I'm glad I waited to replace my old Eufy one. I definitely will not be replacing it with Roomba now.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Hmm so this entire trick of setting up companies just to be bought by mega corps appears to be not a viable strategy if anti trust law is enforced?
Edit: apparently this company was set up before sell to mega corp craze got kicked off. I don't think changes the thesis but this case study doesn't support it with the strength I suggested
Hmm as if last 30 years of corpo behavior has been essentially to maintain mega corp dominance via captured regulators and legislators
We got the capitalism alright but where is the free market at, daddy?
setting up companies just to be bought by mega corps
iRobot was originally founded all the way back in 1990 and have sold quite a lot of Roomba vacuums, advancing innovation in home automation along the way. I don’t think anyone can ever say that they set up this company for a quick flip corpo pump and dump.
It was originally at up to leech government funding for “weapons research”. I guess I’m old because nobody here seems to remember that.
What's the context for this?
iRobot started off as a defense contractor making mine clearing algorithms or some such vaporware.
Hmm an interesting pivot
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Don't worry, the new strategy is to string a company along with talks of a buyout, then when their cash runs out and they declare bankruptcy, to buy all the assets on fire sale.
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(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.
There is https://valetudo.cloud/ for a lot of existing models, it's about the closest thing we have.
"for a lot of models" is a bit of an exaggeration. Especially as Xiaomi/Dreame try to actively restrict Valetudo use.
But yes, Valetudo is a great project. I'd just wish there was a manufacturer who would openly endorse it.
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I love DIY tech projects and yet I would never go through the effort to make a robot vacuum because vacuuming is already the easiest chore in the house. You kinda just stand there and go swoop swoop swoop a few times. Takes like 3 minutes to do an entire room. As opposed to listening to the robot vacuum rumble around for an hour and do a half ass job, if it even finishes without getting spooked by a shadow thinking it’s a 100ft cliff
I really don't like vacuuming, so to me it doesn't matter how long it takes; I can set it up and then leave the house
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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.
Patiently awaiting Congress to ban any Chinese robot vacuums out of national security risk
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Their products require their app, would this effectively turn their devices useless when the servers die?
I know it supports a single button to start cleaning, but I wonder if that will work properly without being able to call home.
Might be time for people to look for alternatives.
It technically still works without the app but it loses features that increase the efficiency of the map, tells it where not to clean, scheduled cleaning, etc.
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Another company squandering their patents and market advantage. Reminds me of TiVo.
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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.