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.
Do people genuinely rely on these or are they really just a novelty?
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.
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.
My Roborock is genuinely an important cleaning tool for keeping my messy house with three kids clean.
They should have diversified into ass wiping robots when they had the chance.
Customers shouldn’t need to be concerned because the company going down should not brick your PHYSICAL PRODUCTS
And yet, here we are
I’ve got one, and it works well enough when offline.
If not, I could set up Home Assistant and self-host it.
It’s a shame, as Mozilla gave iRobot one of the better privacy ratings. That’s the only reason I allowed it in my house to begin with.
But, clearly, a Google Home or Amazon Alexa needs cloud connectivity to function. And short of Stop Killing Games regulations forcing companies to release software to keep purchases functional after server shutdowns, there’s going to be no alternative when they shut down the servers.
But where do we draw the line?
A smart fridge should obviously keep working without cloud connectivity, since cloud features aren’t relevant to its core functionality.
A
spywarehouse-scanning vacuum robot, on the other hand, that stores video of your entire house on web servers “to map your home” may not have the processing power to model the home based on itssurveillancevideo recordings. So, is it reasonable, then, that these break when servers go offline?Without any regulations, the answer is just “consumers can go fuck themselves”, which clearly isn’t a good answer.
I bought a robot vacuum, rooted it, and installed Valetudo (Wyze WVCR200S w/motherboard from a Viomi V6 - same robot).
I don’t have to worry about this shit anymore. The vacuum still does the vacuum thing whether or not it’s connected to the internet.
How difficult was this to do?
Is this a COA for irobot Roombas?
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.
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.
This vacuuming is brought you by Squarespace…
For anyone interested in owning their vacuum robot check out Valetudo
Idk, the dev seems… hostile. And prevents the project from becoming a community effort. Also:
Feature-parity is a non-goal for Valetudo, and if you’re wondering which features “you might lose”, Valetudo is not for you.
I mean, I do wonder if I will lose features, therefore I guess I should look elsewhere.
And prevents the project from becoming a community effort.
No, I am not doing that, because I cannot do that. That is the whole thing with FOSS code.
If there was a community of builders picking it up and doing something community-driven, I could not do anything about it, nor would I want to.
They would be required to not call it Valetudo + not use the logo, so that they cannot coast off the brand and reputation of course - and that I would absolutely expect from anyone -, but other than that anyone can do whatever.
Why this hasn’t happened yet, I cannot say for certain, but my hypothesis is that no one actually wants to put in the work. Likely both because work is work and work is annoying, but also because what exists now just works so what would you even do other than slap another name on it and feel good about yourself.
But putting that aside, I’d like to ask a different question: Why wouldn’t I want that?
If community is nice, friendly, warm and full of heart, why would I oppose that? I am, after all, just like you. A human that would like to have fun, pleasant and nice interactions with other like-minded humans. I, like everyone else, am a social creature that enjoys being seen as a fellow human and member of a group.
So why would I oppose that?
The answer to that might be, that the mental model of “community project” does not actually in reality and execution fit any of what I described right now.
Of course, I cannot and will not rule out that it is just me and that I am the problem, but even if that is the case, then I still need to exist and need space to exist. “Just be normal” just means “stop being you”
It would be quite weird to not allow me to exist within the space I created from nothing from the ground up, wouldn’t it? If even that isn’t a place I would be allowed to be in, then where is?
Valetudo is not a community is on the website.
If your answer to my comment is: “well, you can create your own community, with blackjack and hookers!”, well… There’d be so much to discuss that I don’t think it’s worth it.
And as for the second paragraph, communities aren’t “nice”. They’re communities, made of people, who are all flawed, just like everyone is, in different ways, but manage to make the puzzle of human interaction fit. If all you want is people communicating and behaving in a specific way that you approve of, that’s not a community.
Nobody’s forcing you out of your space and I’ve never proposed it, I just said that I won’t be using your software, we’re both making our choices, hopefully in respect of each other.
Holy crap, didn’t expect the creator of Valetudo to be here. Love your style, keep it up
🫡
Thank you very much for your hard work. I would never have gotten a robot vacuum if Valetudo did not exist.
It’s all explained here: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/why-not-valetudo.html
The dev has a specific vision and that’s it. If you don’t like it you can use something else.
Just like the dev of Calibre/Kitty. He does things a certain way because that’s the way he likes it. It’s a stupid and shit way, but Calibre has no real competition so I use it 🙂
The dev has a specific vision and that’s it. If you don’t like it you can use something else.
Yes, that’s what I wrote as well.
Idk, the dev seems… hostile.
I’ve only ever seen a dev become “hostile” when people simply don’t read the documentation and ask the same questions over and over and over again.
I’ve been eyeballing this, doesn’t seem too difficult for most compatible models either. Might be a little after Christmas project
Absolutely love Valetudo!
Oh look, another example of a product that worked fine without internet connectivity and was improved by adding extra bullshit you don’t actually need that then gets worse when those features can’t function properly because their server is offline.
We got a basic roomba 650 (the one that crashes into stuff and randomly cleans) like 10 years ago and it still works fine (well, as well as it ever worked which wasn’t great), you program the time and day of the week with physical buttons, and leave it alone.
Yeah. I’ve got an 870 that’s still cleaning. It gets stuck under furniture and needs to be rescued at least once a week, and last week it lost its
assdustbin somehow mid clean, but it’s still kicking.Lmao
How did they squander being the name in autonomous vacuum devices…? It’s kinda baffling tbh.
Really? It’s not a mystery. China. For the past 5+ years they have had better and cheaper vacuums. Meanwhile innovation has been at a standstill with irobot for the past decade.
Well, Chinese manufactures cloned the design and came in well under price, took the Chinese market, then improved the product and challenged iRobot globally.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
I would not say they cloned the design. The first breakthrough for Roborock was the S5, which had LiDAR and a map. Both was not something iRobot had at the time. iRobot simply chose to not innovate in the areas people wanted first. People didn’t like the random cleaning that the roombas did for a long time compared to the structured of almost everybody else.
I used to work at iRobot. Chinese manufacturers cloned Roomba so well that parts from their robot like wheels assemblies could be dropped in and the Roomba would work.
The issue is that iRobot decided not to litigate patent infringement in China because it’s an uphill battle.
I agree that iRobot was very slow to innovate. They were on the brink of releasing a lawn mower robot but covid hit and the C suites made the decision to kill that product and fire that team to reduce risk…
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
If it doesn’t work when the cloud is down, it’s not your thing. Don’t buy it. 8sleep is only the most recent example.
Not to support this cloud-only system, but I used to own an iR (several, actually) and they can clean the entire space, pause, and cancel/dock with physical buttons.
Though it loses a large chunk of its smarts without a connection. No floor plan retention, no room selection, no 1 pass/2 pass, no knowledge about no-go lines and zones, no adjustable suction based on room…
But there’s no real reason for that. Losing the smarts. It’s just artificial to achieve lower bom.
Really? It can’t do no-go zones and lines without the cloud? Even the „Chinese competition“ can do that without internet.
Afaik there is extremely limited storage on these bots, so the floor plan is stored server-side. No cloud, no server, no no-go capabilities.
Given how cheap flash storage has been for years, this is an intentional design choice. They wanted it to be server side only, likely for data collection purposes.
The rommbas? Maybe. The other ones? They have plenty storage.
If only we had things like 1tb storage in a tiny chip
I hope one day we could develop something like this
Line no go up if consumer has autonomy and awareness. Quick, marketing drones, put up more information about our amazing and very complex and totally unique super mega ultra cloud!
✨ profits ✨
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.
Buy a broom ya lazy bums
