iRobot may be iDead in iYear 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. The biz behind the Roomba admitted in its 2024 year-end financial results that its survival depends on the success of a new product …
Geolocked software, they don't tell you about. You spend a thousand dollars and unpack the box to see "Download this app to start your iRobot journey..." and you literally can't. When you go to their web site for support they have a pull down of every country in the world and they only allow roughly 4-5 of them to download their software. Not a word of that on their ads, marketing material or website stating this.
I was forced to sideload the app and updates from APK files. Luckily, I know how to do that safely. The average Joe does not.
Pricey replacement parts you can't get shipped direct to you because reasons. Needed to use an accommodation mailbox in the US.
iRobot is the first company I have seen who is determined not to have me as a customer. They got their wish.
My replacement was a Dreame X40 Ultra wet/dry. Better in every way and their app has built in camera / telemetry kill switches for privacy. Or if you want to sacrifice your privacy, you can chase your cats around the house while watching them on your mobile. You be you.
"Tiffin is still sacrosanct at MI5."
Wondering why Tiffin?
A bit nautical or Raj but curiously derived from tiffing (dial.) ~ tippling which Quinion demurred from actually suggesting that was how many sahibs took their lunch but perhaps would not be so reticent with the Whitehall walahs in the oxymoron of British Intelligence.
"Classic "Carry On" movie: "Carry On up the Khyber". Tiffin is used as a synonym for naughty sexy time throughout the movie... having a break in the day for some participation in Tiffin."
The Khasi of Khalibar. And Bunged-it-in. Not forgetting the Devils in Skirts.
Top rank British diplomacy... I'm as two-faced as he is.
No, but they do for some of the services. You can make them clean on command without a connection, for example, but to schedule them to do this automatically, you do need a connection. If the company folds and nobody buys the remnants to operate the servers, the vacuums will become dumber, but they won't be bricked entirely.
I've used an iRobot cleaner for years with no network connections at all - it's still working so well and so easy cleaning all the cat fir drops up in the whole house. It would work with a network connection when I bought it but I disconnected every home connection keeping us all safe. I don't think that the iRobot had any issues but I was just shuting down everything.
Maybe last year it was but, from TFA: "...macroeconomic conditions, and tariff policies." Trumponomics might have rendered it less so.
Surely they can just import all the Roombas into Canada and then they can smuggle themselves across the border to be picked up by the company's vans at various remote locations.
Tariffs avoided. The company could even make extra profits by having them bring haggis, cocaine, illegal Canadian migrants and cats with them. If Trump then loses his war with Canada they can at least bargain with their Canadian overlords by ransoming their cats back to them, in exchange for not burning the White House again.
Not a phrase a younger me ever expected to encounter in my lifetime.
To be fair, there have been a lot of stupid attempts to improve the vacuum cleaner - my present accommodation suffers from a centralised unit with inlets in the walls. Unfortunately, you need to lug around 10 metres of easily-tangled hose that weighs more than an average upright vacuum cleaner and takes up at least twice the volume in a cupboard. And that's before you allow for the size of the motor and dust collector.
Why are we more reliable suckers for pointless domestic technology than the vacuums themselves?
There are models with the hose built into the wall itself. Just pull it out and attach the head or whatever that thing is called.
Placing outlets closer can allow you to use a shorter hose, too.
The really big advantage to them is that they vent outside. The dust that regular vacuums require a HEPA filter for, isn't needed in a centralised vacuum.
Unfortunately, the version I'm saddled with fails on all those counts. I still see new-build housing being offered with the same system. It seems the perception of modernity clouds all other judgment, whereas its historical origins are scarcely disguised.
I don't think I'm imagining a past in which vacuum cleaners were relatively cheap, effective and utilitarian. They're the most bizarre of objects to have become lifestyle statements.
That may be true in some case, but not in my experience.
I've got a Roomba i3 and I've got a similarly priced "cheap knockoff" Lefant M210P (it wasn't much cheaper than I paid for the i3 on black friday) and the Roomba is leaps and bounds better than the Lefant. The hardware is better, the software is better.
Just my 2 cents.
Horses are notoriously easily frightened. Ride less scaredy-cat equines; some breeds of horses, particularly those descended from cavalry horses, and, of course, donkeys, mules, and zebras. Zebras don’t fear lions, much less itty-bitty robot vacuum-cleaners. They are, however, notoriously hard to tame. Mules and donkeys have been known to advance to the attack; they are often used to guard sheep herds (not shephards…) against wolves and coyotes as they _will_ attack annoying canines and smart canines see them coming and depart at high speed. Mules and donkeys, however, are notoriously unwilling to follow the commands of a mere bald ape just because said bald ape is sitting on their backs. Hmm. What to do, what to do… I know, get a big iRobot thingie and ride that. Think about it: it’ll increase their sales and save the company! And you can clean up leaves and debris as you go!
Admittedly I'm the one in robotic mode but as the saying goes "it beats as it sweeps as it cleans" (and it ain't called a Hoover!)
My experience of these automatic vacuum cleaners started with a vastly expensive Roomba for office cleaning that builds a map as it goes - admittedly could be of some use - but then insists on needing an 'app' to interface with it (that requires a 'phone for the 'app') and an Internet connection to relay the data to someone else's servers. So we got to pay about £600 for a spy in the office that was noticeably noisy, couldn't operate at night (it didn't have the "A.I." to tell the alarm system which room it was entering so that zone could have the movement sensors temporarily ignored), and if operating in day-time had to be stopped if anyone was using the telephone due to the noise. We could have added all of those features to our own local management software if the device interface was local.
A year or so later I got a cheap other brand (£150) for home. It is quieter, doesn't spy (only has an infra-red remote control), generally seems to get better results, doubles as the dog's alarm call at 6 a.m., and its random path makes for a great alternative to most television programmes! Oh, and when it collides with an obstacle it does it *quietly* unlike the Roomba.
Crazy the way the business world works now. Losses in millions for a number of years but yet still manages to keep going and even attract buyers with deep pockets (or more money than sense) for a billion and more
Anyway, I hope iRobot name, in tribute to Isaac Asimov, is then available for something less prosaic as vacuum cleaners. How did it in the first place grab this iconic name?
Using your old fashioned vac without a head, just the hose and sucking up the cat's tail only once will ensure that merely turning on a vacuum cleaner will ensure all cats previously so conditioned will leave the premises most expeditiously.
We know this because...? Kids will be kids and if their chores include the use of a vacuum cleaner and a non Manx feline is present the inevitable connection is invariably made.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
