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

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#761

Post by hardlianotion » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #693

SoftTalker wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cordless is nice until the batteries won't charge anymore. Or the charger stops working. Or you forgot to charge it and now want to use it. Or the charging connector gets worn and unreliable. Then you have an expensive battery replacement or other repair or (more likely) you just replace the whole device because it was made to be unrepairable, and now you have several pounds of plastic and e-waste to dispose of. Deal…

If the batteries don't work anymore, I buy a new vaccum. My Dyson was last updated in 2020, it is 2025 now, so I think it is working out? The charging dock works great for not forgetting to replace it. I guess this is how people felt when they moved from wired phones to wireless phones? > Dealing with plugging a cord into an outlet is no more burdensome than picking up the socks or shoes before the Roomba wakes up an…

> And dragging the cord around, and having to plug out and re-plug the cord in again because you want to do a different part of the room.

As someone who used to sweep the floor of the family home as a chore, as a child, that makes me smile.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#762

Post by typewithrhythm » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

shellfishgene wrote: post #344

typewithrhythm wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every category I can think of where China is near-first there is some international manufacturer that has a better product. Several areas where there are much higher volumes or outstandingly better value though. Things like automotive lidar, construction assemblys (like double glazed window units), consumer electronics like quadcopters.

How about the thread topic, robot vacuums? I don't think any other country can even compete anymore, I can't think of any top non-Chinese model.

I saw a Matic, seemed impressive, but I have very few points to compare with personally.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#763

Post by neuralRiot » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 9:37 PM UTC

drdaeman wrote: post #742

throwaway_20357 wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ad…

>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.

The focus, thanks to years of advertising, is shifted towards features, new features sell, quality doesn’t, so to keep the price point and “innovate” manufacturers need to lower the quality knowing that a new version will replace the device soon, most consumers see this as normal so when a poorly designed and cheaply made thing for what there’s no replacement parts , no repair info, no software/ firmware fails is just an excuse to purchase the new shiny iteration with all the the bells and whistles (and AI!, copilot toaster!) wich is gonna last les than the previous one but now needs an “app” an activation and a subscription for the premium features .

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#764

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 9:52 PM UTC

hardlianotion wrote: post #761

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the batteries don't work anymore, I buy a new vaccum. My Dyson was last updated in 2020, it is 2025 now, so I think it is working out? The charging dock works great for not forgetting to replace it. I guess this is how people felt when they moved from wired phones to wireless phones? > Dealing with plugging a cord into an outlet is no more burdensome than picking up the socks or shoes before the Roomba wakes up an…

> And dragging the cord around, and having to plug out and re-plug the cord in again because you want to do a different part of the room. As someone who used to sweep the floor of the family home as a chore, as a child, that makes me smile.

Ya, a broom is easier at that point: no cord. Or you just get a stick vacuum and call the problem done.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#765

Post by jodrellblank » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 9:55 PM UTC

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?

Your current device won’t do it but Wi-Fi can now identify people, and because it’s able to penetrate flesh it can identify people by skeleton so that it can’t be hidden by clothing. That’s separate from WhoFi being hard to identify peeler from gestures.[1]

This could be a future where your home devices sell what you look like to data harvesters who can then see you appear in shops which run the same scanners, even through walls where there’s no cameras, connecting back to the person who lives in your house near your future-vacuum cleaner. Even if you leave your phone and devices behind and pay in cash.

The historic privacy we had by virtue of things being physical started to fall slightly with writing and post which the government might intercept, further with telephone calls which the phone company could intercept, further with radio which could be hidden in one room listening, further with CCTV to CRT screen banks and no recording, further to purchases by credit card, then suddenly in the 90s to cellphone tracking and mass internet use, then the 2000s with Bluetooth beacon scanning and CCTV recording to disk and online purchases and unencrypted chat programs, faster in the 2010s where so many people upload their photo streams to Facebook which does face recognition on who is in photos and who is attending events, location tracking apps (all of them asking for that permission), to smartphones tracking location for live traffic and live store busyness ratings, and Hey Siri and Alexa and all the fitness tracker apps, and Ubers and video calling proxies through Microsoft and Google servers, cheap IoT CCTV left open to the world, car license plate tracking cameras…

“What is the concern” - is there really no concern?

[1] https://www.techspot.com/news/109975-wi-fi-can-accurately-id...

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#766

Post by palmotea » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 9:56 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #753

palmotea wrote: post #608

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. You're making zero sense: 1. I predict there will be no change in the US government's access as a result of this. 2. I don't think Americans are so indifferent to their own country that they'd prefer a situation where an adversary country gets handed an intelligence asset.…

I'm not sure how useful of an intelligence asset a map of my house is, or pictures of me in my boxers on a saturday morning. I'm also not sure why you think they weren't already just buying this information from iRobot.

> I'm not sure how useful of an intelligence asset a map of my house is, or pictures of me in my boxers on a saturday morning.

Seriously, who cares about you or your house? Why do you think your personal example is the one to reason from?

iRobot sold 50 million robots, lets conservatively say 10% of those are internet connected and still in service. That's 5 million households. There's probably quite a few people in that 5 million who have something going on that Chinese intelligence is interested in, even things that may affect you personally, if indrectly (if that's what you care about).

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#767

Post by thesuitonym » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #766

thesuitonym wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how useful of an intelligence asset a map of my house is, or pictures of me in my boxers on a saturday morning. I'm also not sure why you think they weren't already just buying this information from iRobot.

> I'm not sure how useful of an intelligence asset a map of my house is, or pictures of me in my boxers on a saturday morning. Seriously, who cares about you or your house? Why do you think your personal example is the one to reason from? iRobot sold 50 million robots, lets conservatively say 10% of those are internet connected and still in service. That's 5 million households. There's probably quite a few people in…

Again, I don't know why you think China wasn't already buying that information from iRobot before it went bankrupt.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#768

Post by Tangurena2 » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 10:04 PM UTC

starryex wrote: post #737

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…

Having done the hardware game, it's not so much the clones that get you, it's the VCs/shareholders. You need a lot of money to make hardware, so you get vc money and eventually shareholder money. But if you're not selling new hardware all the time, the company isn't making money. So they dictate that you need to make new hardware, yearly. Making new hardware yearly is enough of an undertaking that you no longer have…

> So they dictate that you need to make new hardware, yearly.

Or - turn it into a subscription.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#769

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 10:06 PM UTC

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've been buying Roombas since the very first one (I've had four), but stopped buying them when they started including internet connectivity and cameras.

That was a total dealbreaker for me. No vacuum cleaner needs that.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#770

Post by echelon » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 10:08 PM UTC

tgma wrote: post #702

echelon wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no contractions when you look at how unfair market advantages are being played to harm healthy incumbents. Amazon helped dismantle the entertainment industry. Full stop. It doesn't mean Amazon's home appliance and home automation product lines or platforms are harming competition. There is robust competition in this sector. Amazon offers "free" entertainment, subsidizes the cost of series that rival HBO's G…

The contradiction is it’s just your opinion where to draw the lines which differs from Elizabeth Warren’s. You think your lines are good and hers are bad. She doesn’t. Many other interested parties would like half of it and want to change the other half. The only way out is to reject centrally-planned line-drawing.

In the theoretical limit, a single monopoly owns and dictates everything. That's bad.

In today's mega-conglomerate market duopoly situations, these companies' cash piles and revenues are so big that they can lumber into any industry they want to, dump on the market, kill healthy incumbents, and then leave shittier products and economics in their wake. They get to use their massive "platforms" as taxation dragnets. The platforms themselves barely innovate, yet they rake in enormous revenue streams by taxing all other participants and being the central connection point for all economies.

Is it healthy that we only have two smartphone providers? That they can extort every industry - including crazy unrelated industries like fintechs, automotive, various entertainment industries, etc.?

Is it healthy that the "URL bar" now means Google search in 95% of the panes of glass humans use to access the internet? That a search for a company's products are now a competitive bidding zone where every market participant is taxed on basic branding?

Healthy capitalism should be brutally competitive. It uses regulation to ensure companies do not grow too big to escape evolutionary pressures. Google, Apple, and Amazon ought to be sweating - not sitting by the pool, relaxing. And they certainly shouldn't be able to become invasive species in other markets when their entry amounts to dumping.

I love capitalism. A healthy dose of antitrust regulation makes it more distributed and less antifragile. It makes sure lots of stakeholders can pursue lots of objectives rather than concentrated labs that are merely the lavish luxuries of titans. It prevents laziness and ossification by forcing everyone to be nimble.