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What's Next For iRobot?
An anonymous reader writes "Ten years since the debut of the Roomba vacuum cleaner and military PackBot, robots are mainstream but still not in every home. Meanwhile, a new generation of robotics companies is taking off. Where does that leave iRobot, the godfather of the field? With its military business taking a hit from the U.S. defense budget, the 22-year-old public company is looking to reinvent itself with new kinds of robots, including a telepresence machine for doctors and hospitals and, further down the road, inflatable robots that could be cheaper, safer, and more portable than their metallic predecessors. The question is whether these new machines will be successful enough to keep the company growing — and add to its legacy in robotics."
What is Fairchild Semiconductor's stock price these days?
Thank you for being a friend Traveled down the road and back again Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
And if you threw a party Invited everyone you knew You would see the biggest gift would be from me And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.
...And the card attached would say, thank you for being a fiend.
I have a Roomba vacuum that I paid for and a Scooba given as a gift. Both take more time and effort than using a normal vacuum (or mop) to clean a room and do a poorer job. Neither was cheap and both needed expensive battery replacements within a year of purchase. They should focus on making their existing robots do what they are designed to do before they branch out even further.
Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm FLAILING TUBE MAN!!
... with the inflatable robots.
They need to design hunter-killer pest control robots next. Why bother fogging your apartment with deadly pesticides when you can let a few (roach/bedbug/beetle/spider)-hunting bots loose for targeted annihilation?
Yes, I know, "What could possibly go wrong?"
Everything is better with chainsaws.
So, we all should be worried about the legacy of a vacuum cleaner company? Many companies come and go. Look at Kodak. It's nearly dead, but no one seems to care.
Now, if only it could cook....
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It doesn't work well.
I know that there is another company that has long made a Roomba-like lawn mower. It uses buried wires, much like the invisible fence many pet owners use. It would be awesome to have one that eliminates the wires by using GPS and other location technologies to let you map out the area to be mowed.
... just a sluggy moment, sorry Mr. Abrams ...
They infringed on Apple's i* trademark format.
How about trying to make robots which don't get tons of hair caught in them requiring attention multiple times per vacuum, or charging circuitry that doesn't break after maximum 2 years?
A $380 floor washing robot is too much. Mopping the floor isn't worth that plus their overpriced chemicals. For $120, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
They were trying to be the "Apple" of household mops. People at that income level pay for a weekly maid who does much more, better.
I'd buy a PackBot if it would vaccum my house. Wheels on a robot? How quaint!
IMO, the "big deal" in inflatable robots comes from OtherLab... They've built giant (ridable!) inflatable robots and inflatable robot arms with insane power to weight ratios. We did a special on them at Hizook a while back: http://www.hizook.com/blog/2011/11/21/inflatable-robots-otherlab-walking-robot-named-ant-roach-and-complete-arm-plus-hand The OtherLab project is also part of the same DARPA program (M3) that spawned the iRobot inflatable arm.
Get the Neato XV-11 with SLAM and you wont have an issue. the Roomba is just a toy which does one room while the XV-11 can do your whole house.
XV-21 with pets.
As a long time owner of a Roomba and a scooba, I'd like to have a robot that is good at ... you know... all the things you promised all these years?
How about a roomba that has some actual heavy duty suction? How about a roomba that has a large enough dust bin, HEPA filters and brushes to go for more than say 1 month without having to be cleaned? ( BY A VACUUM mind you... irony is dead! )
It's amazing to me that we have mobile phones these days with more power than desktop computers of just 5 years ago and after 20 years we still have robots that have the brains of systems from the 80s.
Don't get me wrong, I like my roomba. I just expect something more these days.
iRobot has gained a lot of experience in robots, but they are missing an opportunity to make it big because they do not have focus. They produce such a wide range of products - Military and domestic - none of which has the "Wow factor". I think if they focussed on building something which did a useful job really well, they could become the Apple of robotics. The time is really ripe for it and if they don't fill this gap someone else will.
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Robotics today is where computers were in the 1960's. Back then computers were built for specific tasks, but were not intended to do stuff they weren't specifically designed for. It took the general purpose computers of the 70's and 80's to start the computer revolution. Same thing is needed in robotics. A general purpose robot platform; modular, upgradable and programmable. I'd love to have a robot for all the boring everyday tasks like cleaning, unloading the dishwasher, make my morning coffee and so on.
I love Rhoomba. Best thing I have ever spent money on. I honestly don't understand the complaints. Other than needing a new part after a year or two, it has worked amazingly. It does wonders with cat hair, as well as messing with the cats. My girl always suggests that they make a roomba that will scale and clean walls and ceilings.
I own 4 roombas and 2 scoobas. It seemed like a smart decision at the time I bought them and for a year or so afterwards; after all, think of all that time which could be saved.
I had been advised to get a 2 year extended warranty and I did on the roombas. On the scoobas, none was available and one was "factory refurbished" with only a 90 day warranty.
At least half the robots failed utterly within the 1 year factory warranty and the rest shortly after that. I would have been utterly screwed without the extended warranties. Still I took a complete loss on the refurbished unit and the hassle of sending the others back for repair repeatedly grew wearisome. None of the units made it more than a month or so beyond the 3 year extended warranty. There is lots of use made of plastic parts which break and fail; and the batteries are expensive and don't last long and are NOT covered by warranties.
So..iRobot makes really charming crap; but it is crap and they seem to know it as they have certainly done an effective job of making sure they have zero liability within a short window.
My best advice for iRobot? Sell themselves to some company with a little more pride in quality.
My best advice for you? Don't buy an iRobot or, if you do, make sure you get a really solid extended warranty -- you are going to need it.
There's one more thing I should mention from experience. The time savings on the units isn't as great as you'd think. There is a lot of regular emptying and cleaning and other maintenance required. And the units only do a mediocre job of most cleaning, obtaining good results only with frequent use. Comparing that to my experience with my newly purchased Bissell non robotic unit (1/4 the price and probably 10 times the suction) I'd say the iRobot units actually took MORE of my time, all things considered, than manually vacuuming.
I really wish I could tell a better story as having robots do my cleaning really sounds ideal. But the reality is that iRobot sucks...and not in a good way.
I have to agree. I have one of each. The Neato XV-11 is "smart" and 2 years later I'm still on my first battery. I don't remember the XV-21 from when I bought my XV-11. If I was buying one now I'd get the XV-21. I use it for all the rooms (1 floor) except the master bedroom in which some of the furniture is too low for the Neato to get under.
The Roomba I now only use in my master bedroom. Gone through 2 batteries in 2 years, and *every* time it finishes I have to remove the "brushes" and cut (with small surgical scissors) the hair, carpet fibers and such that collect on the ends. It is *really* a PITA. The only advantage is it's a bit shorter than the Neato so it can get under a few things the Neato can't.
Seriously,
Now is the time to buy the promising startups and consolidate the older players.
Boston Dynamics and Festo come to mind as good acquisition targets.
...their latest model, the "Romney," gets elected!
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Not many know him yet, despite Hansons efforts over many years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyzPRGyG8OM
The latest model, the kid you never had...
Take a Roomba, add a gasoline motor and a lawn mower blade. That's what I want.
Considering that we have had industrial robots that can do quite advanced work
for far longer than I've been alive I find it quite depressing that our consumer
products remain so simplistic.
None of these robots are at all advanced with nearly no adjustable moving
parts nor any attempt at doing anything beyond simple and purely reactive A.I.
Shouldn't we by now have enough capabilities to create a robot that
is more than just a very crude little toy car that moves randomly?
I talking about something that can clean multiple types of surfaces rather
than just different types of floors. Something that can clean walls and
tables as well.
We are after all just talking about something which would need a
rotatable/adjustable robot arm that can move with a certain amount of
freedom coupled with a few different sensors.
I'm not suggesting that it should actually be intelligent. You would still
likely need to move small items out of the area that is to be cleaned as
well as program the task it should do.
Sure the first ones would be expensive (they always are) and it would take a while
to fully mature but this has to come close to the ultimate cleaning tool.
You didn't use google to find out that the charge circuit needs to be periodically reset, as even iRobot admits, or the robot will convince itself the battery's dead when it actually isn't?
An expensive mistake, that I also made on my first roomba.
What I really want is a roomba that looks like a trilobite, and a scooba that looks like a snail, and a looj that actually works.
and it was lovely to come home each day to a pristine floor with no kruft or dog hair on it.Then one day my dog shat on the floor while the roomba was "cleaning". You can picture what the result was.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
in order to vote with more influence...oh wait...Diebold already sells those.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-roomba-blender-makes-smoothie-out-of-everythin,29539/
Table-ized A.I.