The Rise and Fall of iRobot

[@wallstreetmillennial]

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[@JNSP-kk7py]

I thought you meant the movie

[@floydchusset3143]

These were always a gimmick, A perfect storm is brewing in the United States. Inflation, bank collapse, severe drought in the agricultural belt, recession, food shortages, diesel fuel and heating oil shortages, baby formula shortages, available automobile shortages and prices, the price of living place. It's all coming together and it could lead to a real disaster towards the end of this year (or sooner). With inflation currently at about 6%, my primary concern is how to maximize my savings/retirement fund of about $300k which has been sitting duck since forever with zero to no gains.

[@smithdavis1362]

These are the conditions in which life-changing money is made by those who remain calm, patient, and take controlled risks. Volatility goes both ways. The bigger the red candles, the bigger the green ones.

[@ryanthompson8256]

Investing in stocks can be a wise decision, especially if you have a dependable trading system that can lead to successful outcomes. Personally, I've been working with a financial advisor for about a year now. Starting with less than $200K and I'm now just $19,000 away from making half a million in profit.

[@adamweah8037]

That's fascinating. How can I contact your Asset-coach as my portfolio is dwindling?

[@CannabisTechLife]

The main reason for their complacency was their dual agitator patent. They thought that as long as all the other brands had worse carpet deep cleaning capabilities that they were safe. Well the patent came and went and they were screwed when they didn't have any competitive offerings.

[@driver8sk]

Absolutely. Along with cleaning better, the rollers can go much longer between cleanings vs a bristle brush. flipping their vac over and cleaning more than every couple months seems to be a complete deal-breaker for most people. They're toast once the cheap Lidar vacs get dual rollers.

[@daverei1211]

The DISCOVERY (first model) also had some optical look down sensors to stop it falling down stairs, and a piezoelectric sensor near the bin to detect dust noise to spend more time in that area. However we had a carpet with a black strip, it kept thinking that was a cliff and would refuse to cross it. A friend of ours used to run it while they were out - the last time they left it unattended it ran over their dogs excretion and smeared it all over the floor…. They never left it unattended again.

[@ravitejakoganti1777]

That might have been quite a mess to handle after you come back home in the evening.

[@stainlesssteellemming3885]

@@ravitejakoganti1777 We run two Roombas. Our original one has the black-strip and feces problems. The new one (J8) does not

[@renardfranse]

well thats just shitty! LOL

[@snorman1911]

Haha, ive heard poo smearing stories from a few people. Should have had a poo sensor. 😂

[@TeamBehrens]

Same but a cat hairball. Mess everywhere. I still use mine tho

[@tedbellWRV]

Our iRobot S9 with VSLAM was terrible! We owned 3 Roombas over 15 years but gave up on the S9. It would get lost, and run into walls trying to find a room. It was constant frustration. Now, our Roboroc Q Revo uses lidar and it navigates way better.

[@macemoneta]

It's not just an issue for the S9. The firmware updates to other models caused the same issues. The Roomba's got stupider and less capable with each update. They ignore walls on their map and concatenate rooms; tell it to clean one, and it cleans both. They wander around lost. I even had one stop in the middle of the (completely open and unobstructed) kitchen floor, and report that it was trapped by obstructions. All that R&D was probably spent on blow and hookers, for all the benefit the product saw.

[@benton.]

Couldn’t agree more. Once I tried the QRevo there was no going back.

[@PeopleRTheProblem]

Seems like a regular vacuum is much better

[@IanHobday]

Raw spending on R&D doesn't tell the whole story. $85m on R&D in China goes a LOT further than $117m on R&D in the US. Even in simple PPP terms, $85m in China would be more like $155m in the US, but it's much worse than that. Being close to the factories and in the same time zone allows for near-instant prototyping and very fast communication. No language barrier, either. And no shipping costs or delays. Impossible to quantify this with an exact dollar amount but VERY difficult for iRobot to compete without spending a lot more money. Money they don't have. Or...moving all their R&D to China.

[@nhatmnguyen93]

85m on R&D in China is equivalent to like 400-500m in USA IMO. All the tech accessories stuffs on Amazon usually were bought in China in bulk for 1/5-1/10 the price and resold in the US. they're so efficient at keeping production cost low it's ridiculous.

[@havencat9337]

i subscribe, their budged its too low...in China its insane how cheap electric stuff can be. of corse they have no chance... its not a complicate enough device for that R&D to worth US location....

[@KomeFits]

And CCP support.. because you know they're taking the opportunity to know your home layout and watch you if they get it

[@PhilfreezeCH]

You don‘t need to move all your R&D to China. Software for example can stay in the US without downside and even early hardware development. Then you hand it off to China for production prototyping and final product. Thats actually what a lot of companies currently do. You usually have a dev team in China or Taiwan to do production engineering and so on.

[@IanHobday]

@@PhilfreezeCH That works for expensive products. If you want to see a great example of "doing it right" for cheap commodity products, look up what Anchor has done. Their CEO specifically credits having everything together with their manufacturing partners as a big part of the reason for their success.

[@Shishkebarbarian]

When my turn fiance moved in with me in 2018 she wanted to get a vacuum robot. I did the research and the Roborox was so far ahead of the Roomba in the $300 price range that it made no sense to get anything else. Still using it and it's great

[@abrin5508]

I quite like mine and it's been working solid for 7 years - it's called Dave.

[@mechanismguy]

The description of the sensors and function is wrong. It had a wall following “eye” on the right side with a mechanical fine adjust, and a small spring loaded wheel at the front to detect “cliffs” like stairs. The algorithm was that it would first spiral outward from where you turned it on, then it would wall-follow for a while, then it would turn and head straight and continue straight lines with 90deg turn “bounces” for a while. Then it would guess that it might be halfway and start the pattern again with an outward spiral. How do I know this? I engineered the vacuum system on the first Roomba. Believe it or not, the design was pretty much complete with brushes only and worked great. Marketing said it needed to suck air to be sold as a vacuum, so I was contracted to jam a vacuum and debris bin into the already finished design.

[@Vinlyguyx420x]

Legit question 🙋‍♂️ Did you guys ever have a discussion about the robot accidentally scooping up dog poop? I’ve heard some horror stories and have always wondered if the engineers thought of that circumstance lol!

[@mechanismguy5059]

@@Vinlyguyx420xI was not part of the core team. I was brought in as an outside "fixer" to add the vacuum system at the very end of the project. I do not ever remember dog poop discussions (but again, I was on the outside). I presume they decided there wasn't a feasible way to deal with it and it would have been considered an exceptional circumstance so it was OK to have not solution for it. The two biggest items that were challenges for years were power cords and carpet tassels. They had a zig zag metal wire across the inlet of the roller to help fend off cords, but carpet tassels could still be an issue.

[@Vinlyguyx420x]

@@mechanismguy5059 Thanks for the reply dude! Very very interesting to hear the design process.

[@LokiDaFerret]

It really comes down to this... Cameras can't see in the dark but lasers can. Their approach was always fundamentally flawed. Had they embraced Lidar back in the mid 2010s they would probably be doing fine today.

[@irfuel]

Not very complicated to add IR lighting to a camera though. Every security camera already has this.

[@LokiDaFerret]

​@@irfuelgood point. Still, I'm not going back to iRobot. I'm a roborock dude now.

[@scifi_shop]

​@LokiDaFerret never so clear why a company failing based on their product performance

[@scoty_does]

SAME @@LokiDaFerret

[@thatverseisgenius]

Will smith isn’t gonna like this one

[@antoniofernandesmarchetti1097]

Nah! He Will Love It!

[@DavidWTube]

They better not say anything about his wife.

[@motzk015]

Keep my movie out your F’n mouth

[@antoniofernandesmarchetti1097]

@@DavidWTube do these robots have some kind of a f*****g mouth? Kkkk

[@Jordan-Ramses]

It's sad that people think of Will Smith and not Isaac Asimov. This makes me angry enough to slap Chris Rock.

[@murphsaysit]

Another banger from Wall Street millennial. Dude puts in work

[@TESkyrimizer]

dude pumps out quality content like crazy so there's either dedicated research going on or dude is subbed to some very current premium stock news subscriptions. Because I don't see how I can get all this info in an afternoon off the front page of googling iRobot history and then pump out 1 video a day. Burnout like crazy.

[@curiousottman]

I bought an iRobot about 10 years ago. It was terrible. I bought an ECOVac recently and it is amazing. Cleans. Mops. Empties it’s own dustbin. Gets it’s own water. All I do is empty/fill the water containers once a week. iRobot never really had a great product and others caught up only to surpass them.

[@uselessDM]

Funny thing is that Tesla has the same approach as iRobot pretty much.

[@rhobesauce]

throwing r&d cash in the toilette to feed the camera vision AI dream, instead of using sensors that work better and more reliably than any visual light system... yeah

[@TheProfessorSocks]

This is a perfect case study for an MBA program. The classes can make their analysis and leave their predictions. The groups that are proven right can win...an iRobot!

[@steak5599]

You don't think people in iRobot management has MBA degree? Problem is predictions by MBA are often wrong, especially when they are predicting Technology and adoption rate, is like rolling a dice. Issue is what sounds good on Paper vs what transpire in the real world is completely different, and you also need to take into consideration of Competitors rising up.

[@TheProfessorSocks]

1) I was being sarcastic, as the end of my sentence made clear. 2) As an MBA myself, I don't consider MBA's to hold secret knowledge but case studies by my colleagues were sometimes very well analysed with predictions based on credible data. It was more for the fun of it and fun it was. But yes, they were mostly wrong but not because they were dumb, the people running the companies into the ground were just irrational lol, I'm kidding.

[@steak5599]

@@TheProfessorSocks I don't think anyone is dumb. I think the issue is most people are more worried about Keeping their job rather than doing their jobs. Like people who are doing something for the sake of doing something.

[@Glitteringmoonstone2022]

The most iconic moment for me with the iRobot is in Breaking Bad the morning after Jesse's party they shot the scene from the iRobot's perspective. it will stay to me to this day lol

[@LandersWorkshop]

Yep, I really was stunned that brand is now heading crashing down....

[@daverei1211]

They also made a bathroom floor mop robot, pool cleaner robot, roof gutter cleaner robot, and tried to make window cleaner robots.

[@zenmail42]

There are many parallels with Tesla here. From stubborn focus on camera only systems reliant on AI that never worked as planned to the hubris of diversifying to unrelated products while neglecting their core business.

[@thomasreese2816]

Except Tesla's vision-only approach is working...

[@irfuel]

@@thomasreese2816 No it's not. I know plenty of owners that still complain about the camera-only rain sensor they use on their models.

[@Bernd123]

@@thomasreese2816 hard to know. Other cars have superior certified self driving thanks to Lidar. Like self driving were you're allowed to put your hands off the wheel permanently and do not need to pay attention.

[@hurrdurrmurrgurr]

@@thomasreese2816 Tesla opened manufacturing in China in the 2010's and have now lost market dominance to BYD's budget models. This is the exact same story just a little further along.

[@Shrouded_reaper]

LIDAR is too expensive for vehicles even with all the development dumped into it, it will never be competitive.

[@PhilfreezeCH]

I am going to make a prediction: I think this will happen to Tesla as well. They also don‘t want to include LiDAR or RADAR and do everything with vision as well, mainly for cost reasons I would assume. But as more and more cars start being equipped with high-powered LiDAR systems, they will get cheaper just as the lower-powered spinning systems found in robo vacuums. These kinds of technologies profit massively from scale and I think people really tend to underestimate this effect. Another good examples are 9-degree-of-freedom sensors (3axis magneto-, accelero- and gyrometer). They used to be incredibly expensive, then along came smartphones and the need to make them cheaper so they can be used in billions of smartphones. Now you can get them for a few bucks.

[@dawidlijewski5105]

Their R&D is basically a subsidy of the Chinese competition.

[@ChrisJohnson-tn1mo]

I don’t remember rumba costing $200. I remember $400. Maybe I was seeing the other companies model and didn’t pay attention. I figured they are all the same and just roamed randomly bouncing off the walls. They didn’t do a good job of creating public awareness that there is different types of tech being used. I always felt $400 was expensive. I guess I need to see one perform.

[@Epofapent]

His product insight is a Lil off I got a room a self despensing model for $300 about a year and a half ago... It's amazing.... I've bought hoover and a random one off Amazon and had to return em they were terrible

[@leonl9123]

I got a LiDAR based one for around 300 bucks, it’s a good purchase and cleans decently. It doesn’t take all the work from me, as it’s bad at cleaning corners, but it reduces the workload a lot.

[@Shrouded_reaper]

I used to have a Roomba back in the day, the random bouncing one as you put it. To be honest it still did a stellar job of cleaning.

[@ChrisJohnson-tn1mo]

@@Shrouded_reaper i have hardwood floors now with a mop push broom thingy so sweeping the floor takes a couple minutes. Maybe if I ever go back to carpet I’ll have to try one out. 👍🏼

[@mechanismguy5059]

I worked on the first Roomba. They wholesaled it for ~$100 and it retailed for $200 as I recall. Probably cost ~$50 to make it. And I think they sold like 100k of them the first year or so. Which was a big deal for a company that had never really had a retail product.

[@netropolis]

had a roomba... if the battery had not died, it would probabaly still be trying to finish my livingroom.

[@SpeCarmi]

Your description of VSLAM vs LIDAR around 8:30 is wrong in many ways: 1) SLAM stands for Simultaneous Localization (not Location) And Mapping 2) when a lidar is available, it’s still SLAM 3) Visual SLAM (V-SLAM), i.e. SLAM with one or more cameras, cannot reliably estimate depth with a single camera, as you said. But VSLAM can estimate depth with two or more cameras, or one camera and a wheel encoder, or one camera and an IMU, etc. 4) you can perform SLAM in a house and plan a path through it without needing to recognize objects. A robot vacuum just needs to build an occupancy map, not a semantic map. 5) building a robot vacuum is much easier than a self driving car, are you insane?

[@gamejunkie7]

I thought the easier than a self driving car line was a bit of humor.

[@joshuapatrick682]

a company that has generated several billion in gross profit over 15 years can be in debt after 2 bad years? Yikes….

[@laughingman7882]

New company can lose money, established companies aren't allowed to do that because they should've already found the road to profit. It can be assumed that everyone who wanted a Roomba has already purchased one. Future sales will be lower from the pool of repeat customers

[@toomanyaccounts]

competitors came out@@laughingman7882

[@fnorgen]

There's a reason many companies put a lot of effort towards nurturing brand loyalty. It makes those downturns far less brutal.

[@toomanyaccounts]

profit is revenue minus expenses such as paying debt which can be a min or all of the debt which is often a loan. depending up the terms paying off all the debt ahead of schedule can cost more

[@royjonzejr]

Once a company loses its revenue stream, it's all over. Just look at Blackberry once iPhone ate its lunch

[@PerfectInterview]

The lesson to be learned here is that FSD based solely on cameras is never going to work, not in a messy, complex real world environment. Like for example navigating New York’s lower East side with triple parked cars, abandoned shopping carts, graffiti covered signs and steam billowing up from manholes.

[@greenredblue]

The facts presented in this video really don't justify its judgmental tone. "Arrogant and complacent" is a bizarre description for a company that consistently outspent all of its competitors on RnD and repeatedly attempted to diversify its holdings. It really sounds like iRobot's only sins were: 1) After capturing the market through bargain-basement design, failing to realize that there were mid- and high-end markets to go after as well. 2) Banking on moonshot technologies and gambling they were more achievable than they were. Y'know, the exact same mistake that all of their predecessors made. Failing in business doesn't *immediately* demand moral judgement, guys. If there were other circumstances that did justify it, they were not presented in this video.

[@nhatmnguyen93]

>2) Banking on moonshot technologies and gambling they were more achievable than they were. Y'know, the exact same mistake that all of their predecessors made. air humidifier and educational robots are not moonshot technologies lmao.

[@greenredblue]

@@nhatmnguyen93 They didn't spend $100m RnD on an air humidifier. Watch the video again.

[@nhatmnguyen93]

​@@greenredblue they spent a crap ton of money buying it and probably crap ton of time trying to incorporate it into their product or whatever. that's pretty much RnD money could've spent elsewhere. and their tech ain't moonshot. it's just a god damn indoor wheeled robot. all the problems required to make it has been solved in computer vision and robotics. the hardest part left is to economically design and mass produce them, and they failed at that.

[@Jeez001]

They should have stayed as a private company see Dyson. Being public puts a lot of pressure on growth..

[@xelefonte]

*I’m surprised this wasn’t on the broken business model channel.*

[@luss1978]

Also, LIDAR works in the dark. VSLAM, not so much. This can make a big deal when you want to run the machine overnight.

[@classicmomentos]

Or if you schedule it to run in the morning, it gets confused on cloudy or rainy days because there’s not enough light shining in 🤦

[@isbestlizard]

Why does a company that's been profitable for 15 years suddenly have an 'unsustainable debt load'?

[@ssl3546]

Because corporate interest rates have basically doubled in the last few years. It is very hard for companies to adjust to interest rates going up that fast. At a lot of companies debt service is now their #1 expense ahead of salaries. Are these companies weak? Yes but that doesn't mean the world is better off throwing them into bankruptcy.

[@cookmyflower]

Or something fishy is going on.

[@AnemosFPV]

Debt and people cutting down on buying iRobot due to higher rates. You can buy xiaomi robot for half the price

[@koraybasus263]

⁠@@AnemosFPVxiaomi not a match to irobot

[@abqmalenurse]

When all of your profits are paid out to stock investors and not into improving the product to be competitive, you are bound to lose. The stock market as we know it should be dismantled. All stocks should be converted to bonds. Both are forms of loans. The difference is that stocks pay out in perpetuity while allowing technically incompetent stockholders to control the company, while bonds pay out one time at a set rate and still allow the company to remain in control of the company. Let me put it this way. If you owned a business and wanted to expand, you have two options. (Assuming incorporation for each.) Issue bonds with a definite maturity date and return, meaning you pay the debt one time and you're done. Or issue stock, hand control to shareholders forever and pay out profits forever. Which choice you make depends on why you created the company in the first place. Are you dedicated to the company vision and product quality? Or just want a payout?

[@ddelv1601]

If I were running iRobot, I think I would go all in on a supper high-end vacuum. Last chance to cash in on all the name recognition they have built up. Make a $3,000 lidar equipped unit, in home demos and setup, a mode where you can drive it like a car from your phone, maybe give it a play mode when it can play with your pet. The middle class is a value focused group, and that's a hard market to win. It's a lot easier to get $3k out of one person than $200 out of 15 people. You have to remember when iRobot started $300 was a ton of money for a vacuum.

[@elementaltamago1297]

A discount robot lawn mower is such a terrible idea.

[@irfuel]

Some things don't add up here. I have a Roomba at home which: maps the rooms of the house, has a bin for automatic emptying, allows you to specify what rooms to clean, avoids small obstacles such as cables and even reports those obstacles with pictures afterwards, and you can even define no-go zones in the room map it created. It seems like this video was made with financial info from 2023 but with product info from 2017 .... it just doesn't make sense.

[@thebeast9869]

It's a hit piece and in a year or 2 there stock price will reflect that there doing fine

[@stainlesssteellemming3885]

Yep - I have both an I9 (costco) and J8. With 3 double-coated dogs I need to run one in the morning and the other in the afternoon each day. There's a world of difference between the two, The J8 is significantly better. Most importantly they've quietly fixed the black-carpet problem.

[@lenadong7848]

most other brands also have versions that can do these things though, but at cheaper prices.

[@loisholdridge1766]

The first "there" should be spelled their. The second one is they're. You got them both wrong.

[@thebeast9869]

@@loisholdridge1766 grammar nazi

[@kestaskuliukas5296]

This video is so bizarre.. it's like you've never heard of anything except iRobot's lowest spec Roomba.. I own a Roomba that cleans very effectively and was a fair bit more than $1000, so the theory they collapsed due to being a lot cost low quality competitor is weird.

[@irfuel]

Agree. I posted something similar.

[@jermunitz3020]

Have you tried the latest from Roborock et al? I used to have a Roomba 9000 like in the video and the roborock is so much better at navigating and has the dual rollers since iRobots patent in that expired. I didn’t want to buy Chinese but Roomba wasn’t competitive

[@irfuel]

@@jermunitz3020 I have a Roomba j9+. Works just fine.

[@mikezio]

I have a $800 Roomba and the thing is complete trash, with every “update” it gets worse. I don’t even bother to run it anymore.

[@Blztrls]

They may have higher priced models but I’d bet that 90% of their sales are their low cost models. I originally had a Roomba but replaced it with a Eufy because it had better features at a lower price. They slowly became more and more uncompetitive in the last few years. They had very little innovation and improvement on their lower end models and were killed by their competition.

[@PEGuyMadison]

We were early adopters... with Irish Setters I thought it would be a great idea to buy a iRobot Roomba. We returned it seven.. yes 7 times, on average they would last a few months and die. So we would return them.. unfortunately the Linens and Things went out of business and that was the end of the Roomba. We later purchased a Riccar 8lb vacuum which has lasted over 12 years, for about the same price as a Roomba.

[@irfuel]

Our first generation Roombas also died because of pet hair. The biggest issue was that the gearing system inside was made out of plastic, and the gears just got destroyed once enough hair made its way inside.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

@@irfuel Yes, pet hair killed ours as well. I still remember how it went to its parking space last time and died ...

[@gwmattos]

Sadly you are correct. I have iRobots going back to the first models. Recently added the j7+. It worked 45 minutes and quit. Charged it overnight. Erased the map because it failed to map full first floor. All lights were on plus curtains open. It started but 6 minutes into mapping it started the honeybee dance. Then it went in circles. I told Alexa to send it home but only 2 feet from the base it would attempt a side bumper attack. I have used 4-5 iRobots and still use the 600 series and 980. For the past month l use Eufy L60. It mapped on first try. ,lights and shades are down. It is quiet. It has no go zones. It does not knock over objects. On tile, it gets the grout lines. Gets on rugs to 20 mm. Does not leave marks on baseboards. Has not trapped itself in first month of use. Always returns to base. Runs on a schedule. And, lastly does not wake me on Sunday morning. Price on Amazon under $200.00. Quality 9/10.😊

[@shanghaidiscovery2664]

interesting that BYD is one of the manufacturers. I wonder if in a few years you will a similar video abt Tesla and how it lost its way given its anti Lidar stance as well.... vs all Chinese EV makers using Lidar

[@David-nx2vm]

It isn’t just Chinese EV manufacturers using LIDAR. Everyone except Tesla uses LIDAR for their driver assistance technology like adaptive cruise, lane change, lane keeping, and so forth.

[@Shrouded_reaper]

Chinese EV manufacturers get huge subsidies for their businesses to encourage growth and market dominance which allows them to ignore the very significant cost of LIDAR units. USA has completely lost the plot in regards to industrial policy. People in America crying tears of blood and screaming over Tesla (and anyone else who sells EVs btw) getting a couple of grand a car, meanwhile china is dumping money wholesale into manufacturing and absolutely dominating because no one else seems to understand industrial policy from a geopolitical point of view anymore, it's just "outsource it to the cheapest place for max profits lmao".

[@mboiko]

iRobot got arrogant, underestimated their competition, and refused to change their ways.

[@OptimumRacingMk3]

I've owned all three, and the roborock has been the best so far. I must admit however I did love the Neato, but it wouldn't last to make it worth buying another one. After about a refurb on Woot, and it failed 6 months later, I was done. I then bought the robo Rock S5 about 4 plus years ago and haven't looked back...

[@steveo20007]

I have an ishark and it’s one of the most handy things I own. Vacuum’s an hour before I get up and the kitchen/living room is clean when I’m getting ready for work. Feels good.

[@darkjudge8786]

How much were you paid for this?

[@steveo20007]

@@darkjudge8786 I wish! I could really use the extra income right now D:

[@rdean150]

Seriously, these things are LOUD. Does that not wake you up?

[@steveo20007]

@@darkjudge8786 I wish! I could really use the extra income right about now D: Also someone asked me the same thing on another unrelated comment lol

[@steveo20007]

@@rdean150 surprisingly no, at least the one I have is pretty quiet. It bumping into things is sometimes louder. The things not doing a deep clean I have a real vacuum I use on the weekends for that but it’s great for getting surface stuff like kibble and random stuff that fell off the counter I missed or lazily left.

[@lpls]

I love my Roomba. This makes me consider stockpiling on replacement parts.

[@drwoo]

Neato Robotics wasn’t exactly a german, but rather a Californian company. They received funds from the Vorwerk Group, a german manufacturer from house appliances, vacuum cleaners and flooring, which in return sold slightly enhanced Neato robots under their own brand name in Germany, before Neato Robotics a few years later entered the German market themselves. In 2017 Vorwerk acquired Neato Robotics entirely, and 2023 shut down the brand and layed off most of the staff. The robot vacuums will be developed in Vorwerk’s german headquarter from now on. (Very sad, if you ask me ... I’ve sold once 1,400 of their XV and Botvac series robots, after being disappointed with the dumb iRobots. They were truly ahead of the competition).

[@apinakapina]

Just couple of weeks ago I got a lidar-equipped robot vacuum for 200 euro. This is an entry-level model from Chinese manufacturer Dreame, name that appears in this video as "overall winner for best robot vacuums in 2023" for their high-end model. Using the "draw a map" feature was neat - the robot just peeks to a small room and it's done with it. This particular implementation has problems with objects shorter than the robot, but then it just uses the bumper. There's way more competition today, and betting on a technology in the hopes for it getting massively cheaper is not an easy choice either.

[@sostupidyoutude]

I am in this industry. I have been basically telling some customers the same thing(with less technical)for 3 years.

[@JKSSubstandard]

I bought a robot vaccum last year. Irobot products were 30-70% more expensive than competitor products. I ended up going with a midrange roboroc. The roboroc had room mapping when roomba in the same price point didn't, roboroc had higher suction power and better pickup ratings. While it doesn't have self emptying, I don't need that. One of the better purchases I've made

[@abcde_fz]

. . Nothing sucks like Electrolux!!! . . I remember our first model, in about 1963. Good looking vacuum...

[@knerduno5942]

Like those Airstream travel trailers in Slither?

[@abcde_fz]

@@knerduno5942 No, although strangely enough now that you bring it up, we DID have a _toaster_ from Sunbeam that was shiny, curvy aluminum, vaguely like an Airstream camper. Hard to describe the vacuum, but it was cylindrical, and had a kind of blue speckled enamel finish. Last seen oh, easily 50 years ago. Have A Great Day! 🙂

[@IF2XboxGamingVids]

"Irobot is a story of arrogance and complacency" is such a low IQ take. They had an innovative product for a while, they then bet on investing in AI technology making more sense than Lidar and it didn't work out as expected. And they got squeezed out by low cost Chinese knockoffs, which is impossible to compete with price wise. Shit happens, free market is brutal and eventually even the biggest company's go bankrupt.

[@Allen-L-Canada]

The irony is that 3 MIT guys invested a low tech product, in order to be cost effective. The product became so popular, but the low tech is too easy to be copied. The product has no strong barrier of entry, or moat.

[@anubizz3]

Hmm really? I smell the same arrogance before.... Hmm oh yah it's blackberry and Nokia.... If you know you wrong then switch while you can... If you hold on to fail technology then it's called arrogant. They not get a squeezed out by Chinese knockoffs, the get squeezed out by robot that can lift its mop on carpet, clean the edge, clean its mop, dry it, fill the on board tank, can be connected to plumbing system so you can not to touch the robot for months. Not a robot that put the dirty mop on top of itself and hope it's not get moldy if you forget to remove it for days..

[@dmitripogosian5084]

@@anubizz3 My, my, I would never buy a vacuum cleaner that is connected to plumbing

[@anubizz3]

@@dmitripogosian5084 why is that? You have no problem with dishwasher and washing machine..

[@RustieShackleFord]

Didn’t Amazon keep the data of a mapping of your house too? Yeah I wouldn’t get one

[@danielmonroy8519]

Thank you for blessing us with the content. So consistent!

[@nancyadams9228]

I love my Roombas. They are totally consumer serviceable though, and as such last for decades.

[@liuyusi125]

Such a good story to tell - even worth a documentary. Ps, RoboRock is so good now and I don’t have anything else to desire for a cleaning robot 😂

[@justwatchinguboob]

Imo Amazon obtaining iRobot makes sense and there is plenty of competition in the market.

[@darkjudge8786]

Yes, let's defend the global multinational monopolies, what could go wrong?

[@poorrandall8982]

yeah based on on this video, i'm left scratching my head wondering why the acquisition was blocked

[@poorrandall8982]

@@darkjudge8786 amazon isn't a monopoly. dominance doesn't equate a monopoly.

[@poorrandall8982]

@@darkjudge8786 Amazon isn't a monopoly. dominance does not equate a monopoly.

[@poorrandall8982]

@@darkjudge8786 amazon isn't a monopoly. just because a company is prominent player doesn't mean it is a monopoly.

[@kaasmeester5903]

Not just innovations, but failing to make small improvements. It always baffled me that they stuck with NiMH batteries for so long. In this application (fast discharge, charge, 24/7 trickle charge) these batteries do not last very long, even the high quality ones used in the Roomba. And the replacement packs weren’t exactly cheap. Meanwhile the competition had switched to vastly superior LiPo cells a long time ago.

[@snoozeflu]

The roomba wasn't really a vacuum. Vacuum implies suction, which traditional machines like Hoover or Eureka have. The roomba just had a rotating brush which swept up debris. It was more of a sweeper than a vacuum.

[@timault8209]

Owned Roombas for a few years. Then I discovered Botvac: found it superior to Roomba across the board. I relegated the crap Roombas to cleaning the garage and patio floors. Then in May 2023, Neato Robotics went tits up and turned my small fleet of Botvacs into expensive doorstops. IoT-based home tech is too flaky to trust for the long haul.

[@kharithoughts2679]

How does it help the EU to block a sale just for the company to go out of business and all of the jobs to be lost?

[@davidstocker2278]

I named my roomba "matt damon" because it did the same thing every time it worked

[@chrisdowns422]

Ours is 'Hazel' just because it's a cute name.

[@tatata1543]

The parallels with FSD are striking.

[@jerrykreutzer4326]

How?

[@tatata1543]

A system using LIDAR performs better than a system with a camera and AI.

[@raxcentalruthenta1456]

I absolutely love my neato. Unfortunately, they've shut down sales. The thing is very reliable though.

[@freetoroam7769]

I've been quite happy with my Neato D7, as it has been very reliable mechanically. But just recently, it stopped connecting to WiFi, despite me going through all of the typical steps to get it reconnected. I wonder if this has something to do with the company shutting down sales, which may be affecting the app or user information stored on their web site. Meanwhile, I'm shopping for a vacuum again. These are just too expensive to have to replace every few years. The Roborock is looking more promising now for long term viability.

[@raxcentalruthenta1456]

@freetoroam7769 I can actually corroborate your claim. I've been having the same issue. My D4 has stopped staying connected to wifi. It'll still map out the room, but it's difficult to set up no go lines as I have to reconfigure the wifi constantly, which is already not a very intuitive process. It works just fine without the app, it's just not as convenient.

[@fraser5032]

Great video. How bout one on blackberry? ❤

[@andrewroberts1787]

I have a Roomba S9 that had auto emptying long before their competitors and cost over $1,000 back then (not that higher price is good but the point is they have high end models). At the time research on KZbin videos etc showed the S9 to far outperform those competitors but at a higher price... We added a mopping model about 18months ago. The S9 works flawlessly, I often reconfigure out furniture etc and it learns pretty quick. It runs daily and has had no issues at all. The mopping model was way cheaper but can't even drive over a rug to get to a room on the other side, or the wood flooring joining piece where it turns to tile in the bathroom so that's annoying but that's clearance not camera vs lidar. Be very wary of comparison sites for specific products, most are owned by the companies in question who do well as a way of stealth marketing. They tend to flood Google with such sites to try and make you think theirs is no1 in top X of Y product etc. Not to say competitors don't get better, and fast...

[@OhNiceMatt]

Amazing that Amazon Could buy RING and so much more, but EU said 'NOPE on iRobot' ... Thats messed up

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

Nest belongs to Google. Amazon sells Nest, as most of the items they sell, they are not the manufacturer (including being owner of the manufacturer). Amazon doesn't have enough cash to buy Google. Both have roughly the same market cap, at ~$1.8 trillion. (US trillion 10^12 which is the same as a British billion. A US billion is 10^9, which the Brits call a 1000 million).

[@ericchdjdjnx]

@@michaelmoorrees3585 If they won't let amazon buy irobot, I doubt they would be allowed to merge with google.

[@medes5597]

Amazon's acquisition of RING and similar companies is under many harsh rules on the EU regarding selling and advertising on their own platform. They were warned repeatedly that future purchases would be under even harsher penalty. Amazon chose to ignore that and even said "we'll pay the fine" Well it wasn't a fine. It was a complete block. Its amazon's arrogance that they could keep skirting anti trust laws that ruined the purchase. The EU was just doing its job.

[@xm2895]

I sold my Roomba and bought an electric mop/vacuum with a cord and never looked back

[@justacollegestudent5147]

Did you ever clean your roomba? For me like once or twice a year I find spending half an hour to unscrew the blades and stuff and clean or replace them helps a lot. It’s pretty cheap too I don’t buy namebrand but It doesn’t matter. It’s like $10 a year to change the parts like the rollers and brush if I wanna be super anal about it but usually just a few dollars. Roomba is dope for underbed dust cleaning and down rooms. It also does a much better job than a human does because it never misses a spot and goes over the same area multiple times. We have one from like a decade ago works well. We do have hardwood so maybe it’s different. Carpet holds the dirt in and while a roomba can do that even a basic one hardwood is a lot easier dust just stays on top. The deep clean is tremendous. It’s really old but even so as long as cables are out of the way which just a few minutes turning it on ans closing the door and leaving it running. And when it turns off just turn it back on again. Repeat until battery dies. Best clean ever. I’d be nice if the roomba could be made a lot less tall to fit under even smaller gaps like my dresser and stuff. I won’t be buying a new one probably but I don’t need to. If this one breaks I’ll just get a cheap one which would still be better given it’s a decade old.

[@ccash3290]

The reason iRobot diversified could also be they *knew* they couldn't beat the Chinese products

[@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330]

Can't they just buy Roborock, slap their badge on their deluxe models and make Roborock churn out budget models? Much like how GM have their segmented brands from Chevrolet to Cadillac? Isn't this the American way?

[@W1ldTangent]

Buying a Chinese company outright as a foreign entity is somewhere between "extremely difficult" and "impossible". At any rate, the CCP gets the right of first refusal.

[@royjonzejr]

Roborock is already owned by Xiaomi, which is a Chinese mega company in its own right

[@havencat9337]

Roborock its by Xiomi...sorry but thats a huge brand that doesnt need to sell

[@michaeljiang960]

It's like asking can't Xiaomi just buy Apple and make Apple make budget models.

[@Stephanie-we5ep]

As a consumer I can tell you that I only bought a few (an early model I forget which, followed by S21 ), and I've found it doesn't last very long. The first one lasted a year or so and when it died I replced it with a Samsung. The Samsung lasted 3 or 4 years and I bought the S21 or 22...The last one cost somewhere between 800 and 900 and I had constant problems with the wretched thing! As in every 6 months or so something broke and needed repaired or replaced... after it couldn't dock itself this last time I replaced it with a competitor. I think a big part of their sales collapsing is that they don't last very long compared to the price.

[@queer_dad]

Neato was not German. It was an American company. But it was acquired in 2017 by German company Vorwerk.

[@freetoroam7769]

And sadly, they don't want to keep it around. I really like my D7, but the software has suddenly failed. Now I'm shopping for a brand that will hopefully be around a while.

[@maasicas]

God forbid you would have to use your noodle arms for anything. Such progress. Much wow.

[@IdoCareForPeople]

same thing will happen to Tesla...

[@dri1811ya]

i just commented the same thing, i'll delete that now

[@sdcoinshooter]

IRobt just did not advance capabilities like others, Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame and others. I am not surprised they are failing.

[@irfuel]

But they did.

[@thebeast9869]

They can see poo 💩 and have a map of the house which you can create no go zones or ask it clean specific rooms

[@sdcoinshooter]

@@thebeast9869 That is all great but Roborock, Exovacs, Others added extra features, like a mop with self-emptying water containers and heated drying.

[@tbone9405]

Bought a few iRobot models over the years, always returned them for low performance. The best two I now have is Neato and Roborock. Neato has a wider cleaning track and better suction. The Roborock is very good and empties itself, which is convenient.

[@brianfong5711]

16:35 This stock footage is hilarious. This doesn't look like a workplace, no computers, no laptops, no wall chalk or dry erase boards, no papers, no knick-knacks, no photographs, no office storage cabinetry. She alone has more office supplies in that card board box than the all the employees combined. She just robbed the whole office.

[@latuman]

Roomba started falling in popularity as soon as the chinese hit the market, especially Xiaomi and it's sister company Roborock. They make equal or better producrts (these are quite simple devices in the end) for a LOT cheaper. Roomba tries to be the "Apple" of robot vacuums, but it's just not happening for a robot vacuum.

[@fallty]

Most current Roombas offer a dust disposal station option and mapping even without LIDAR and even without cameras. I have an i3 and it maps and supports cleaning different rooms. Also only top of the line Chinese roombas have LIDAR. Their low and midrange products are virtually indistinguishable.Not trying to defend iRobot or anything but this video said a whole lot of nothing and clearly shows you haven't researched robot vaccuums at all.

[@dougsheldon5560]

Hope he got his golden parachute paid in company stock.

[@de_stroyed]

the problem is, Roomba just failed to innovate. they used inferior VSLAM technology versus other companies using a combination of something similar to VSLAM, LiDar and camera systems all in one robot. making it less rough on furniture as it won't damage anything and it never gets lost. I have the Ecovacs Omni X1 and I'm so glad ai got this over the iRobot S9. and yes I know they recently came out with a camera-system robot, but it's a bit too late now and it's still not good.

[@thebigdoghimself]

I've bought at least 6 irobots. Had several die. The couple of times I spoke to them, I expressed interest in either an extended warranty or maintenance plan, and they blew off the idea.

[@DoctorBiobrain]

Yeah, I’ve tried talking to my iRobot many times but it always ignores me. So arrogant.

[@Super-lq2he]

Obviously you didnt try the bullet proof solution of tunring it off and then, wait for it, turning it back on again

[@awildsylveon9896]

Are you...trying to sell us one of those finance newsletters youve made whole videos about?

[@ShotgunAFlyboy]

Of all weird companies, Shark makes some fantastic vacuums. Their bots are slightly beefier and their dock is bagless.

[@mpzz]

I do remember 5 years ago I was doing research to buy a vacuum machine and those Roomba was is.very expensive compared to Roborock which also do more for less the price

[@LexLuker-no9ed]

Had 1 long time ago. It worked but not that well. It was very very loud and got stuck a lot. Never purchased a 2nd one

[@electrified0]

The reality of a "budget Robot vacuum" is that it's not a particularly useful product. I got one of the original Roomba models and it was more hassle than a manual vacuum. It took about 4x longer than I would to vacuum due to taking stupid routes, which would be fine if I could just let it do its thing on its own but it can't do that either. It gets stuck, it gets lost, and unless you religiously and thoroughly clean it, it will get clogged and tangled with hair and dust. I replaced it with a flagship Roborock S7 Ultra and that thing runs automatically every morning before I wake up, and every morning I wake up to clean floors and the robot charging and drying itself off. The self washing prevents tangling and it can run daily for months without any maintenance beyond refilling and emptying the water tanks. When there's robotic vacuums on the market that are actually useful, the "budget" option being a mostly useless gimick makes it a worse value and defeats any purpose of buying it.

[@rj7855]

I was a iRobot user from their first version but after one day a bought a neato and never looked back...

[@joshmaier18]

The eu really is a pain in the ass for tech companies

[@texassabre7214]

You see the expensive water on CEO’s table? Tell you something about this man.

[@Visiontech]

Fantastic videos man!!!

[@Bamieater]

Love the background story. I still have a iRobot Roomba 960 going strong every day since 2017. What the video didn't touch upon, is that their products are very reliable. A lot of (moving) parts can be easily replaced. Somehow, my battery is still the original, still performing well and capable of doing a full living room cycle. In terms of innovation, I would blindly replace it in the future with a newer Roomba model, if they would have innovated. Now, the future replacement will be a Roborock, or one of the other innovative brands. Curious to see if iRobot is able to do an Apple-like restructure and comeback. As for today, I am still a happy Roomba user. :-)

[@Dude-etiquette]

I had one, it was nice at start but what we noticed that it didn’t do a good job, just a superficial clean and you would have to vacuum again with a proper vacuum

[@maxnex7676]

Something that was not mentioned that may have hurt sales for iRobot, they had to be hooked up to internet, the tracking camera actually sent images back to iRobot that were shared to other companies (under the pretext that it was to understand how well it works), some of these images ended up on the internet including a video of a iRobot taking a video of a woman in the bathroom.

[@matteventu]

That's not accurate though. The Roomba units that did that, were engineering samples, purposefully designed to send the images to a contracted company for visual analysis, they were not retail units.

[@nerd_in_space]

0:48 Remember the pool cleaner

[@199724]

We see this everywhere in the west. Car industry is also going to fall hard from it's arrogance pedestal.

[@DemoEvolvedGaming]

It seems like the CEO was really gunshy about Lidar expense, and Computer Vision AI seemed like it was going to work. They held the line instead of capitulating to do a Lidar model. Then it seems the market became more open to high end models. So Irobot didn't have a product to compete there. And signing off on prototyping a Lidar model is no trivial expense, especially in the pandemic. The lawnmower could have been a great expansion if it had worked. I guess a sidewalk shoveler is too much to ask?

[@Damitsall]

Actually all those features you said Roombas don't have, they do. Sure they don't have lidar, but using structured light and cameras are the future. The Roomba J9+ Combo is debatablely the best robot vacuum on the market. Also air purification has a lot to do with vacuums, you don't want to release what you pick up back into the air right?

[@AlexanderTsepkov]

I don't understand, how can EU block the acquisition of one US company by another US company? I would think the only think EU could have a say in is whether to allow their products to be sold in the EU.

[@letsburn00]

If you're a very large company, you need to be authorised to prevent monopoly behaviour. Defacto, it's for the US, EU and China. If anything, these blockages are used too little.

[@thebigdoghimself]

You keep saying the roomba was $200, not sure what planet you saw this on but it wasn't here. They were $299,and up, the cheapest unit I have is a 400 series dirt dog that was designed for the garage and it was over $300. The 500 series of which I went through 3 were $500.

[@alfiey5783]

This channel is becoming more and more trash

[@waifuhunter9815]

at 15:30 he shows amazon page listing for Roomba for around the $200 mark. Guess it was a couple of weeks before this video is made because the prices have gone up.

[@samsonsoturian6013]

He mentioned in the video they cut prices because Chinese ponzi schemes

[@geoffbeidler]

The Defense & Security unit (formerly Government and Industrial) was a disaster as well. I worked on some of their underwater robots and it was a mismanaged disaster from beginning to (very short) end.

[@brendanwiley253]

Making unadvanced technology that consists of a single instruction which produces random results sounds incredibly based

[@innnews6299]

EU should pay up to iRobot for blocking the sales to Amazon.

[@Knochenbrigade]

Man, it's just sad when people are getting lazier and lazier to do some simple manual work like vacuuming you place for ten minutes twice a week. And i never met anyone who owned such a thing who didn't have to clean corners etc. manually still.

[@Withnail1969]

The Chinese robot vacs are very good nowadays. I've had them since 2018.

[@o_o8203]

This must be why I recently found an irobot air purifier at a bargain store for something like 80% off