Is your Roomba sulking in a corner crying?
I remember when Roomba first hit the market. Engineer Joe Jones working in the MIT Computer and AI lab created the early design.
It makes me feel so old to see the development and demise of a highly successful Tech company.
Amazon tried to buy the company and the deal fell through. Now it’s in the hands of another company in China.
It’s a little sad that the company that invented the autonomous vacuum cleaner failed but I think it happens sometimes.
The Development of the Roomba was challenging.
The deal with Picea comes three years after Amazon first offered to buy iRobot at a valuation of $1.4bn (£1.1bn), as part of an effort to bolster its portfolio of consumer technology products such as its Alexa smart speakers and Ring doorbells.
However, the deal ultimately fell through over a clash with competition authorities in the EU.
iRobot received $94m in compensation for the collapse of the deal, but part of this was used to pay advisory fees and repay a portion of a loan from the private equity group Carlyle.
It’s ALWAYS private equity.
Pretty common, actually. Apple made a giant business out of refining someone else’s innovations. Amazon didn’t have the first ebook readers. Etc, etc.
I have been in a leadership workshop with iRobot “fast track” candidates. Incredibly arrogant Kings/Queens of the Universe types. They were insulted that the institution putting on the workshop (a very well reputed University in the Boston are) allowed supermarket, utility and railroad company managers to be in the same session as them.
They seemed to have no idea that they were hollowing out their company by moving everything that really matters to their Chinese “partner”.
Yeah, it sucks.
The NPR report on this said that one reason they’re not doing well is the tariffs on imports from Vietnam where the devices are produced. I think they said the tariff rate was 47%.
I suppose this means the end of the Woomba, too
A lot of people I know worked at iRobot and switched to Amazon. Or vice-versa. There was a lot of crosstalk with employees, for some reason.
More importantly, is your cat?
Damn, I love my Roomba.
Second mover advantage is a real thing.
In this case, I suspect it was probably a lack of barriers to entry which fostered a lot of competition, and iRobot didn’t really manage to stay dominant in such an environment. I mean, they’re all competing on the same things, and iRobot’s products didn’t really stand out much. I bought a robot vacuum a couple of years ago, and iRobot’s stuff was not a great value for the features at the time.
No, but it is marching around the house with a sign “will vacuum for juice.”
From talking to these folks it seemed like they thought they were entitled to some premium price because they were first, not because they were better. Something like IBM and the PC in the early to mid 1980s.
They definitely didn’t pay attention to that day in MBA school where they talk about the two essential business strategies that all the rest boil down to: always be the lowest cost option, or differentiate yourself from your competition.
The iRobot robots seemed to be relatively undifferentiated from their competitors, and they were expensive for what you got.
Well, i bought another brand because it was cheaper, and they all seemed to work in the low-end category i was shopping in. It still makes me a little sad.
Exactly. There just aren’t that many things that a consumer can really distinguish one robot vacuum from another when evaluating them. Does it map your house? Does it avoid dog turds? Does it systematically vacuum your floor, or randomly move around until it’s covered everything? How much dust and crud does it hold? Most of the values they tout are pretty much their word vs. their competitors’, so they’re pretty hard to compare. I mean, how do you know if the iRobot version maps better than the Shark one, without buying both and running them for a while?
So consumers end up finding the list of stuff they’re interested in, looking at reviews, and comparing by price and making their own decision on price vs. capability. iRobot seemed to be on the upper side of the price spread, without having anything particularly that stood out about their products. And it’s not like you’re buying into the iRobot “ecosystem” like you are with something like cameras/doorbells, phones, or stuff like that either.
I considered a Roomba a few years ago when I wanted to buy a robot vacuum, but it seemed like they had adopted a Tesla attitude: We did such a good job designing it the first time, why would we want to change anything or charge less? Granted, there were newer models and features, but I could get a Eufy with all the same features and cheaper supplies/parts at a much lower price. Even my business partner, who has owned a couple Roombas, admits that my Eufy is as good or better than his unit.
But good things never last. Newer Eufy models that utilize LIDAR seem to have much larger docking stations that won’t fit into the location I currently dock my older Eufy. Eufy has decided to go with “auto emptying” docking stations for their LIDAR models. Roomba still offers low-profile docking stations for their LIDAR models, so I may end up with a Roomba in the future when my Eufy wears out…if Roombas are still around.
Ooops! Looks like Roomba has gone the same direction as Eufy.
What happens if Roomba stops working?
Boomba 