Things continue to look bleak for the original robot vacuum maker. iRobot’s third-quarter results, released last week, show that revenue is down and “well below our internal expectations due to continuing market headwinds, ongoing production delays, and unforeseen shipping disruptions,” said Gary Cohen, iRobot CEO, in a press release.
This meant they had to spend more cash and are now down to under $25 million. “At this time, the Company has no sources upon which it can draw for additional capital,” said Cohen.
The Roomba manufacturer has been struggling for several years in the face of increased competition from Chinese manufacturers. A sale to Amazon in 2022 looked to be its lifeline; however, regulatory scrutiny scuppered the deal, and the company was left in further turmoil. It laid off over 30 percent of its staff, lost its founder and CEO, Colin Angle, and was left with substantial debt as a result of the fallout.
This year, iRobot launched an entirely new line of robot vacuums, ostensibly to better compete with companies like Roborock, Ecovacs, and Dreame, adding lidar navigation to its line for the first time (over VSLAM). The new models look significantly different from the original Roombas and more like their competitors. They also use a different app with fewer features, but added some new hardware features the previous models lacked, including spinning mop pads and a roller mop.
In a regulatory filing earlier this month, the company warned it may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection following the breakdown of advanced negotiations with a potential buyer, and if it couldn’t secure additional funding.
Roomba customers are understandably concerned about the impact these current financial troubles might have on their home cleaning robots.
Earlier this month, fellow American robot vacuum manufacturer Neato, which shut down in 2023, pulled the plug on its cloud services, leaving its robots unable to communicate with the Neato app. However, the vacuums can still be controlled manually.
Similarly, if iRobot goes out of business and its cloud shuts down, most Roombas should still continue to work in offline mode — pressing the physical button on the robot to start, stop, and dock it. However, they likely wouldn’t be controllable via the app for features like scheduling or specific room cleaning, or via voice commands. This potential dilemma just further highlights that cloud-connected devices should be enhanced by connectivity, not reliant on it.
I don’t understand how these things took off in the first place. They seem about as helpful as a pet rocks. Well, less since the pet rock won’t spread your dog’s shit around the house.
How is the dog shitting in the house the Roomba’s fault?
If only they had a camera and Ai vision to avoid dog shit
It cleans for you when you’re not there. Not everyone has pets. (And not every pet shits in the house)
I hate them. They’re loud and annoying and get stuck on things. I can vacuum my house a lot faster.
I have bought several in the last decade. I’m techy and disabled, and wanted to help out around the house. I have bought from multiple manufacturer but only purchase their top-tier offering, as I want to replace vacuuming, not just compliment it. We have pulled the manual vac out three times in 9 years.
The cheaper ones are meh, but the expensive ones can truly replace vacuuming and mopping. My issue is that, across… 5 brands, none of them have lasted longer than 2 years, often much shorter lifespans. I recently bought a Roborock with an extended warranty from RR themselves, something none of the others offer, so I’m hoping to be using it for several years to come.
I mean I’ve had to replace a battery every 2 years otherwise this data point has kept working.
Chinese robot cleaners are much better and cheaper than iRobot. No wonder iRobot is failing.
Sure, if you want China to have videos of you, your kids and your home. Roomba so far has the “best” privacy policy from all the companies. I am not saying its warranted, it never is with proprietary software/hardware, but Chinese companies are known for ignoring laws regarding privacy.
Mine shan’t have a camera
still better than Americans when it comes to privacy. It is the lesser of the evils.
I am not fan of America, believe me, but US companies (apart from Zuck and a few others) still have more incentive to adhere to EU rules than the Chinese ones. Also the Chinese companies have to also adhere to Chinese govt rules, that have way more hidden agenda than the US ones (we will see what happens with the trumpette guy…)
but provides mechanisms for the companies or the courts to reject or challenge these if they believe the request violates the privacy rights of the foreign country the data is stored in
require American companies to seek clearance from European officials before complying with United States warrants seeking private data.
Again I am not saying US is ok, but for every 1 PRISM in US there is 100 in china.
The worst of China is still better than the best of America. America wrote the book on mass surveillance and privacy violations.
Yeah… because the US hasn’t spied on anyone in recent history…
He did say “best”
For most people, the best case scenario is vacuuming their floors with offline options.
I don’t trust the biggest guys on the market… I wouldn’t trust iRobot if Amazon did acquire it. But smaller companies do not have enough leverage on EU (I am from EU). They have to adhere, there are audits that must be made and I somehow trust more in audits and rule adherence on US side rather than the Chinese ones.
From a non US Perspective (most of the world) this is a non issue.
Because for the rest of the world the answer to this dilemma boils down to:
Do you want to be shook down by the big guy in the left corner with the can of coke in his hand or do you prefer to be fucked over by that big Asian guy in the right corner who’s slurping on his bubble tea?
I choose the one who demands the least.
solution: get the cheapest one that doesn’t have a camera
Truly the Kodak of this generation
Kodak said “we don’t believe digital photography will take over” and iRobot is like “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas”
They fucked up by making their robots last seemingly forever, due to the fact they spy on you and get stuck every 15 mins so you never want to turn them on.
The entire problem is that automobiles have become an accepted housing option, and Roombas don’t operate well in a vehicular environment, thus drastically cutting into their sale.
This year, iRobot launched an entirely new line of robot vacuums … adding lidar navigation to its line for the first time (over VSLAM).
Reminiscent of all the other failed tech companies that refused to implement better/newer tech.
I wouldn’t get one without lidar.
Lidar is fucking awesome. My vacuum will damn near chase me out of wherever it’s cleaning 😂
There is at least one Robo vac that does not rely on the cloud, and personally I can’t imagine feeling comfortable with a robovac being cloud connected for no reason.
It would be easy enough to force vendors to make the URL the device connects to, configurable and to publish the API the device is using. Two minuscule changes that can prolong the life of devices by decades.
That would make the husk of the company truly worthless, and I’m not sure private equity will allow that.
To be fair, many roombas have a mini DIN connector somewhere, which opens up the possibility for external control - what I plan to do when mine stops working due to server shutdown. However, getting replacement parts will get more and more tricky as time goes by.
I just had to through out a mostly functional airfryer because the drawer rail disintegrated and the replacement part is no longer manufactured. The oldest one I could get was a “new” version with more plastic and a slightly bigger size, so it didn’t fit by about 5%.
It really should be illegal, there is no logical reason for 500 slightly different models and inoperability of basic functions (drawers, APIs, …) aside from malignant greed and planet destruction.
Gods, I fucking hate this so much. I’ve got a ninja blender that the lid seal is broken, and the lid alone is like 50-70% of the cost of a whole new unit. It’s ridiculous how impossible it is to find replacement parts for simple things anymore.
This is why I have a 3D printer. I make all kinds of seals, gaskets, o-rings, usually better than original.
Do you use a special filament for that?
How do you 3d print a rubber gasket/seal?
TPU works fairly well depending on the application.
I wouldn’t rely on it for high temperature (above 150C) or high pressure/vacuum applications, but for most household applications it’ll hold up fine.
This potential dilemma just further highlights that cloud-connected devices should be enhanced by connectivity, not reliant on it.
This should be everyone’s takeaway.
The problem isn’t the company possibly going out of business, its the loss of online service nerfing the device that is the real issue.
We could have consumer protection laws that mandate when a service that a consumer product relies on is no longer being served by the company, they must release the source code as FOSS for the community to carry it on if they so chose. This could apply to video game servers as well as robot vacuums.
Yeah, the one cloud-connected device I had in my house, my Neato D7 Botvac, was lobotomized just last week when Vorwerk switched off its servers. I’m quite pissed off. It still works if I press the button and let it roam, but I lost scheduling, cleaning maps, no-go zones… I’m MORE than quite pissed off.
I have two D5 and the app and cloud connection is working just fine!?
Can you open the website? I can’t:
I didn’t know there’s a website to login to. Always ever used the app. But yes, I can open it:
Weird, must be regional
They should have diversified into ass wiping robots when they had the chance.
All the robots became self aware and reformatted themselves
This vacuuming is brought you by Squarespace…
Glad we have dumb “roomba” that has just one physical sensor when he bumps into something and infra for detecting docking station and for remote control. It does the job and that’s the main thing. Over the years only had to replace the battery.
Glad we have dumb “roomba”
That’s what my wife calls me. JFC America, burn a calorie.
I go ride my bike instead of vacuuming
yeah I usually go work out while it’s running lol, or do some yardwork or something
Calories are expensive, and I’m not made of money.
Catastrophe because we gave up the broom and mop. Oh no.
Do people genuinely rely on these or are they really just a novelty?
rely? no
find it a useful assist? yes
the Roomba can:
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get under couches that my other vacuums cannot
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deal with 90% of the average mess (dog hair and miscellaneous crumbs) without my input
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pick up the little bits that you can never manage to sweep into a dust pan
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do this within about 10-20% of the time it would take me to do it myself
things it cannot do:
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vacuum carpets
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get into corners
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deal with large messes
typically, I will sweep crumbs and crap out of corners into the middle of a room. I do this all the way around this level of the house in under two minutes, which includes picking up the large clumps of fluffy dog hair that have accumulated along the walls and tossing them in the garbage and putting the broom back. I can then run the Roomba, and the only thing left to do after is brush/vacuum the carpets & rugs well.
I also like the mopbot thingy because that definitely takes less time than doing it myself
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Don’t have a roomba (shark owner) and me and my two other vacuum cleaners depend on my robot vacuum to help pickup both my godwn retriever and corgi hair on a daily basis.
I do rely on them. I have two. They basically enable me to never vacuum myself the last 6 years
Honestly I couldn’t imagine life without them anymore
If the apartment/house layout is good for the roomba, it is a great tool. It doesn’t replace vacuuming and floor washing, but it does reduce the dirtness on the floor.
It makes my life easier for sure. I just start it when I head outside for work, errands, etc, and it’s done by the time I get back home.
My Roborock is genuinely an important cleaning tool for keeping my messy house with three kids clean.
Same, I have a Roborock and it cleans my house 3 times a week, mops and vacuums. I still need to vaccums in corners and narrow spots occasionally but the bot does 95% of the work for me
I have a dog and a cat. It saves me ~3 hours of work every month. I make abput 21€ per hour. So that’s basically 63€ I saved monthly.
Who pays you on your off time? Bad logic.
Those 3 hours are hours I invest in my business generating a second income.
Every hour you spend doing chores could be hours spend enjoying your free time or working on projects.
There is no glory in vacuuming… if I can automate it, I will
I’m somewhat interested in what’s coming up from Kärcher. Being a company based in Germany, EU, I’m stupidly hoping that EU data protection laws prevent them from doing the shittiest things.
Being old company from Germany, EU shouldn’t put you at ease.
