Troubled robot vacuum-cleaner maker iRobot, abandoned by Amazon after regulators effectively doomed the web giant’s takeover offer, has warned investors it may not survive the next 12 months.
Will certainly be a bummer if they do go under, I really appreciated their serviceability. Have several in the immediate family that have been going for over 7 years at this point though all kinds of calamities. Each time can I just pop out all the components clean/replace as necessary and get it back in service, good as new.
Agree. While I think there’s been little effort to evolve their products at the same pace as their competitors, I have very much appreciated their servicability.
If it doesn’t work, hit it with a hammer.
If it then breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
Once they are cut off from the parent company they will go rogue and attack in the night…
And clean up the crime scene…
When I got my first robot vacuum I was too impatient to wait for the battery to fully charge before trying it out so when I started it up it was only able to clean a small area before it had to go back to charge. Very exciting though!
Anyway I went to bed not realizing that once it was fully charged it would resume cleaning. So approximately 1am the vacuum wakes back up and starts cleaning. In my sleep-addled delirious state I had absolutely no idea what the fuck was going on. Suddenly it sounded like there was a jet engine in my room and I couldn’t even tell where it was coming from until I jumped out of bed and there were red lights coming at me.
Saw my life flash before my eyes. Little fucker might as well have been a terminator.
We need decent European alternatives for robot vaccuums.
The free market is supposed to make this happen. The problem is that we have also built a system that just generates mountains of junk and e-waste. Because our government is feckless and refuses to actually regulate, ya know, anything with a shareholder attached.
So the Roomba I bought in 2021 is gonna stop working come 2026… Guess I need an open source vacuum now too 😩
this comment makes me question, is there an open source sex toy community?
edit: there is lmao https://github.com/PITR-DEV/ukbutt-modBro … this is the best response I’ve ever gotten on Lemmy 🤣🤣🤣 thank you stranger, both fascinating and hilarious
I’m glad I waited to replace my old Eufy one. I definitely will not be replacing it with Roomba now.
Haha. Ofc with these prices and features compared to some other good Chinese and other brands roomba is doomed. Like check vacuum wars on YT. Middle model roombas are on par with your typical Chinese brand robots but price is double. Basically, you pay for a brand 🤷.
I will check them out later! I’ve been wanting a robot vacuum for a while now but I also am wary of Chinese bullshit.
I want a really good one that doesn’t connect to the internet in any way. 👍🏻 Even if that kills some of its smart features.
Yeah, that mindset was steep in a little bit of truth and a little bit of racism. China couldn’t stay behind the United States for eternity, that’s not how the flow of time works and they’re making all of our stuff so they know how to make it better.
I have an older model roomba, the 630 that has no internet connection whatsoever.
Chinese stuff has largely reached the same tipping point Japanese/Korean stuff reached in the 80s, where the previous couple decades it was cheap crap and “all of a sudden” it’s on par or better than domestic consumer tech.
The cheap junk is still cheap junk of course but if you look at the middle tier or better they can be very good. DJI is a prime example, there aren’t a lot of alternative drones if you want it to ‘just work’ and work well with decent support. You can also get a drone on Ali-express/TEMU for $20 but it’s going to be cheap crap, but DJI drones you can buy in BestBuy and the bigger/more professional ones get used on movie sets.
Why are the Chinese companies not collapsing too? What’s different about irobot that they can’t compete?
Is that a serious question? If it was, then Labor costs is the short answer. The longer answer would also include unmatched economies of scale at every step in the supply chain leading up to the final manufactured product as well. So their cheap labor also gets them cheap components.
Hmm, can irobot not also manufacture their products in China?
So my vacuum will likely not work in 12 months. Niiiice.
Their products are like 5 years behind their competitors. It’s inevitable.
It would be great if more smart devices had a LAN-only control mode like my 3D printer, TV and AV receiver.
I would be perfectly happy if my iRobot phone app only worked from inside my network.
Doesn’t apply to iRobot but there are lots of robot vacuums that can be flashed with an open firmware with just a USB UART cable: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
As for the other devices, my 3D printer, projector and AV receiver are all locally controlled.
Big +1 for Valetudo. I use it on a refurbished Roborock S7+ I got on eBay and it’s fantastic.
How was your experience rooting it?
I’ve been really wanting a Roborock for a while but I saw that changes starting on I think their S6 model made rooting it much more difficult and required a pretty extensive disassembly process.
I’m pretty comfortable with electronics teardowns but the thought of having to fully disassemble my brand new device to root it made me decide to wait a little and see how things shake out. I haven’t looked into it seriously for maybe a year or so though so I don’t know what has changed.
Make sure to read their disclaimers, they’re really not interested in expanding features, so make double sure it’s sufficient for what you want.
I think it’s just using MQTT, so block network access and use HomeAssistant
At that point, I wouldn’t trust ANY device that cannot be controlled locally, either natively or at least through some hacks.
Your 3d printer has a NIC?
It’s pretty common for newer 3D printers to have WiFi. Start/stop jobs, monitor cameras, or just to have a more capable UI than the built-in screen. Lots of people add this capability to older printers (or new ones with sucky interfaces) with OctoPrint.
And some brands of 3D printers have started placing those functionalities behind remote servers and paywalls
cough cough Bambu Labs cough cough
My cheap Conga robot came with a remote controller. It stopped connecting to its server long ago, but I can still use it. The battery is getting worse and worse, though.
Slightly off topic but how are y’all at replacing the parts that get worn out?
I’m still on the 2nd filter it came with and I haven’t replaced any of the brushes, etc.,
I kind of wish I had a maintenance schedule where I just had the parts delivered and replaced them at set intervals rather than having to guess when it’s worn out.
But I also don’t want to overspend.
If you’re using a roomba, the app will typically tell you when to replace your brushes and filter. The filter you can find easy replacements for as well as the little spinning brush. The bigger brushes are harder. You can buy replacements from third party vendors for cheap, but they’re not perfect… and if you have carpeting the roomba will freak out until the third party brushes wear down a bit. After that happens, everything mostly works.
I usually clean out the roomba every week and replace the brushes every 4 months or so. I run mine nightly though (I have kids).
There are a million third party vendors that sell replacements on amazon, just take a look. Though - and I don’t know for sure having not actually read the article - it seems as though you may also need to change out the firmware so you can keep operating it if iRobot’s servers go down, since all the roombas i’m aware of need internet connectivity to operate.
If you’re at the point where you need to start replacing parts, it might be worth starting to look into other brands
My Roomba doesn’t connect to the Internet – I use the clean and dock buttons
I’m a bit of a diy and repair nerd for damned near anything. I have a near 20 year old roomba 530 model that still works great. Back then and for a good many years roombas were hands down the best bang for your buck. I haven’t recommended them for the past decade. They fell behind in ability and build quality. Let alone any of the privacy concerns stuff. Damned shame.
Mozilla gave them an OK privacy rating. Not great, but not terrible.
You know we can’t really trust Mozilla on the privacy front anymore right?
I don’t believe that is true if you’ve followed the story.
Patiently awaiting Congress to ban any Chinese robot vacuums out of national security risk
Had an old one that kinda works but is a pain. More recently, we splurged on a more modern pet version with Wi-Fi and all the bells.
It was fantastic. And 3 weeks in, couldn’t stay connected to the network even right beside the router and was doing constant very short runs before returning to the dock saying it was full.
Returned it.
Hmm so this entire trick of setting up companies just to be bought by mega corps appears to be not a viable strategy if anti trust law is enforced?
Edit: apparently this company was set up before sell to mega corp craze got kicked off. I don’t think changes the thesis but this case study doesn’t support it with the strength I suggested
Hmm as if last 30 years of corpo behavior has been essentially to maintain mega corp dominance via captured regulators and legislators
We got the capitalism alright but where is the free market at, daddy?
setting up companies just to be bought by mega corps
iRobot was originally founded all the way back in 1990 and have sold quite a lot of Roomba vacuums, advancing innovation in home automation along the way. I don’t think anyone can ever say that they set up this company for a quick flip corpo pump and dump.
Well damn… How did they run the company into the ground?
Let me guess cheap Chinese robots sold on amazon?
Thank you providing additional context.
Honestly I think they suffer a little from early-mover disadvantage.
“Cheap Chinese” and all the associations that come with that is a little reductive in this case. Roborock vacuums are not actually cheap - they are extraordinarily well-made, featureful, and a good value compared to iRobot.
Decades ago, iRobot probably spent millions in R&D just to arrive at navigation algorithms that were worse than what you can get with open-source libraries today. They also spent the marketing dollars to convince people these robots were safe and effective. They weren’t always, so there were some ups and downs in that.
Nowadays the supporting technologies are all much more advanced (and cheaper) and the market for these robots has been created already and is very robust. Companies like Roborock just have to come in and build a good product and they’ll see much faster returns than iRobot did for all those years. They can go straight to lidar, which was probably prohibitive for iRobot for many years, leading iRobot to invest heavily in other technologies which are now a generation behind.
So in addition to their decades of tech legacy. iRobot is burdened with the expectations of longtime investors who want a big cashout, just as they are getting eaten alive by all this new competition. They pinned their hopes on a big exit and are now holding the bag. It’s not surprising that this all left them in trouble.
It was originally at up to leech government funding for “weapons research”. I guess I’m old because nobody here seems to remember that.
What’s the context for this?
iRobot started off as a defense contractor making mine clearing algorithms or some such vaporware.
Hmm an interesting pivot
Don’t worry, the new strategy is to string a company along with talks of a buyout, then when their cash runs out and they declare bankruptcy, to buy all the assets on fire sale.
Owners of the take over target shoulda worked harder and maybe ate less avocado toast?
fire tablet, fire phone, fire sale!
'member the HP Touchpad? I 'member…
The market is “free” to fuck you and everyone you know on the ass.
Didn’t you know that’s what “free market“ means?
I do, in fact, dislike being fucked on the ass.
I like it, myself, but not when it’s a major global multi billion dollar corporation doing it.
The operative word here is consent haha
That is always the operative word. Except for those who don’t can’t and will never accept that that word exists.
Parasite class and their legal persons sure do have a rapist culture as their MO
It’s not capitalism without exploitation.
oh its free alright. for oligarchs to do whatever the fuck they want.
You just gotta be big enough that you can buy enough people. FAANG is there (though this is Wild West politics nowadays so who the fuck knows what’s gonna happen). But when you own the people writing the laws to control you… they’re not controlling you.
(I know I didn’t contribute shit & just complain but) … isn’t it a bit weird how after all this time there arent any good open sauce diy robot kits?
Like, materials, sensors, brushes, filters, batteries, etc are all cheaply available, a basic board could literally be just cut plywood with the rest is the things mounted on top (who even needs a cover?). And ofc one could mount various weapons mod on it.
I love DIY tech projects and yet I would never go through the effort to make a robot vacuum because vacuuming is already the easiest chore in the house. You kinda just stand there and go swoop swoop swoop a few times. Takes like 3 minutes to do an entire room. As opposed to listening to the robot vacuum rumble around for an hour and do a half ass job, if it even finishes without getting spooked by a shadow thinking it’s a 100ft cliff
Sounds like you don’t have a thick furred dog that sheds multiple coats throughout the year.
We got a roomba as a gift and it has saved so much effort of sweeping/vacuuming the excess of fur on the floors.
Love my husky but damn…
Yeah, people complain about roombas not giving a super deep clean… But they’re really not intended to do so. They’re meant to be a daily maintenance clean. They may not be great for when you dump an entire can of coffee grounds in your carpet… But they’re wonderful when you have a big dog with lots of fur that needs to be vacuumed every single day.
Better to put my efforts toward automating the flipping of light switches and the raising/lowering of window shades
I really don’t like vacuuming, so to me it doesn’t matter how long it takes; I can set it up and then leave the house
Yes, we all need to manage our lives & our shortcomings.
I like vacuum cleaning chore too, but can have periods when my brainhole just won’t register the todo.Got a good deal on a Roomba, I have a shark with HEPA filter and all, very good vacuum. I can vacuum, then let the Roomba run, and it still finds shit. I like it, especially for pet hair. Only thing I don’t like is it’s random pattern, mine doesn’t map the room, refuse to get one with a camera.
Didn’t iRobot put out a DIY robot/vacuum that you could assemble how you wanted?
Yeah, but it didn’t have a vacuum. It was just a development thing.
It was an awesome rover robot for tinkering and introducing kids to technology! Wish there were more versions of hardware like that.
There is https://valetudo.cloud/ for a lot of existing models, it’s about the closest thing we have.
“for a lot of models” is a bit of an exaggeration. Especially as Xiaomi/Dreame try to actively restrict Valetudo use.
But yes, Valetudo is a great project. I’d just wish there was a manufacturer who would openly endorse it.
I’ve wondered before how large an order would be required to entice a white label manufacturer of robot vacuums into doing a production run of units with Valetudo preinstalled.
I would absolutely buy one if someone could work out a fair business arrangement with the developer and throw the project up on kickstarter.
There are not enough smart-vacuum owners in the world that would make it more profitable to just make the hardware without hoovering up the data that comes with its use.
Oh fuck,
I’m gonnaI might test this.
I’ve never heard of it before, but the more I read the more I like it.Thx!
I have it on a Roborock S5 and it works great, so much more stable than the original firmware that requires an internet connection.
Certain models can be harder to root though, so read through the description and guide thoroughly first.
I have an S5 Max, its a long time I think about switching… but I dunno if its worth it
Yeah if it’s working fine now I wouldn’t bother.
Popular Science had an “open source” robot lawnmower plans in the…80s? I have it somewhere. Old enough that it used deep cycle lead-acid batteries and spinning round dremel blades. No laser to cut the grass, although it did use LEDs for sensors for grass height.
Go ahead and make one then. Nobody is stopping you from being the first.
… I’m that, my best is what is stopping me :(.
I mean, I don’t demand an open source washing machine or dryer either.
Ok, but that would be amazing.
Imagine the ability to actually define your own cycles.
Tho how most are built, that shouldn’t be that hard with a little arduino.
yes but they don’t need a cloud service, neither scanning your home to function
What about LEGO Mindstorms? Does that count?
Tried several of those vacuums but none really worked that well
Have you tried Roborock? It’s an amazing vacuum and connects very well inside Home Assistant.
Also easy to repair. I got one that’s like 8 years old and I replaced the blower and a sensor and its super easy and the components are cheap.
Not only that, they post the wiring diagrams online and even have a video tear downs.
Here is an example.
Nah I got kids they will kill it on no time
I do too. I just run it when they are in school. I keep the vacuum in my coat closet and open the door when I’m about to run it.
