Microsoft? Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance. >The Chinese Boeing? Comac makes passenger and Chengdu fighter jets. >The Chinese NVIDIA? Huawei makes AI GPUs. >People forget that the US is still the #2 manufacturer in the world Considering the US never had its industry blown up in any war and could…

There's a nice list of substandard products.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#744

Post by kyrra »

coldpie wrote: post #475
symbogra wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That old bat is the enemy of any kind of US technical progress.

No. Enforcing anti-trust law is critical for healthy markets. Healthy markets support technological progress through competition.

You're assuming the deal was anti-competitive. A lot of the time, the process is the punishment.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#745

Post by nfredericks »

abustamam wrote: post #675

I got a Roomba Combo J7+ (auto empty, mopping) a few years back. Spent $700+ on it. A few years into ownership it ran over cat vomit, got it warranty replaced. And then just recently it decided to stop going home — it makes its way to the dock but stops shy of actually charging. I could get some module replaced but it's no longer under warranty, and I really don't want to deal with a dying company. I've been seeing a…

I bought a Roborock after returning my Roomba, and it was the best choice I ever made. It works amazing, even in a house full of pets.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#746

Post by bsndjdkd »

echelon wrote: post #690
lvl155 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. Amazon actually has a sizable robotics presence in Boston. It would have been great for Boston job market and there are actually a handful of companies based out of MA including BD. You really need a cluster of companies to strengthen an industry. I mean see biotech in Kendall if you need an example. Every time I hear someone applaud China for doing it cheaper and better, you don’t actually know that long-term.…

How do we recover from this? Five years ago you'd be called sinophobic for suggesting we do something to stop bleeding industries to China. (My wife is Asian ffs, I'm not racist.) Yet we already saw how this had happened to Canada with Nortel, etc. China wants every industry it can have. If we give up technological salients, we won't be able to get them back. China has so many advantages - manufacturing, chemicals, m…

[flagged]

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#747

Post by jamesrr39 »

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!

Ironically we bought a Roborock (Chinese brand with close links to Xiaomi) and didn't connect it to the internet (checked this would work before we bought it).

If you don't want the scheduling and other app features, and are happy switching it on when you need it, it works fine.

Motivation for an offline one was more than just cameras, also that it wouldn't be bricked by an update one day, but still...

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#748

Post by jamesrr39 »

brandensilva wrote: post #682
kqr wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I figured this would happen given how crap Roombas have been since they fired or lost all their engineering talent years ago. So I went with a roborock since it is superior but completely blocked it from ever communicating outside my home. Works great, there are plenty of ways to modify roborock vacuums and load up other software even.

> modify roborock vacuums and load up other software even.

Can you provide more info/got any links? I would love to try some open source software on it

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#749

Post by sizzle »

anymouse123456 wrote: post #305
kqr wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can you explain the Tim Ferris jab, what’s the story there?

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#750

Post by gosub100 »

dylan604 wrote: post #538
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are not really likely to be running the roomba. You seem to assume that they have somehow physically disabled access to any kind of remote activation. That seems extremely unlikely given the overall selling points of the roomba. The roomba doesn't have to "run" in order to be using its microphone, which as noted is likely the more valuable data acquisition source here.

Maybe read the comment I was replying to before replying with something unrealted? "I'll wage a campaign to flood the Internet with pics of your half dressed wife unless you....". Turning on a microphone is not going to capture the required pics for this blackmail campaign.

Its a numbers game, and what I described is just a sketch. Combine it with geo-location: select all roombas within 50mi of washington, DC and run all these various playbooks on it, eventually you'll find something.
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