Thread Number: 43631  /  Tag: Brand New Vacuum Cleaners
Amazon Buys IRobot - Maker of Roomba Vacuums
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Post# 455542   8/7/2022 at 07:40 (599 days old) by eurekaprince (Montreal, Canada)        

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Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing….see link below….

CLICK HERE TO GO TO eurekaprince's LINK


Post# 455551 , Reply# 1   8/7/2022 at 10:57 (599 days old) by Tseg (World Traveller)        

I probably don't want to be Dyson right now.

Post# 455554 , Reply# 2   8/7/2022 at 11:15 (599 days old) by eurekaprince (Montreal, Canada)        

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IRobot does indeed make a quality product. The $950 deluxe Roomba S9+ is top rated in Consumer Reports testing…here is their summary:

The S9+ is a strong performer with a squared front edge that helps it hug corners and edges of the room. Unlike most other models, most of the pet hair it picked up made it to the bin instead of sticking to the brushroll. Once the robot is docked, a vacuum in the docking station automatically sucks the contents from the bin into an enclosed, disposable bag in the base.


Post# 455559 , Reply# 3   8/7/2022 at 12:29 (599 days old) by human (Pines of Carolina)        
Vacuums up your data while cleaning your house...

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Yeah, I read about that yesterday. My biggest concern--and the reason I'm totally disinterested in owning one--is that being connected to the Internet, Amazon will be able to use it to spy on you. It'll learn the layout of your home, and thereby allow Amazon to estimate your income level, based on square footage. If it's vacuuming up Froot Loops and Lego blocks, it'll know you have young kids. Amazon--and Google, Microsoft and Apple, for that matter--already know too much about me. I don't need their floor-crawling drone vacuuming up even more data about my household.

Post# 455560 , Reply# 4   8/7/2022 at 14:35 (599 days old) by eurekaprince (Montreal, Canada)        

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Wow….never thought of that.

You know, Consumer Reports gave a Best Buy rating to an inexpensive Eufy robot vac that does not connect to the internet. It cleans very well without all the SmartPhone features and bells and whistles….


Post# 455571 , Reply# 5   8/7/2022 at 23:15 (599 days old) by kirbylux77 (London, Ontario, Canada)        

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I think Amazon buying IRobot is definitely gonna turn out to be a bad thing. I can see how this will turn out to be one of Amazon's in-house brands sold exclusively through Amazon, and they will bully IRobot to lower quality to meet certain price points. Plus the other points that Human, Edgar, brought up about Amazon spying on it's customers is definitely valid as well. I prefer my privacy thanks!

Rob


Post# 455575 , Reply# 6   8/8/2022 at 04:35 (598 days old) by huskyvacs (Gnaw Bone, Indiana)        

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Nah you don't need to worry about the companies spying on you, that paranoia has existed ever since the electronic age. Furbys were the first thing to trigger that paranoia. It's baseless and senseless to think some company could care about your account info or getting a peep show.

What is a valid concern is that they can be hacked and used by criminals to map a layout of your home - virtual casing. It's just like a little R/C car with a camera and they can drive it all over the house. That is what you need to worry about.

Any connection can be breached and hacked no matter how strong a company's firewall is and how dedicated the hackers are. Also because those things run on WiFi with a wide range transmitter they can be controlled by anyone driving down the street with a router and can tap into the vacuum through your home network.






Post# 455808 , Reply# 7   8/13/2022 at 14:14 (593 days old) by n0oxy (Saint Louis Missouri, United States)        
very interesting

As someone who now has 11 robot vacuums, I definitely have some thoughts on this. As far as companies spying on you, this is probably similar to a smart phone, for certain conveniences, you give up some privacy, and of course that is each person's choice.
It will be interesting to see what products Irobot introduces if this sale happens. Irobot may have been the first company to introduce an affordable robot vacuum, but they have really fallen behind compared to companies such as Roborock and Ecovacs. Roomba's navigation is not as good as some other brands because they use a technology called VSLAM that uses a camera to create a map of your house. This has several disadvantages, the robot must go through a few cleaning cycles to create the map and it doesn't work in the dark. The other technology that robot vacuums use to create a map is called LIDAR which uses lasers to create the map, this is what Roborock, Ecovacs and several other companies use, and it's better for several reasons. First, it only takes one cleaning run to create the map and some robots have a quick map feature where the robot will just drive around without cleaning to create the map. It also works whether it's light or dark. Another area where Roomba is falling behind is battery life. Their top of the line robot only uses a 2300 MAH battery where as other brands such as Roborock and Ecovacs are using 5200 MAH batteries in their flag ship robots. The Roomba S9 is a very powerful robot but the other robots in Roomba's line up have a very small vacuum motor compared to other brands. If the Roomba is going to remain competitive Irobot will have to change some or all of these things, companies such as Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreametech and Eufy have gotten far ahead of them.
Mike


Post# 455812 , Reply# 8   8/13/2022 at 16:42 (593 days old) by n0oxy (Saint Louis Missouri, United States)        
something else to think about

If Amazon purchases Irobot, will they still allow other robot vacuum brands to sell on their site? Most of the robot vacuum brands that I have sell through Amazon, I can't help but wonder if Amazon will do things to make it more difficult for competitors such as Roborock to sell their robots there? Granted, you can just go to the companies web site and purchase them in most cases, but one of the robots that I have, the 360 smart life s10 is only sold on Amazon, that is how the company sells their products in the United States. I can see both sides here. If Amazon owns a particular company, it's not in their interest to allow competitors to sell there. On the other hand, Amazon is a general shopping site and refusing to allow competitors could cause them to lose business if they only sold the Roomba robots on their site. I hope that Amazon still allows other robot vacuum brands to sell there, competition is a good thing.
Mike


Post# 455815 , Reply# 9   8/13/2022 at 17:13 (593 days old) by Ilovehoovers (England)        

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I doubt they'd ban other brands, that's surely illegal in some form. I do think they'd heavily promote iRobot more

Post# 455825 , Reply# 10   8/13/2022 at 21:05 (593 days old) by kirbylux77 (London, Ontario, Canada)        

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Jett, I would agree it's likely illegal to ban other robot vacuum brands from the Amazon sites. However, I wouldn't trust Jeff Bezos as far as I can throw him! Has anyone here seen the documentaries on how he runs his business? Saying Jeff Bezos is corrupt is putting it nicely. :p

Rob



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