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.
(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.
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.
yes but they don’t need a cloud service, neither scanning your home to function
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.
What about LEGO Mindstorms? Does that count?
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.
True, I guess my comment did sound a bit “not interesting” 😅
I think it’s a great development kit. I wish my Eufy robot vacuum had that level of tinker-ability. It’s already got googly eyes…
Oof, as an American company the rest of the world is boycotting them too.
Yup, they are toast. I dont think the Americans have realized how much permanent damage Trump has caused.
Democrats have known from the moment he was elected. Republicans are starting to figure it out now that they are feeling the effects. Of course, they were the ones who caused it so…
They’re really not though, maga fascists, actually believe this is a mere speed bump on the way to the promised land…
“Many economists are saying that the market was due for a correction…”
I’ve seen that comment a few times in the last few days. They’ll say ANYTHING to support Dear Leader.
Yeah but will they still believe that in 4 years? The problem for the republicans now is that they are getting called out by their own voters right now and it’s only March of the year 1.
So now they have to tread the fine line of not being too supportive of his policies so that they stand re-election chances while at the same time not being so against the policies as to risk Trump’s revenge. It’s a very shitty bed they have to lie in, and I almost feel sorry for them, but they deliberately shit in it themselves, so sod them.
Economists will literally say anything to perpetuate capitalism/the status quo.
All the economists here (Canada) are saying this is an absolute disaster that will cause a recession. No reasonable person believes these tariffs are a net positive.
Not only boycotts, it’ll also be a prime target for retaliatory tariffs. So for even those that don’t care about the boycott, a Roomba will cost at least 25% more than the equivalent robot vacuum made in Korea.
I highly doubt his voters will ever realize it. People who voted for him have single digit IQs. Other Americans warned them before hand.
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
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
I have an ender 3 and Im glad it doesn’t do any of that. So much more complicated
BambuLab A1 Mini. It has a WNIC.
Hmm. Interesting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also because section 1201 of the DMCA means that otherwise useful things become e-waste.
my first thought was aren’t they a part of the Military Industrial Complex, how could they possibly go bankrupt? It turns out they sold off that part of their business in 2016 to private equity. Oops.
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.
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
Good news, buttplug.io is written in Rust so it’s safe.
Here you go https://valetudo.cloud/
Thank you stranger! This is great
🤛
It’s going to become feral
We need decent European alternatives for robot vaccuums.
Chinese mop vacuum combos with dust and water bin are going for $500 these days. It is bonkers how cheap they go. Trying to compete in that market is a lost cause. Better install Valetudo on a Chinese vacuum. Maybe a European OEM could do something similar.
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 🤷.
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?
Doesn’t matter if it’s proprietary and they price the cost at a high amount
Competitive market. Chinese brands have lower cost of production and sell their vacuums cheaper. They also took the lead with new features.
And then they go and remotely kill the vacuum after just 5 years… (See above)… Yeah, not crying for iRobot…
Once they are cut off from the parent company they will go rogue and attack in the night…
And clean up the crime scene…
You saw nothing
I’m just going to leave this here: https://github.com/awesome-vacuum/awesome-vacuum
Their products are like 5 years behind their competitors. It’s inevitable.
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!
