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Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

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Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#821

Post by fredfilz »

jamesrr39 wrote: post #748
brandensilva wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lol was thinking the same. Btw if you're into sensors, keen to chat. I'm the founder of crewline.ai, just raised our seed and are bringing on a couple key founding engineering hires.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#823

Post by rockemsockem »

echelon wrote: post #679
rockemsockem wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe one day you'll realize the contradictions in this post and think about how you cheered for things that led to this. I doubt it though

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 that breaking up Google and Amazon would also destroy categories of business where the United States is dominant over other countries.

Prevent them from buying their competitors, for sure, but don't kid yourself into thinking that there are many neat ways to parcel these companies up into neat little independent business units. There is at best a very small number of ways to do this and the government will not get it right, just look at their most recent attempt with Google to strip out Chrome of all things.

Just to be clear on my stance,I agree that blocking the irobot deal was absurd. Context matters in a big way, clearly they were struggling and were basically alone in the market as an American company.

I think you also need to apply that context to Google and Amazon and consider whether the government would do so wisely.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#824

Post by throw44d3etty »

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…

> (My wife is Asian ffs, I'm not racist.)

I’m not saying you are a racist but this statement never really holds much weight.

I’ve met plenty of western expats in Asia that are married to locals, have mixed raced children, and yet still say the most racist things about the locals.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#825

Post by ch4s3 »

azemetre wrote: post #813
ch4s3 wrote: post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the government’s job to punish them either, and in this case Warren destroyed the jobs of many of her constituents. Ahh yes workplace democracy, famously tenable for high tech companies.

It is absolutely the the role of government to regulate commerce and establish competitive markets (note the lack of the word free here). I also have zero faith in tech leadership as they have been the major driver of mass misery across humanity. Not only should they be stripped of their positions in their companies, but leadership should be directly given to the workers. It's the only way to right to the wrong. If i…

How did iRobot hurt anyone? It seems like Warren hurt their workers by denying them the opportunity to keep their jobs. Moreover the whole home robotics industry no resides in China where the companies are run in an even more authoritarian fashion.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#826

Post by stavros »

miniwark wrote: post #217
meindnoch wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you look inside the old battery? It may well be just a bunch of 18650 cells with some electronics in a plastic case. Just desolder the old cells and solder on new ones. I did the same for my wife's cordless vacuum, and it works better than new, because the new cells are about 2x the capacity of the originals.

Lets go with the usual reminder: de-soldering / soldering Li-ion cells can be super dangerous. With a bit too much of heat it can fire or even explode...

Don't solder lithium cells, even if it goes well you'll ruin them. You need a spot welder.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#827

Post by prmoustache »

port11 wrote: post #809
armonster wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Easy counter: people with children. We vacuum the dining area daily because of the kid. We also have building ventilation that is sadly unfiltered, so we have more dust than normal coming in. We don't vacuum everything daily but a robot would really help us, we just won't buy an internet connected one or something that's very pricey. Our existing vacuum is crazy efficient and quiet.

I also vacuum my dining/kitchen area daily, I actually sweep de re vacuuming, and it only takes me a couple of minutes to do it and this is part of the many things I wouldn't even want to get rid of as it is one among many other things thay allows my body to be active.

Some people install domotic, always choose escalators and elevators over stairs, do everything they need to not move their ass during the day only to pay for a gym pass and spend more time at the gym than they have provably saved avoiding "living".

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#828

Post by estimator7292 »

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

I think half the problem was the proposed Amazon acquisition. I was actually very seriously considering one of the newest Roomba models at the time it was announced. I decided to buy another brand because I knew amazon would 100% use it to spy on me.

Now instead China is using it to spy on people. Glad I didn't buy one I guess.

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#829

Post by chemodax »

furyg3 wrote: post #136

Are there any good robo-vacuum cleaners that will still clean your floor if the internet is down? I've had my Miele vacuum cleaner for 15 years now, and I bought it second hand. I can still buy bags and filters for it, and when the floor roller piece broke (something heavy fell on it) I was able to buy a replacement one for cheap. I see no reason why it can't go another 10 years. It feels like a very low probability…

I recommend to look at Kärcher RCV 5. High quality.

https://www.kaercher.com/us/home-garden/robot-vacuums-and-mo...

Re: Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges

#830

Post by Earw0rm »

IgorPartola wrote: post #650
Earw0rm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A robot capable of preparing meals also has a similar hazard matrix to a car. Absolutely no way I'm having something cloud-connected - with human-body level degrees of freedom and the actuator strength to pick up a knife and chop a carrot - or anything else it might want to chop - in the house. Plus, anything that smart is connected by definition. It doesn't need wi-fi, it's got eyes. Open-source-ness is somewhat moo…

Why would the food prep robot be humanoid? There is no reason for that. And my point is that I wouldn't want it to be cloud-connected at all. No reason for that either. I don't need it to be intelligent. I need it to have recipe-following, and specific functions like measure(), chop(), dice(), grate(), mix(), etc. For laundry, have you considered that not everything is a T-shirt? Suits, socks, onesies, pajamas, sweat…

Because it needs to fetch implements, access cupboards, use appliances. Otherwise it's basically a Thermomix.

I'm not talking about a long term storage drawer for the laundry system, more like a large pull-out in which dry, folder items are dispensed. And I wouldn't put a suit in a washing machine full-stop, I don't know what they have where you are but the ones in this country would wreck a suit jacket very quickly, we take jackets for dry-cleaning once a month or so.

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