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.
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.
deleted by creator
Another company squandering their patents and market advantage. Reminds me of TiVo.
This. I know someone who used to work there. They wouldn’t enforce the patents in China to the point where you could drop in Roomba subassemblies in competitor robots and they would still work…
I love my TiVo. I had to find someone to repair my current unit because it’s an antenna version. They don’t have/make new antenna versions.
TiVo had such an excellent UI. DVRs became common, but all the ones I saw had such inferior interfaces. Such a shame.
I bought and hacked a TiVo unit and used it for years in a place where the service wasn’t available. I miss that thing.
deleted by creator
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…
I’m glad my old, non-smart one still works fine. It slams into things and says, “Roomba needs help” or something when it eats a sock or wire I missed. But at least it will outlast the company’s servers.
The movie wasn’t very good either
Pretty much inevitable. Nowadays there are so many robot vacuum cleaners from different brands, and everyone has more or less figured out the tech so they all work pretty well. (I have a Roborock, and have nothing to say about it other than it keeps the floors clean and doesn’t cause me any grief.) There’s no moat, so consumer market success is purely a matter of manufacturing and cost efficiency, and iRobot obviously would have a huge upfill fight against Samsung, Xiaomi, and a thousand other light consumer goods makers.
I bought a roborock Q Revo the other week, and it works great at vacuuming and mopping.
I changed its spoken language to Chinese though, to remind me who I’m living with.
I thought this was a funny gag, until I changed my router and wifi, and then had to update the robots wifi connection with all the voice prompts in chinese
i bought a roomba 2 years ago. It wasnt the cheapest, but it was the only company that isnt some cheap, chinese knockoff brand. American designed and operated still had some advantages for me at the time.
This was before USA plunged into facism though. Now i’m not sure what i would buy.
Their products are like 5 years behind their competitors. It’s inevitable.
https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
iRobot not even on the list despite being the original de facto vacuum robot OEM
Well obviously, they need to get into the lucrative back alley robot vacuum cleaner fight rings. Strap on that knife iRobot vacuum, and lets go!
I rarely use mine, but can I block them from using the Internet and they’ll still work?
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).
Nice. Might buy one when it’s on sale for $30
Do you not see the logic of my plan?
Yes, but it just seems too heartless.
