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.
I’m pretty sure somebody will buy the data iRobot robots collected during their cleaning time :-)
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
https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
iRobot not even on the list despite being the original de facto vacuum robot OEM
I’m just going to leave this here: https://github.com/awesome-vacuum/awesome-vacuum
The movie wasn’t very good either
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!
Oof, as an American company the rest of the world is boycotting them too.
Yup, they are toast. I dont think the Americans have realized how much permanent damage Trump has caused.
I highly doubt his voters will ever realize it. People who voted for him have single digit IQs. Other Americans warned them before hand.
Democrats have known from the moment he was elected. Republicans are starting to figure it out now that they are feeling the effects. Of course, they were the ones who caused it so…
They’re really not though, maga fascists, actually believe this is a mere speed bump on the way to the promised land…
“Many economists are saying that the market was due for a correction…”
I’ve seen that comment a few times in the last few days. They’ll say ANYTHING to support Dear Leader.
Economists will literally say anything to perpetuate capitalism/the status quo.
All the economists here (Canada) are saying this is an absolute disaster that will cause a recession. No reasonable person believes these tariffs are a net positive.
We need decent European alternatives for robot vaccuums.
Chinese mop vacuum combos with dust and water bin are going for $500 these days. It is bonkers how cheap they go. Trying to compete in that market is a lost cause. Better install Valetudo on a Chinese vacuum. Maybe a European OEM could do something similar.
We need open source alternatives
I’ll just put this right here…
Valetudo, though an absolutely amazing software, is no the replacement I was meaning. I meant we need a fully open source robot, from software to hardware, and that can be adapted. Of course there’s always blobs which are not open source, but that’s the case already for many things
Will certainly be a bummer if they do go under, I really appreciated their serviceability. Have several in the immediate family that have been going for over 7 years at this point though all kinds of calamities. Each time can I just pop out all the components clean/replace as necessary and get it back in service, good as new.
Agree. While I think there’s been little effort to evolve their products at the same pace as their competitors, I have very much appreciated their servicability.
If it doesn’t work, hit it with a hammer.
If it then breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
So the Roomba I bought in 2021 is gonna stop working come 2026… Guess I need an open source vacuum now too 😩
It’s going to become feral
Here you go https://valetudo.cloud/
Thank you stranger! This is great
🤛
this comment makes me question, is there an open source sex toy community?
edit: there is lmao https://github.com/PITR-DEV/ukbutt-modBro … this is the best response I’ve ever gotten on Lemmy 🤣🤣🤣 thank you stranger, both fascinating and hilarious
Good news, buttplug.io is written in Rust so it’s safe.
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 🤷.
And then they go and remotely kill the vacuum after just 5 years… (See above)… Yeah, not crying for iRobot…
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.
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.
I have an older model roomba, the 630 that has no internet connection whatsoever.
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.
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.
Why are the Chinese companies not collapsing too? What’s different about irobot that they can’t compete?
Competitive market. Chinese brands have lower cost of production and sell their vacuums cheaper. They also took the lead with new features.
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.
Hmm, can irobot not also manufacture their products in China?
Doesn’t matter if it’s proprietary and they price the cost at a high amount
So my vacuum will likely not work in 12 months. Niiiice.
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.
Doesn’t apply to iRobot but there are lots of robot vacuums that can be flashed with an open firmware with just a USB UART cable: https://valetudo.cloud/pages/general/supported-robots.html
As for the other devices, my 3D printer, projector and AV receiver are all locally controlled.
Big +1 for Valetudo. I use it on a refurbished Roborock S7+ I got on eBay and it’s fantastic.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think it’s just using MQTT, so block network access and use HomeAssistant
Your 3d printer has a NIC?
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.
I have an ender 3 and Im glad it doesn’t do any of that. So much more complicated
And some brands of 3D printers have started placing those functionalities behind remote servers and paywalls
cough cough Bambu Labs cough cough
BambuLab A1 Mini. It has a WNIC.
Hmm. Interesting.
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.
Their products are like 5 years behind their competitors. It’s inevitable.
I’m glad I waited to replace my old Eufy one. I definitely will not be replacing it with Roomba now.
(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.
I’ve wondered before how large an order would be required to entice a white label manufacturer of robot vacuums into doing a production run of units with Valetudo preinstalled.
I would absolutely buy one if someone could work out a fair business arrangement with the developer and throw the project up on kickstarter.
There are not enough smart-vacuum owners in the world that would make it more profitable to just make the hardware without hoovering up the data that comes with its use.
Oh fuck,
I’m gonnaI might test this.
I’ve never heard of it before, but the more I read the more I like it.Thx!
I have it on a Roborock S5 and it works great, so much more stable than the original firmware that requires an internet connection.
Certain models can be harder to root though, so read through the description and guide thoroughly first.
I have an S5 Max, its a long time I think about switching… but I dunno if its worth it
Yeah if it’s working fine now I wouldn’t bother.
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
Sounds like you don’t have a thick furred dog that sheds multiple coats throughout the year.
We got a roomba as a gift and it has saved so much effort of sweeping/vacuuming the excess of fur on the floors.
Love my husky but damn…
Yeah, people complain about roombas not giving a super deep clean… But they’re really not intended to do so. They’re meant to be a daily maintenance clean. They may not be great for when you dump an entire can of coffee grounds in your carpet… But they’re wonderful when you have a big dog with lots of fur that needs to be vacuumed every single day.
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
Better to put my efforts toward automating the flipping of light switches and the raising/lowering of window shades
Yes, we all need to manage our lives & our shortcomings.
I like vacuum cleaning chore too, but can have periods when my brainhole just won’t register the todo.Got a good deal on a Roomba, I have a shark with HEPA filter and all, very good vacuum. I can vacuum, then let the Roomba run, and it still finds shit. I like it, especially for pet hair. Only thing I don’t like is it’s random pattern, mine doesn’t map the room, refuse to get one with a camera.
Popular Science had an “open source” robot lawnmower plans in the…80s? I have it somewhere. Old enough that it used deep cycle lead-acid batteries and spinning round dremel blades. No laser to cut the grass, although it did use LEDs for sensors for grass height.
Go ahead and make one then. Nobody is stopping you from being the first.
… I’m that, my best is what is stopping me :(.
Didn’t iRobot put out a DIY robot/vacuum that you could assemble how you wanted?
Yeah, but it didn’t have a vacuum. It was just a development thing.
It was an awesome rover robot for tinkering and introducing kids to technology! Wish there were more versions of hardware like that.
True, I guess my comment did sound a bit “not interesting” 😅
I think it’s a great development kit. I wish my Eufy robot vacuum had that level of tinker-ability. It’s already got googly eyes…
