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’m pretty sure somebody will buy the data iRobot robots collected during their cleaning time :-)
I wonder how valuable that data even is, or to who. I figure the data consists of accumulated cleaning time, location, surface area which could be used to extrapolate some socio economic stats and offer insight how to best market these devices. And also technical data about the devices. Both of which I’d wager are probably useful to companies in the same business.
We’ll see who buys them in a year :D
Not just surface area, based on algorithms it can also determine type of appliances, furniture layout, routines, habits and a lot more when combined with other datasets.
https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
iRobot not even on the list despite being the original de facto vacuum robot OEM
I’m just going to leave this here: https://github.com/awesome-vacuum/awesome-vacuum
The movie wasn’t very good either
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!
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.
I highly doubt his voters will ever realize it. People who voted for him have single digit IQs. Other Americans warned them before hand.
They’re about to learn about the world stage
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.
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.
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.
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.
We need open source alternatives
I’ll just put this right here…
Valetudo, though an absolutely amazing software, is no the replacement I was meaning. I meant we need a fully open source robot, from software to hardware, and that can be adapted. Of course there’s always blobs which are not open source, but that’s the case already for many things
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…
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.
And clean up the crime scene…
You saw nothing
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.
So the Roomba I bought in 2021 is gonna stop working come 2026… Guess I need an open source vacuum now too 😩
It’s going to become feral
Here you go https://valetudo.cloud/
Thank you stranger! This is great
🤛
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.
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 🤷.
And then they go and remotely kill the vacuum after just 5 years… (See above)… Yeah, not crying for iRobot…
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.
I pulled a trigger in 2024 for their 2023 pick. Dreame l20 ultra. It has app and does connect to the net. My pihole doesn’t necessary send tons of requests outside. Just occasionally and most of them is when I visit app.
If you want truly self hosted vacuum, check out valetudo and their list of supported vacs. This way you would retain most of not all features and it will be fully your own device.
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.
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.
Why are the Chinese companies not collapsing too? What’s different about irobot that they can’t compete?
Competitive market. Chinese brands have lower cost of production and sell their vacuums cheaper. They also took the lead with new features.
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
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.
Same experience as domi, had to take the whole thing apart. It was pretty straightforward as the guide was excellent. My only regret is forgetting to enable SSH access before reassembling it.
I rooted both of my Roborock S6.
If you can solder and have an UART USB cable, it’s not really hard to do. Technically you can flash it by just holding your UART adapter against the solder pads but soldering them on definitely makes it easier.
There’s a full video guide on how to dissassemble and root here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9PoaNtZCJRZc61c792VCr_I6jQK_IdSb
Firmware and everything else is here: https://builder.dontvacuum.me/_s6.html
Also, if you don’t have a Roborock yet, the Dreame models are significantly easier to root. Don’t even have to disassemble most of them.
Thank you. Funny enough it looks like I’ve already watched both of those videos last time I was looking into this. I’m comfortable soldering but it was yet another barrier to me actually making a purchase.
I’ll check out Dreame, I have not heard much about them.
I’ve had two Neato’s in the past and I really miss having one but I now live in a split-level house and the convenience factor drops down a lot when you have to carry it between floors all the time rather than just coming home to a freshly cleaned carpet.
I’ll check out Dreame, I have not heard much about them.
Roborock, Dreame and Xiaomi are functionally almost identical. Some of them even share the same parts.
If you want to root them, get a Dreame or a Xiaomi. Most of them are rootable without disassembly, see the list linked above.
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.
I have an ender 3 and Im glad it doesn’t do any of that. So much more complicated
And some brands of 3D printers have started placing those functionalities behind remote servers and paywalls
cough cough Bambu Labs cough cough
BambuLab A1 Mini. It has a WNIC.
Hmm. Interesting.
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.
So my vacuum will likely not work in 12 months. Niiiice.
Their products are like 5 years behind their competitors. It’s inevitable.
