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.

  • kionay@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Do you not see the logic of my plan?
    Yes, but it just seems too heartless.

  • StinkySocialist@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    So the Roomba I bought in 2021 is gonna stop working come 2026… Guess I need an open source vacuum now too 😩

  • Prehensile_cloaca @lemm.ee
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    8 days ago

    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.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      Also because section 1201 of the DMCA means that otherwise useful things become e-waste.

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    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.

  • Alpha71@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    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!

  • imetators@lemm.ee
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    8 days ago

    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 🤷.

    • cornshark@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Why are the Chinese companies not collapsing too? What’s different about irobot that they can’t compete?

      • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
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        8 days ago

        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.

    • CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.cafe
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      8 days ago

      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.

      • imetators@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        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.

      • dickalan@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        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.

      • turmacar@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        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.

    • KingDingbat@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      And then they go and remotely kill the vacuum after just 5 years… (See above)… Yeah, not crying for iRobot…

  • cyd@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    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.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      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

    • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
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      9 days ago

      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.

  • endofline@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    I’m pretty sure somebody will buy the data iRobot robots collected during their cleaning time :-)

    • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      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

      • And009@lemmynsfw.com
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        7 days ago

        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.

  • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    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.

      • aarch64@lemm.ee
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        8 days ago

        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.

        • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 days ago

          And some brands of 3D printers have started placing those functionalities behind remote servers and paywalls

          cough cough Bambu Labs cough cough

      • aarch64@lemm.ee
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        8 days ago

        Big +1 for Valetudo. I use it on a refurbished Roborock S7+ I got on eBay and it’s fantastic.

        • Toribor@corndog.social
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          8 days ago

          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.

          • aarch64@lemm.ee
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            8 days ago

            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.

          • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
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            8 days ago

            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.

            • Toribor@corndog.social
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              8 days ago

              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.

              • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
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                8 days ago

                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.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          8 days ago

          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.

    • Drasglaf@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      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.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
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      8 days ago

      At that point, I wouldn’t trust ANY device that cannot be controlled locally, either natively or at least through some hacks.

    • exu@feditown.com
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      8 days ago

      I think it’s just using MQTT, so block network access and use HomeAssistant

    • jaschen@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      Have you tried Roborock? It’s an amazing vacuum and connects very well inside Home Assistant.